rear spring conversion or not?

Keep air too useful to remove

Doesn't sound like you might want to but I find the air suspension to be very beneficial for towing.
Personally I find them no trouble to maintain and usually get five years or so out of a set. The one weakness is off-road I have popped a couple in deep mud ruts.

Great replies from everyone and a good debate, guess the "Keep the air" vote wins... My last D2 was a 53 plate GS auto facelift model and had air and working ACE, and i travelled all over Europe in it over a 6 month period including an epic trip to Ibiza towing a fully loaded trailer and the back fulled loaded as well and it performed flawlessly. remember in Germany picking up a load of gear, seats folded down loaded almost to the roof and the worried look off my German host when he saw how low the rear suspension had dropped then the look of approval when i started the engine and it self levelled.. .. but i never had time to tinker with the last one because i was forced to sell her. The one I have now I bought less as a need more as a love... while searching for the perfect one time and time again I saw "Converted to rear springs so no troublesome air bags" but you guys are right, it's 17 years old and still on airbags and looking at parts easy enough and cheep enough to maintain, so the Air stays because I may again, get the chance to impress a German one day.

As for the tyres, my worry is that as I am mostly doing road miles, am i not just going to prematurely wear out these M+S tyres which are brand new BTW, steering is very vague, and wanders slightly, I have checked the steering box track rod ends etc, all good so put it down to these tyres, there is also the fuel economy to think about.. I could, as suggested, sell these and buy some nice road tyres but will i regret this come winter, or is there a compromise, are there tyres that are much better suited to road use but still offer decent grip in the muddy/grassy stuff.

Nige

To be brutally honest, and at the risk of offending people, whenever I see "Converted to rear springs so no troublesome air bags" in an advert I read it as 'owned by a bodger and maintained on the cheap'.
The same way I translate on adverts 'no timewasters' to 'I'm a timewaster with a vehicle there's something wrong with which I've not disclosed and you'll walk away from as soon as you look at it closely'.

Nige4927 said:

As for the tyres, my worry is that as I am mostly doing road miles, am i not just going to prematurely wear out these M+S tyres which are brand new BTW, steering is very vague, and wanders slightly, I have checked the steering box track rod ends etc, all good so put it down to these tyres, there is also the fuel economy to think about.. I could, as suggested, sell these and buy some nice road tyres but will i regret this come winter, or is there a compromise, are there tyres that are much better suited to road use but still offer decent grip in the muddy/grassy stuff.

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Regarding the slight wandering you mention. The first place I would look is your tyre pressures. For a normally loaded Disco 2 the book states 28 psi in the front and 38 psi in the rears, checked cold. For a fully loaded vehicle the rear tyres should be increased to 46 psi.