Advice needed please.. 300tdi or td5?

Hello everyone,

I have looked the a few threads regarding disco 1 v disco 2 but I would like your opinion.

I have never owned a land rover discovery before and I want to know what you would recommend out of the 2 vehicles I have linked below.

This one is a 300tdi, I prefer the look of the 300 and I heard they are better on fuel. I have not driven this car
Used Land Rover Discovery 4x4 300 Tdi 5dr in Batley, West Yorkshire | T & T Motors

I have test driven this one, it is a td5. It was very powerful, went into low range fine, all 6 gears were easily used no grinding no strange noises coming from the underneath, the smoke coming out of the back was a mixture of black and white, mainly black and I checked the chassis and there is rust but not a lot by all means and it was very comfortable to drive
Used Land Rover Discovery 4x4 2.5 Td5 S 5 Seat 5dr in Batley, West Yorkshire | T & T Motors

I want to know an opinion on which would be better for me to own? I have a budget of £2750 so I can either buy the td5 and have done with it or buy the 300tdi and have extra cash to use in case anything went wrong with it.

I will test drive the 300 tomorrow but from what I can see it looks okay
I'm also gonna look at the mots for any advisories

Thanks for reading

For what it's worth, I have owned both, a '96 300Tdi and a'03 TD5 and I think the TD5 is the better Land Rover. It's better built IMHO but whichever you buy they both need some serious checking out.
300Tdi admirers will disagree with my choice, no doubt, but it's the TD5 I have now.

Good luck.

The 300 looks a little less abused body wise and interior.
Photo's have been carefully taken to avoid showing the rear arches so that'll need carefully checking.

It's always a good idea to have a bit of cash left in reserve when you buy a new vehicle as you never know what problems might get thrown up.
The rear of the 300 shows a little rust along the rear crossmember so there might be more to find under the carpet.

If the two cars were equal in terms of condition, then you'd have to weigh up whether you wanted the quieter, quicker if marginally less fuel efficient TD5 vs the simple, more fuel efficient if a little slower 300.

It's no secret that I'm bias towards the 300's - I've put my money where my mouth is after all. Although I have driven a TD5 over extended periods and they are pretty good at motorway speeds whereas the 300 feels like it's running out of legs if you venture into the fast lane.

I think it's one of those situations where you'll have to have a play with both and weigh things up in your own mind!

Hello and thanks for your replies.

The underneath of the td5 looked fine and I took some pictures and showed a few people I know who have owned land rovers for years and they said it looked fine.

I will check the 300 tomorrow for low range access, rust, smoke, test drive it see how it feels etc but from what I gather they are quite similar in terms of reliability?

I had a TD5 for 4 years, sold it on a whim and then bought a 300tdi over a year ago.

The 300 tdi is ok to drive and is very reliable but having seemed non rusty when I bought it, I had to weld on new sills last year for the MOT and have had to do the back corners of the boot floor and the fuel tank cross member this year. There are other areas that will need done for next years MOT.

I had loads of small issues with the TD5 but on balance it is the better bet long term I think. The body doesn't have any rust issues and the engine is reliable. It's just the add on's like the ACE system and air suspension, sensors etc that need looked at.

My ideal Discovery would maybe the base E model TD5 with 5 seats. Coil sprung, no ACE or sunroofs.

Cheers, Andy

Rangey185 said:

Hello everyone,

I have looked the a few threads regarding disco 1 v disco 2 but I would like your opinion.

I have never owned a land rover discovery before and I want to know what you would recommend out of the 2 vehicles I have linked below.

This one is a 300tdi, I prefer the look of the 300 and I heard they are better on fuel. I have not driven this car
Used Land Rover Discovery 4x4 300 Tdi 5dr in Batley, West Yorkshire | T & T Motors

I have test driven this one, it is a td5. It was very powerful, went into low range fine, all 6 gears were easily used no grinding no strange noises coming from the underneath, the smoke coming out of the back was a mixture of black and white, mainly black and I checked the chassis and there is rust but not a lot by all means and it was very comfortable to drive
Used Land Rover Discovery 4x4 2.5 Td5 S 5 Seat 5dr in Batley, West Yorkshire | T & T Motors

I want to know an opinion on which would be better for me to own? I have a budget of £2750 so I can either buy the td5 and have done with it or buy the 300tdi and have extra cash to use in case anything went wrong with it.

I will test drive the 300 tomorrow but from what I can see it looks okay
I'm also gonna look at the mots for any advisories

Thanks for reading

Click to expand...

Are you a competent mechanic? Do you like getting underneath a car at the weekend to sort out a few little niggles.

If the answer to the above questions is no - don't buy a Discovery of any age. Their build quality and design are such that they are loved by enthusiasts and detested by peeps who just want a car.

It takes significant dedication to 'like' having Land Rover products.

If you like working on cars, then you'll love working on the TDi's - cheap parts, readily available. No more bodging, the parts are so cheap you just fit new.

Be very careful and honest with yourself about which type of car owner you really are.


Dave

TD5 manuals all have 5 gears not 6. It's not until you get onto the Discovery III that you get a 6-speed box.

