Have I bought a lemon? Help wanted please!😢

OK, so just adding to all of this, I'll chuck in my tail of woe.

I bought a 2001 TS5 D2, great price. Lifted, "chipped", bull bar, and 5 steel rims (the guy wanted the Mickey Thompsons). Great price, $7k.

It was a bit rough, but that's fine by me, I didn't want to spend a lot and wanted it to learn as much as I could by doing things myself. So shrugged my shoulders and took the plunge. I even took it to a 4x4 shop to give it a pre-inspection.

It passed, but the guy said to me "do you really want a Land Rover".. I took another look outside and all the lifted tough Land Cruisers made it clear this wasn't an unbiased opinion.

So I laid down the cash. First drive out it over heated.

I was gutted.

Took it to the local LR specialist and got the diagnosis ( as if I didn't already know with my cry for help here in the forums ), the head had to come off and be machined and the coolant wasn't coolant it was an anti leak stuff, so the preinspection didn't even pick this up, wasted of $120 there.

So it was a hard pill to swallow. I agreed and $5200 later, all hoses replaced, head machined, the block flushed, new radiator, injector seals and o-rings done, all the good stuff you do to an older engine.

It hurts, but I now know when that work was done.

A few weeks later, the engine has a hard start issue.. simply it won't fire.. again I turn to the forums, "try the fuel pump", try the injectors... well what the heck, it's cheap because I wanted to learn these things myself.. So I replace the fuel pump, $580 and my time ( and you tube researching ) still no improvement, I ring the LR mechanic (because I lost the receipt) and yes they were done. I changed the battery, that didn't help... well it did a little. So in desperation, back to the mechanic.. I feel ill.. what's it going to cost this time.

He eventually calls me up, the diagnostics are showing a weak pulse to the injectors.. might be ECU, changed it, looks good. Sigh.. so a second hand ECU and labour..

Works until I get to the servo on the way home.. The damn thing won't start.. I call while cranking it over... "bring it back"...

So there it stayed for nearly 4 weeks.

Eventually, after alot of time and effort on his behalf (of which I didn't see the full bill for) he found the issue, a leaking injector. He now has a test harness to test this.

Again, more money spent.

I have to say, I've felt a little burnt by this. But in the end I reconcile it with the fact that it could have happened with any vehicle I bought. It's just this time it's a Land Rover Discovery S2. As malligned as you are for buying one, I'm really liking it. I'm starting to build up my confidence in the vehicle again. It's both comfortable and allows me to do what it was I purchased it for, go 4wding and camping.

It's also the vehicle I bought to learn basic mechanics on.

Is it a lemon?

Nope, not yet... yes it's cost me more than I intended it to, but the major issues for now appear resolved.

As others have said, get your car back home, get it to a mechanic, take your time, assess your options. It's going to cost you money, but if you get a good LR mechanic, you should be fine.

Just to show you that not all sellers are crooks. Back in about 1983 I sold off my landcruiser FJ55. I had had the vehicle cleaned and detailed to maximize my selling price. To help sell the Tojo I had put on new Sunraysia rims and new tyres, the old tyres were stuffed anyhows so not much more to put on new rims. It looked tremendous, brown and white, new rims, tyres lovely and clean, engine sparkling. I got top dollar for it. As far as I knew the vehicle was in top condition body and mechanics.

I sold to an elderly couple who were going touring.

After a couple of months they contacted me to tell me the head/cam/timing belt had failed. Cost to fix $1200. (Lot cheaper in them days but still a lot of money). I was under no obligation to pay them anything. However my wife and I agreed to go halfway in cost of repairs. As I stated above I was unaware of any serious faults with vehicle.

The upshot of the story is that we became very good friends with the couple and have enjoyed each other's company for many years.

I guess what I'm saying is not ALL sellers are trying to rip you off, contact the PO as you never know how he will react to the problem
All the best with it.
Pete

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Originally Posted by vnx205

I think you have a point about there being an element of self preservation and wanting to avoid appearing naive and gullible.

However, I think there is a danger in having that as your default position. It has the potential to destroy any chance of an amicable resolution to problems.

If you start your attempt at a resolution by making it clear that you think you are dealing with a crook, then you significantly reduce the chances of a compromise.

That is one reason I had in the back of my mind when I made my original comments about assuming the seller was a crook. I thought we would be doing the purchaser a disservice if we encouraged him to start any possible negotiations with the seller by suggesting that he was a crook.

He might get nothing more than sympathy from the seller, but he would be unlikely to get even that if he started with an aggressive attitude.

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What you think and how you go into a negotiation are two different things.

Anyway, get that vehicle closer to home so you can make some decisions after getting some sound advice.

