Thread: D2 v8 Es ready to buy advice

'mousie' - mate I hope I didn't confuse the issue with my comments and all the best finding a good car.




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Hey, not confused at all folks as all good oil. Well I'm back from the test drive and nothing like being given a sales pitch. Its the 2002 ES and all options generally in the Trading post for 18.5K at obi obi on the Sunshine Coast with $18.500 advertised. Actually, its been on sale since October 07 from the roadworthy docs and I was confronted with the sagging roof line, actually more sagging than holding. Minor rear panel damage with overspray present, appears to have had right front guard replaced and suspect accident repair with a lot of small plastic parts broken and the airbox! cracked and broken away with straight air into inlet from the opening above the filter!!!. Dipstick revealed 6 inchs of what appeared to be either gasket rubbish mixed with dirt and no it didn't look pretty. Here is the interesting part, once I stopped the test drive, straight away opened the hood and on left bank rocker, oil coming out of the rocker gasket (normal for discos), but! under pressure through the nuts and gasket. Hmm me thinks the motor is slightly worn. Okay so you can see I am a picky bugger but I've seen far more in better nick that have been used off the road so I guess it will stay for sale for a while. Or until front the windscreen is replaced from the wiper arm channel work. I uploaded a pic from the trading post and see if this pic is the same as described. On a good note, it was a 1/2002 so a good chance of cdl and the ACE, well coming from the first disco with no sway bars (or no options really) I loved the roundabouts and the faster in turn the better it works, actually is very impressive, so for now I'll keep looking. If I only am goin to use for a second vehicle with less than 5K a year but to tow, I can wait for that retiree one. Thanks for all your help, it did make the difference and especially the airbox comment, as I was amazed at what I found. At least I learnt that pictures really make discos look even better. Actually I have no problem with past off road use, given you can tell the difference from those who look after and the other crowd that don't. Cheers

Pity, looks shiny (as you said). However parking in a big puddle under the front drivers wheel is hardly flattering

hi guys

i just recently bought my D2 2002 ES V8 fully optioned for $21000. i looked everywhere and found this one in melbourne. im on the gold coast and was just looking for fun when this baby poped up.

it doesnt have CDL and i havent yet tested it off road on some good stuff.

so far had no probs with it and compared to the other 4wds is head of the class in all aspects.

why did you look at a JEEP

dan

Well, the Jeeps in Grand Cherokee suffer the same as landy's if not more in price drop and I was concentrating on Nm for towing. I was hooked on one particular one, actually still advertised in trading post, 2002 Grand with 49K in Brisbane for 25.5K and is still up on site. This retiree had purchased new and went to pains to only drive on highway up to Rocky, and inland highway black roads and back. I could only find two marks on a door handle! It drives as brand new so it was a good one with paint, rust, window, leather protection so you can imagine the condition. Well it went for 24.5K but once I drove it, it was just the HP of the motor mainly and the goodies. However, they pitch and roll and don't have the full chassis (correct me if I'm wrong here) and also the only LPG option appears to be direct injected type. Furthermore, they get a bit of bagging for suspension design and a good forum was aussie jeeps offroad. Jeeps owners are far less likely to talk like landy owners and it comes back to basics. With land drovers you can fix them, modify add to suit needs, add parts and yes they are full size deals. Yep they can be a pain to, but I can gloat of driving along the highway with the drivers window just deciding to fall down into the door (only land drover owners can laugh)! I learnt to split my vacume advance units and rebuild with a mix of gasket compounds, rebuild burnt switch gear, modify alternators to bosch brands, chev radiators, make backup t-sections for the bottom radiator hoses,.... sorry where was I.

At the end of the day, if its a jeep I would be still keen only now on a 2002-3 2.7 diesel given a merc drive train but unfortunately very few around. So back to the popular land drover and by the way, cannot part with the first one so I will end up with two plus salary sacrife car. Jeep owners don't keep two either I suspect. I will keep looking though and should up the budget for a diesel given the experiences thus far. Its just that I see so many high milage ones and just a bit to fussy given the cost if someting goes wrong in the engine area.

And the range, they advertise TD5's from 40K to 20K in similar conditions sometimes.

I have a D2 that had NO CDL internals. MR got it all going for $1300 with a few extra mods thrown in.... I found that TC tends to overheat so a CDL is handy!. Especially when draggin Hiluxs out of the sand at Straddie!

I totally agree - at that price you are below market prices. I have a 2002 ES and also spent some time hunting around (albeit at the moment it is parked up at the shop getting new heads - see my post on this). As for towing it is absolutely brilliant (providing you don't mind the fuel bill) and the ACE is also really worth having. I've used it to tow a 20 foot caravan and it had little worries staying at the speed limit - and pretty close to it even up hills. Just keep the rear tyres nice and hard (40-42) if you have the low profile ones fitted.

A 2000 model ES had one bid at Pickles auctions here in Sydney... for $12,000 I thought it looked pretty good, but I am no expert, obviously. A guy on eBay is trying to sell a 1999 ES and bids are up at around $10k, but I guess that's because maybe there is something wrong with it. He gave up on a buy it now price of $13,500 last week. Do the ES V8 models depreciate that much once they reach 9-10 years old? I am amazed that the 1999-2001 models I looked at (that were not ES) are that much cheaper. I was happy to live without leather and ACE but it's interesting to see how much the market values such things