For my money, I'd buy a 300tdi, but probably not that one, I would wait for the tidiest, low mileage example to come up on the net (possibly Jap Import). We had a 300tdi as family car/ farm workhorse for 14 years and it never 'broke down' ever, went all over the country, thousands of miles of towing 3.5T etc.
Having said that it did suffer a few electrical gremlins, door latch issues, leaking sunroofs, and eventually rust but like I say never left us stranded.
To me the model your looking at looks over priced given age and mileage, and has been polished a lot, If you are going to have a look take someone who knows where to look for the rot, they can be very bad, especially with that one being nigh on 20 years old!

As for TD5's, my experience has been less positive, although personally I have never owned one, I look after a couple for friends and family and most have needed a fair amount of work, still a 'reliable' car as in not leaving you stranded, but more electrical gremlins, more interior leaks (They leak into interior worse then 300's), parts are more, and they have lost that 'fix it yourself appeal'
What has been said by the thebiglad above is very true, personally 300tdi for me but probably look for a better example.

I'm in the lucky position of owning both a late 300Tdi and an early Td5. The Td5 feels considerably more spacious, far more than the actual difference, but it also feels far heavier to drive. The Tdi can feel a bit choppy, whereas the Td5 is more stable, probably due to the extra weight.

The Tdi is more economical, easier to work on, and cheaper to fix. The Td5 is more refined, more powerful, and as also said ^^^^ is better built. It feels a class above the Tdi possibly because the extra soundproofing makes it feel more refined. They both have a long list of issues though so you need to check either over very very carefully.

Both are easy to upgrade and customise to your heart's content. Td5 parts are considerably more expensive though, and if you start looking at facelift bumpers & lights then it gets silly. eg D1 std front bumper prob £30-50 on ebay in reasonable to good condition (I just paid £50 for a mint one). D2 pre facelift bumper in similar condition about £350, facelift version maybe £500... D1 and D2 pre facelift headlamps around £40 new each, facelift £150+ each... And its not just body parts - alternators, injectors, fuel pumps... the list goes on - the D1 is considerably cheaper all round.

My ideal Disco would be the D2 body on a 300Tdi rolling chassis (thats why I've got both Its my contingency plan lol) but having to choose between the two would be very difficult. I spent around £1k in the three months after buying my Td5 - just in parts to put it right so make no mistake a D2 is a potentially moneypit if you get it wrong (I learned the hard way!).

BUT - £2750 isn't a big budget for a D2, you'd be looking at bottom end (condition wise) especially at this time of year. £2750 should get you a decent D1 though, and you won't need a diagnostics unit to keep on top of things.

Bottom line - I'd look at getting as good a D1 as I could for £2000-2250 and keep the rest back for repairs. No matter what you buy, you WILL need to repair it somehow.

HTH

NB sorry for the ramblin reply!

If I had your budget I would be looking at this:

looks tidy from the pics and I am sure you could haggle him down quite a bit as its still a bit steep on price. but nice looking car and decent mileage

1998 LAND ROVER DISCOVERY 300 TDI 91000 MILES ***REDUCED REDUCED REDUCED*** | eBay

Hello thank you all for replying

I test drove the 300 today and although the td5 feels a lot more.. Refined as you put, I did like the 300. I prefer the body, colour, and overall look of this car and I have left a deposit with the dealer.

The clock has 119k miles, it's got 11 months MOT with no advisories and I managed to pay £1650 rather than the £1795 he wanted.

One question though, those headlamps that have been attached, how easy would it be to remove those and fit a new bar with some lights on top of the car?

Rangey185 said:

One question though, those headlamps that have been attached, how easy would it be to remove those and fit a new bar with some lights on top of the car?

Click to expand...

Congrats on the new car.
When you say "remove the headlamps" are we talking about the round "driving / fog lamps" or are we talking about the square "headlights"?

If you want to upgrade the headlights they are attached to the shell by 3 pins - they just pull off and then you disconnect the multiplug on the back of the light unit. You can fit early TD5 lights if you like with no additional mods.

If we're talking about the round units they'll just bolt on - same with the bull bar.
As for a light bar on the roof - all basic hand tools stuff. You could probably re-use the relays that are (hopefully) protecting the driving lamps!


Original 300 type headlights on a D1:




TD5 headlamps on a D1 (ignore the missing front bumper!):

I think you made the right decision TBH, and thats a great price if its solid

Look forward to seeing the pics :tea:

I'm local to Batley, if you want a second opinion.

My 300tdi with td5 headlights

Hi again
Collected the car tonight, drives great, diff lock works fine, mechanically sound, the rear arches have been welded very recently and are solid, the boot floor is in good condition.

Few problems, it has 2 keys. One for the ignition, one for the drivers side door. Neither key works in the fuel flap door, on the rear door (boot) or in the passenger side door. I know there is a problem with the central locking that's getting fixed on Saturday (garage has already paid for the work) but my friend said someone has probably changed the ignition barrel and the drivers door. Is there any way of making the fuel cap door, rear door, passenger door, drivers door and ignition all accept the same key?

Other than that there was an issue where after I switched off the ignition some lights stayed on. They weren't full beam, main lights or side lights but they stayed on. I fiddled with the ignition on and off 2 times and it went off but my friend said this could be that the connector has maybe melted together?

Only other thing is that the rear window heat strips don't work but I think that could just be a fuse issue as the rear wiper works fine.

I loved driving it, got it a full tank of diesel and the garage valeted it for me. Going up to Parkwood on Sunday to try out some blue lanes!