My Land Rover Discovery 2 TD5

The story of my search for this car started in July 2010 when I was looking for a nice towing vehicle for a large caravan I might purchase. I own an MG ZS180 which I had previously used to tow a smaller sized twin axle caravan. However, whilst the power output on the car and braking seemed fine, the caravan was just about within the maximum permissible towing range for the car, and with the car weighed down with holiday luggage the car always seemed a bit 'light' for the job.

So, having previously located some 'bargain' cars on eBay that again was an obvious choice for me. I had my eye on a "Y" plated Discovery TD5, which had 7 seats and leather trim. The car had very few previous keepers and had a recorded 66,ooo miles. The bidding started at a nice £4200 and thought this might be the car for me. However, that all changed when the bidding rose and ended at £4900. Whilst this was a price that seemed reasonable for what was on offer, to collect the car would add another £150 cost for me, given an 800 mile round trip to be done.

There were plenty of others on eBay, but to be frank some seemed only fit for keeping chickens in them !! ...I was looking for a nice clean straight car.

Along came another great find... a 2001 '51 plated 5 seater Land Rover Discovery TD5. A nice clean silver example, with 20" split alloy rims. It didn't have the leather interior, but hey that was not going to stop me from buying a car that was a nice clean one. The mileage was reasonable with 91,000 miles and supported with full dealer service history, pretty much right up the the point of the time the last service was due. The HPi check came back clean apart from a few private reg transfers in the past and the car had only had two previous keepers... this was looking good !

The owner had the car up for a Buy It Now price of £5250. I phoned the owner and asked him a few questions in respect of common problems associated with the cars. The answers he was giving were pleasing. I was a bit cheeky and asked him rather than us waste each others time, what would be the lowest he would accept for the car. He replied £4900, my ears were now standing up as he had just knocked £350 off the price on the strength of my phone call. So, I arranged to view the car...

On arrival all looked quite nice, I was presented with a lovely looking car, all the panels looked reasonably straight and all the paintwork was reasonable. The interior was lovely apart from a couple of the slightest cuts the the side of the passenger bolster cushion and some slight fluffing to the driver's seat bolster cushion.

Everything he had been asked and his replies seemed to be truthful. There were some jobs done on the car which he had not mentioned and in hindsight he would have benefited by placing them into his eBay advert, such as two brand new front tyres, some steering joints and bushes for the last MoT and rear brakes.

However, I then noticed that the rear tyres whilst the tread depth was perfectly legal, they were not really to the standard I would like on a vehicle of mine. Also, the front brake pads were worn quite badly, to the point I could not see more than a couple of millimetres of friction material on the outer brake pads. I have to say the vented front brake discs didn't need measuring to know they had worn beyond their serviceable life too.

So, with £350 off already and the owner saying this was his lowest price, could I 'extract' a little bit more off him? ...After pointing out the work that was required I offered him £4800 (£450 off asking price). He declined my kind offer :-) But, we did meet half way at £4850, and with that the car was purchased.