First post and need opinion on possible defender purchase

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RustyRazor

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4
Hi everyone,

First time poster and possibly about to become a first time owner. I've dreamed of owning a defender since before I even got my license and I'm now in a position to get one.

I've been in talks with a seller, had a viewing, test drove and I think I was pretty thorough during the viewing. I crawled underneath, banged, scraped, prodded things and the whole works I think. Generally it seemed to be in good condition as far as structural things go. There are a few things cosmetically that need attention like seats, doors, side step, 1 door, cubby box etc, but these are small beans.

It's got a bull bar, winch, steering guard, roof rack thing, a camper conversion with diesel heater, water pump, storage, after market radio and speakers, leisure power battery and USB ports.

It's a 1999 td5 and it's done about 140k miles, steering felt fine, gears felt fine, went to a high speed to test. Diff works. Asking price was 18k but we agreed on 15k.

What I want to know, is if £15,000 is a "reasonable" price for this landy and setup? The intention is to travel Europe and this pretty much has the setup I'd want and need so I'm wondering if a more bone stock defender plus the extras that this one already has would be about the same in terms of costs, labour, time and effort where as just buying this one would save me on sourcing accessories, parts, conversion, time and money in the long run.
 

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Look on autotrader and compare.. i spent 30 seconds and found this one for £10k https://www.autotrader.co.uk/van-details/202310153019632

the 3 pictures just show the outside, we've no idea of engine condition, chassis, rust etc..
Thanks for the reply! I did find that one, but considering it has almost 100k more mileage on it, the doors are a lot worse for wear than the one I'm hoping to buy, the conversion it has just doesn't seem to be as extensive. Another thing is that the one I'm looking at is a 10-minute drive from me, that one on eBay would be a flight and taxi, all to view and possibly buy sight unseen, so there are risks in that too. So based on the mileage alone, a rookie like me would consider this one I'm asking about a bargain then, but I'm not sure.

The body actually seemed quite good when I viewed it, the only obvious issues were some rust around the passenger door, and driver door hinges and all was solid. The side cubby hole box definitely needs replacing. The chassis from what I felt and saw, seemed to be in good in good condition. There weren't any missing chunks or pieces, the engine and transfer box all seemed to have the standard residual oil staining but no obvious leaking. The suspension turrets we're solid too. Unfortunately, I didn't think about taking up close pictures when viewing it, but I will be going again on Sunday to view it a second time and document the entire machine with video.
 
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Hi everyone,

First time poster and possibly about to become a first time owner. I've dreamed of owning a defender since before I even got my license and I'm now in a position to get one.

I've been in talks with a seller, had a viewing, test drove and I think I was pretty thorough during the viewing. I crawled underneath, banged, scraped, prodded things and the whole works I think. Generally it seemed to be in good condition as far as structural things go. There are a few things cosmetically that need attention like seats, doors, side step, 1 door, cubby box etc, but these are small beans.

It's got a bull bar, winch, steering guard, roof rack thing, a camper conversion with diesel heater, water pump, storage, after market radio and speakers, leisure power battery and USB ports.

It's a 1999 td5 and it's done about 140k miles, steering felt fine, gears felt fine, went to a high speed to test. Diff works. Asking price was 18k but we agreed on 15k.

What I want to know, is if £15,000 is a "reasonable" price for this landy and setup? The intention is to travel Europe and this pretty much has the setup I'd want and need so I'm wondering if a more bone stock defender plus the extras that this one already has would be about the same in terms of costs, labour, time and effort where as just buying this one would save me on sourcing accessories, parts, conversion, time and money in the long run.

If you've any doubt take along someone who knows Land Rovers well and get them to check true condition. From the pics the price is correct and will save you much more than if you were converting yourself.
 
If you're happy and it seems like it meets your needs then why not.
At the end of the day it will go wrong regardless of how much you pay for it.
Mot history?
Think I have seen that somewhere might have been DEF2 forum.
 
If you're happy and it seems like it meets your needs then why not.
At the end of the day it will go wrong regardless of how much you pay for it.
Mot history?
Think I have seen that somewhere might have been DEF2 forum.
Has an MOT until June 2024. It had 3 fails last year and then passed. Unfortunately, being in Northern Ireland, we don't have MOT history available online other than pass/fail, everything here is a paper record, one thing I didn't actually ask to see, but will.

The current owner said the first failure was because of play in the suspension or something, then after a fix themselves, it failed again because they didn't fully tighten something back up.

I'm ready to pay for things to go wrong, as long as I have a good, solid machine that will be fine without anything major right off the bat, it'll be fine. I read somewhere that someone's first defender is always their worst defender. I'm just hoping to find something that isn't going to make that statement true in my case.
 

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If you can do work on it yourself then that will help with some of the financial pain in the future.
It's always a compromise with a 2nd hand vehicle, main items need to be good, bolt on parts can be sorted easier.
 
TBH only you can answer this. It is a USED and modified vehicle. There are no set prices. Although it is a bit of a cheek if you have already agreed a price, and are then looking for reasons not to pay it.
It's not so much trying to find a reason not to pay it, just trying to ease my nerves about getting possibly duped. I'm 100% going ahead with the sale. For a used car, I don't think I'd ever consider paying this much, but with defenders, it's a whole different ball game I think.
 
From the outside, it looks nice but as mentioned, there are other areas that need more information. It’s difficult to price conversions as they’re not to everyone’s taste or spec. Make sure you check that all the identification numbers are present and correct as there is a lot of stolen landies out there. Check it through HPI or similar too. And once you buy one, make sure you invest heavily in decent security measures too.
 
It's not so much trying to find a reason not to pay it, just trying to ease my nerves about getting possibly duped. I'm 100% going ahead with the sale. For a used car, I don't think I'd ever consider paying this much, but with defenders, it's a whole different ball game I think.
Fair dos. But it is what it is. And ultimately there is no fixed price. It comes down to what you are happy or at least prepared to pay vs what you can find for sale at that money. There will always be another deal if you look hard enough.
 
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