Flight booked to Exeter on Saturday morning, 500 and some mile drive back to Fife. Sub £2k, 16 year Discovery Td5 with 200,000 miles on the clock.
AA membership checked and app installed on my phone.
What's the worst that could happen?
take your bike with you....just in case. 😀
Well....
My guess would be electrical failure, possibly something dodgy with the loom causing the TD5 lump to cut out on the motorway.
Take a warm jacket, food and water with you.
Plane crash would be a bad start.
It'll be fine. It'll lull you into a false sense of security by working really surprisingly well. It'll then breakdown the day after your AA cover lapses, when you're other car is in for a service and when you need it to go for an interview for the job of your dreams.
Get there and find out it's burgundy?
proper lol at @orange...man - I would imagine most folk would consider mcmoonter to have the job of their dreams 🙂
Sounds like a.....shed!
Could you not have found a crap car locally mcmoonter? 😉
500 miles , 3 full tanks should do it .
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Hit by a car on the way to airport ?
Saw the thread title, didn't even need to look to know who posted it
And lols @ burgundy
Certainly not "wreckless" - you seem to have bought a perfectly adequate wreck.
Now reckless.... that's another matter.
Hmm, half the distance to the garage down the road from me and you could have had an ex-MOD 1980s serviced and checked with 100000K for a few more. I'd have one like a shot but they keep getting nicked round North Yorkshire 🙁
Get there and find out it's burgundy?
Googled Td5 Adventurer interior and gasps in horror!
It had been listed as having an engine and chassis rebuild, the suspension airbags and a shed load of other stuff. MOT history looked consistent with a car that had been serviced well.
I like a Top Gear style road trip into the unknown.
Think of it as an adventure - it might well become one.
🙂
Corrr, that's going to be a severe case of new car paranoia on the way back. Every smell, knock, rumble and squeak is going to be with a puckered hole is anticipation of a breakdown.
Good luck.
Depending on your route back. Im in north Hampshire if you need tools 🙂
Good Luck!
I took a punt on a T4 Caravelle in Paignton - paid 2K for it 'accidentally' (put my max I was willing to throw down a toilet based on the pictures alone) and so far so good. Body work excellent, engine the non turbo 2.4 thats as nippy as a glacier but does the job .. apparently it didn't start from cold (told me that when I arrived!) but a glow plug relay wiggle has fixed that.
Every smell, knock, rumble and squeak is going to be with a puckered hole is anticipation of a breakdown
LoL it really was like that. Starting to calm down a bit now. Strange smel in the cab .. turned out to be pollen filters I suspect are original from 20 years and 165K ago.
I too am NW Hampshire should you decide to take the scenic route back (it is scenic, you always get a good long look at Stonehenge) and need a tow.
I'm just off junction 11 of the M5, If you breakdown nearby your welcome for coffee and biscuits.
And I'm near Paris if you get lost 😆
Nrth Hants is not on the way from Exeter to Scotland!
Depends if the M5 is screwed. You never know, he may decided to checkout Stonehenge and farnborough airport on the way back 🙂
P, I'm at home all day Sat 15mins from Js 8, 7 or 6 of the M5.
My number is on my email signature if you can find it.
You are of course welcome to stop by, planned or un-planned! Good trip!
M
You'll be fine. I drove my P1800 back from London and my Smart from Oxford.
Both waited politely for several months before breaking down.
No one can call you wreckless anymore. Reckless maybe, but now you have a new wreck.
wzzzz - not living up to your name. 42 minutes late by my reckoning. 8)No one can call you wreckless anymore. Reckless maybe, but now you have a new wreck.
cynic-al - MemberYou'll be fine. I drove my P1800 back from London and my Smart from Oxford.
Both waited politely for several months before breaking down.
I bought my Alfa, unseen, and drove it back from Somerset to Suffolk. Surely that has to rank quite high on the reckless scale...
Heater not working would be nasty
Good luck.
In Lancaster if you need a push.
Email in profile.
APF
I bought a 110 on ebay, in Doncaster IIRC. Train from Reading, seller picked me up from the station and drove me out to a farm, that puts you in a very weak bargaining position if it turns out to be a shed ! It was winter, dark, and possibly raining. It made the journey back home OK but I did not trust it in the slightest.
It turned out to be horrible to drive. Non-turbo, non-PAS, 110 van. Very big and very slow and very noisy. Leaked diesel from somewhere. Handbrake would would jam on when reversing, that was quite inconvenient.
Sold it six months later for a small profit. Never even met the buyer - he transferred the money into my bank account, I left the docs in the car and the key under a rock in the front garden while I went to work !
So that was a happy ending.
I would not buy another.
This was it:
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Edit - PMSL - I've just looked up the MOT history. I sold it in 2007, the MOT in July '07 must have been the new owner. There's then a gap until 2011 when it has an absolutely MASSIVE fail list for being a big pile of rust 😀 Then a pass four months later with the advisory "underside of vehicle heavily coated in underseal". Hmmm, I bet that was some quality repair work under the gloop..... not. It's not been MOT'd since.
If the windows won't de-mist and you take a wrong turn, i'm North Norfolk!!
If you take a a wrong turn in Dover I am in The Hague and have a full Deafener toolkit.
500 miles , 3 full tanks should do it .
