poss new rr owner manual or auto

hello folks,im currently looking at a few 2.5 bmw range rovers,i test drove one today and the first thing that drew my attetion was how loud it was when first fired up?are they all like this,also the car i drove was an auto dse but the car i,m drawn to is manual.whats the general opinion over the two gearboxes,the car i,m drawn to has done 100,000,last owner 7 years,he,s asking £3000 but mot runs out feb so will let me have it for £2500 and the problem is he,s in scotland whilst i,m in brum so a test drive is a no-go so if bought i,d be buying on trust alone.what do you think

I think that a Scotsman would know that an MOT only costs £50, and that you can bung a mota in a month before it expires and get a 13month ticket, so if he's prepared to drop ten times that off the asking for taking it off your hands without a test, it probably has more than £500 worth of problems that need fixing!

Personally I'd avoid ANY P38 in that price bracket, TBH, Manual, Auto, Diesel or 8, becouse they are all notoriouse for giving costly grief one way or another.....

But if I HAD to have one, I would buy one I could crawl all over to see how well its been looked after, how much use its had (has it been sat in the dealers for months on end!) and sit down with the owner over a mug of tea and the big pile of paperwork and invoices these things inevitably acrue!

my god that sounds like scary ****but are they really that troublesome.i,m an fairly experienced disco1(having owned 4) owner so how do the problems compare.

He's right you know