A guy up the street from me has a 1995 or 96 Land Rover Discovery for sale. 110,000 miles. Supposedly runs. Says it needs a dizzy cap though. Is there anything else to check for? Any common problems?

He's asking $2000.

I was thinking it might be a good replacement for my broken 4runner.

A Disco with distributor is a 94 or 95. Service records are a major +. Check for: right and left hub leakage, these are lubed with gearlube. Driveshafts need good grease, diffs must not leak from pinions. Engine may have minor oil leaks, major leaks are $$. Any coolant leaks will be $$. If nothing has been service at LR spec intervals it can be a time bomb. Land Rovers are only as dependable as their owner is of maintenance shedules. Electric problems are fixable with some soldering and diagnostic know how. Parts are available from a lot of sources, though not cheap. I have had mine for 9 years and plan on a lot longer.

P.S. PM sent!

My recommendation is to bring a new cap, rotor and wires to determine if this is the case. If its not, you could be in a world of hurt! I own a '98 Disco which I thought was the 1st year of distributorless ignition? Maybe not. 10 years is more than you should ask of stock ignition components though!
The cost of the tune-up parts is good insurance to verify that the engine is in good condition. A tune-up issue could easily be fuel injection related and very expensive to diagnose and repair! A $100 investment prior to buying it should be no big deal. You can always use it on the next Rover you look at too, if you don't buy this one! BTW, I just sold my '98 for $5500 with 101K on the odometer. It'll be sad when I hand over the keys this weekend!!!

This all brings up an interesting question about the Disco. From time to time, I think about selling my otherwise reliable 2002 Jeep Liberty for a late model and low-mileage Disco. Seems that good examples with under 50k on the odo can be had for under $15k.

I spend a bit of time on one of the Lotus Elise boards, and whenever I raise the possibility of getting a Disco, it creates an avalanche of warnings about how unreliable they are. Now, as a British car guy, I'm quite used to how lay people totally over-inflate reports of unreliability with English cars. However, all of this is coming from a group of Lotus Elise owners! So, I've taken it a bit more seriously.

Thought I'd try over here. Am I completely mad to shed the Jeep and pick up a low mileage 02 to 04 Disco?

Thanks everyone!

Unless you are on first name terms with the LR dealer, in a word, yes. They were over 40k new by the time you'd put a few bits on them, they are 15k now 4 years later. For a reason...

I had an 04 HSE. Loaded. Under warranty it wasn't so bad - it just required plentiful trips to the dealer, always for electrical 'issues', mostly when it got below 20 degrees.

Fuel economy was awful - 12mpg on average, and it needs premium, so fillups were frequent and pricey.

Mechanically it was fine, it towed a car on a trailer just fine, but the acceleration was glacial whether it had something attached to the back or not, and it corners like a boat.

I was so happy to get rid of it though that I didn't care how bad we got stung on the tradein. We bought it new and lost a bunch - the single worst car I ever owned in that regard.

I have to say it was better than the 02 Freelander it replaced. Couldn't keep that out of the shop, winter or summer.

The LR3 we have now is better all round. If you can stretch to one of them, desperately want an LR, and don't want to tow (the cost to set one up to tow is eyewatering) I'd say do it, otherwise there are so many better options.

The lease on the LR3 is up in September. I'm 90% sure at this point that we're going for a large cab F-150 to replace it.

Slightly OT - On the plus side, LR customer service is (and always has been) great. I took both the VW and the LR in this week, and it was a study in contrasts.

O4 Disco is supposed to be the most desirable to find. Not as many problems as the past and fairly reliable.