If you got 150km before you had issues, I would say that the headgasket was not blown at that stage but there were issues with cooling issues and by continuing on (and this is not a criticism) brought the issues on big time the next time around and cause the head gasket to fail.

Clearly there was a cooling system issue as for "normal" coolant top ups you would to this through the reservoir and not the radiator itself which would need bleeding.

I feel your pain - as both a Canberran and a Novocastrian (just back from Newcastle last night) I would definitely get the vehicle taken to Newcastle or even to Coopers or Davis Performance Landies in Sydney - I really could not recommend any cost effective repairers in Canberra.

Cheers and good luck with it.

Garry

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Originally Posted by goingbush

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So if the head gasket blows on the new owners first trip , has he purchased a Lemon .. I dont think so. its a Landrover thing .

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It's a 2nd hand car thing...

I purchased a V8 Calais years ago.
Had a qualified mechanic check it out - compression etc...

Got a real good pass!!!

And then blew up 400km from home :(

Sometimes it's just bad luck.

The owner may have noticed coolant dropping and just topped it up once a month / week / fortnight...

It doesn't mean he wasn't servicing it every 5k...

Urban triangle puts very little stress on a vehicle.

Long ago when I was selling used cars at wholesale, I would buy in Sydney where cars were cheap and sell to the trade in Brisbane. I found that cars from urban owners would often boil a couple of hundred miles or less up the highway. Often they had been regularly serviced but in the manner of the times had never been flushed or had a new thermostat. Would never have got hot in typical urban use but give them a heavy footed delivery driver keen to get home and boil away they did. Proof of this can be seen any summer holiday season with the family chariots pulled up alongside the highways with the bonnet up. Still, I think maybe you have been sold a patched up dud. "Get rid of it quick before it costs you heaps" says the mechanic. You are on your own unless you can convince e-Bay/Paypal and/or the vendor to come to the party.

Sorry to hear about your problem but I don't have much good news for you the head gasket is most likely blown cost to fix about $2500 to $3500 if head cracked add about $2600 to that these first prices are if a mechanic dose the job. On the up side Landies are genraly are a good car no more problems then any other 4x4 I think the seller was well awear of the cars problems he knew about the bleeder and had a screw driver in the driver side door this shows some mechanical knowleadge.

I have a road trip in 2 weeks heading north but my Disco has decided to it doesn't want to go !!!
Heres my Rover problems

I have 2003 D2 V8 4.0 (130 000km), I was sand driving and oil light came on whilst idling, I continued driving to safer grounds and then came loud ticking noise. I replaced oil and filter,engine stopped ticking and light went off, so I drove home.
The next day I started engine but the light came on at idle again.I decided to pull down engine,removing timing cover to find a CRACKED outer oil pump gear..
I replaced with new the timing cover (includes oil gears,relief valve,pressure sender and seals) New timing gears and chain as they where badly worn,exhaust manifold and flange gaskets all with new genuine parts ,I also replaced oil pickup o'ring, sump gasket and installed a oil pressure gauge, all done by the rover overhaul manual specs and thoroughly cleaned all parts before reassembling.
After all that work, and adding a thicker oil (15-50w instead of recommended thin 5-40w) I started engine to find it was running much smoother and quieter BUT still has zero oil pressure at idle after engine warms up ???? The pressure rises when engine is revved but then rapidly falls back to zero when revs drop??
So I have pulled the engine down again to find more issues!! the upper conrod bearing shells are partially worn down to copper?? I have replaced conrod shells but My guess is that the big end bearings also needs to be replaced whilst the engine is pulled down? but I dont think it is possible to correctly replace the big end bearings without removing the engine as it looks near impossible to achieve the correct torque settings that could result in catastrophic engine failure...
Why is my bottom end in such bad shape? this is a low km well maintained Disco that has had an easy going street life (soccer mum suv) and has never been off road until recently?
Im guessing the top end is also in need of a rebuild?
This low oil pressure problem has already cost me $2000 not including tool costs and thats doing the work myself, I would hate to know what a rover mechanic would have charged me..

It does sound very worn for a 130kkm vehicle. Does the rest of the vehicle appear consistent with the mileage?

One thing that can happen is that your air filter has been compromised and the engine has been dusted, the D2 air filter box lid can be broken or misaligned if your not careful. This may have happened earlier in the vehicles life.

Then again the servicing record could be made up. The engine could have been swapped out after a slipped liner or other costly failure.

You may want to start your own thread so people can deal with your V8 issues in a different thread to this Td5 one.

Good luck getting it sorted.

Slight thread drift ,but your symptoms will occurs if their is excess leakage from the rockers after warmup. You should pull the rockerr covers and check for cracks in the rocker stands. If they were torqued down without torque wrench at the correct setting then they will crack. On warmup the crack expands and pressure drops as per yr symptoms.