Andy_B wrote:I would love to get a 97/98 year 300TDI. I could easily afford a $12k to $17K(that's a bit of a strech because I don't want to take out a loan).
I have also been looking at Discoveries lately. I went for a look today at some dealers and discovered that there is a huge variation in pricing. The ones I saw were:
1996 V8 auto $3750
1996 V8 auto no price as yet (suspect sub $10k)
1996 V8 auto $7500
1998 Tdi manual $19999
Most of the V8s I have seen on other days have been around the $8-13K mark and the diesels have been between $12-20k. 99% of those I have seen have all been manual. I have looked dealer and private. V8s are cheaper at the dealers rather than private. I guess private owners are trying to get some of their money back whereas the dealers probably gave bugger all for them as trade ins or auction buys.
Every single one I looked at had a roof lining in some stage of collapse, rust below the alpine windows and were all a little ratty looking inside. The $20k ones were only slightly better than the <$10k ones. None had much service history after about 40000km. They all seemed a little low height wise. Not sure how high a stock Disco is meant to be but they all looked too low to me as in sagged suspension. There were various models as in V8i, S, ES etc but this didn't seem to make any difference to price.
I would prefer the diesel auto for touring but a V8 of either would be great for off road I'd think.
From what I have seen there is a huge price difference between the V8 and the diesel. It would be hard to part with double the money just for the diesel and then have less cars to pick from. I'm guessing the V8 owners would be very open to a lower offer whereas the diesel owners would be more firm on their price too.
Hope this info helps you even though not directly related to your initial question.