That'll be oil he's talking about.
Even vehicles that have been 'professionally' inspected can come to grief on trip home.
Before Ebay existed, I bought a Citroen BX16v through auto trader. i drove it, I then decided to buy it provided the RAC inspection was OK. The report said essentially it was in excellent nick so i turned up at 5pm on a Friday night and after the deal was done drove home. 25 minutes later, in a stream of stop start traffic suddenly the dash lit up like a christmas tree and smoke started pouring from under the bonnet. It is true that there is a hierarchy in Citroen hydro-pneumatic systems, first the power steering went, then the suspenion lowered and finally the brakes failed as I pulled over. A high pressure pipe had fractured spraying hydraulic oil over the exhaust manifold. Three hours later the car was left at the local Citroen garage.A large bill followed, actually the first of many for that car
The RAC said that'it was fine when inspected"
I've bought a couple of £1300 cars from STWers in the past. A Citroen C5 from Milton Keynes and a Passat estate from London, train down and drove back with no issues whatsoever. The Citroen I sold 70,000 miles later and is still going somewhere up near Spean Bridge. The Passat, I bought for my sister. I drove it down to France where it's still going with well over 200,000 miles on the clock.
I bought an ebay Passat in Exeter from a gynecologist which I drove back and it's done another 50,000 miles. It think I bought it with 150,000 miles.
Worst initial buy was a Volvo V70 from an ebay trader in Colchester. It came with a fresh MOT that must have come out of a lucky bag. It got me home but not without a limp home heartstopper. A local independent specialist got everything sorted and fifteen thousand miles on it seems unstoppable.
I much prefer the randomness of these purchases than buying something from a garage or a dealership.
mcmoonter
I bought an ebay Passat in Exeter from a gynecologist
- there has to be a punchline for that comment!
^ ..it was fitted with a heat device.
Even vehicles that have been 'professionally' inspected can come to grief on trip home
Possibly not even that far! Some cars that I and my team collect have been inspected by an independent inspector and a written report prepared, so all we're supposed to do is check mileage, make sure all the necessary documents are present and drive it away.
Until one of my team decided to check the tyres out of habit and discovered to his horror that both front tyres were illegal!
Now we check the tyres as a matter of course, just in case...
Big box of Land Rover spares here in the FoD if you need a transplant on the way.
I bet the bridge is closed, and then it gives up in Alloa....so close yet so annoyingly far...at least some Hill Foots resident will save you the bother and Nick it....
I promise to post some updates from the road. Thanks for the offers on mechanical support.
Place your bets here..... 😆
If you're going to breakdown make it somewhere nice like Tebay, good food, nice views etc. I had to overnight in Knutsford services once due to a knackered alternator. Knustford is many things but enjoyable is not one of them.
Enjoy the road trip.
So where did you breakdown ?
mcmoonter
I bought an ebay Passat in Exeter from a gynecologist
Had he welded the doors shut like the Dukes of Hazard?
nah, but you have to reach through from the boot to unlock the driver's door.
Pea soup at Edinburgh airport. Tannoy announcement, our plane has just been diverted to Glasgow. It's going to be a long day.
/weekend
Cock! Bus to Glasgow
its cold down here too. Bring your woolies.
hope you get your flight ok.
Getting gradually foggier on Glasgow too!
Well the south coast is totally clear and sunny but ferkin freezing!
Well the south coast is totally clear and sunny but ferkin freezing!
Is that about 6c then? 😉
I think MM will cope.
*wonders whether this landrover has a working heater
Currently reading -1. 6 would be lovely as I could get the kids digging instead of being unable to break ground!
wonders whether this landrover has a working heater
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back in the early 90's a young lad at work was desperate to impress one of the girls working on the checkouts so.. he checked out a renault feugo in autotrader about 70 miles away by the seaside.. invited said young lady on their day off to take the train to the seaside to pick up his new car.. car picked up.. and young lady is mighty impressed to the point where young boys and young ladies did what comes naturally on a secluded dirt track high up on the moors.. sadly in uphoria on the way back down this track he hit a rock and tore a big hole in the gearbox.. a long walk to civilisation, a recovery vehicle.. trip to garage and a bill for 500 quid for repairs ( for a Lad earning 75 quid a week a disaster..) sadly the blossoming relationship did not flourish with the young lady... until... a couple of months later when said young lady and her father come knocking at his door to announce the imminent arrival of a new family member!
Done this myself - bought a '71 lightweight with a low compression V8 in it off ebay (drunk bidding, didn't expect to win). Train to Saltford, drove it back to Glos. Broke down 5 times on the way (wet ECU), by the time I came off the M5 I would have happily set fire to it. Had a new MOT from the garage that sold it, but bit dodgy I think as 11m later it failed due to major chassis rail rust. Been sitting in garage for last 5 years, mainly used as an anchor to lock bikes to and a frame to keep paddle board on.
Sad stuff, would never buy another unseen. Just do it the old fashioned way and go look, haggle etc. Too late now though for you mcmoonter! if you get stuck on the M5 nr Stroud yell!
Clear as a bell on the west coast so flight should be a go-er.
good luck. Bought an aircooled T25 from Cumbria, drove it straight back to London (broke down at Sandbach but got it going, then it did the last 100 miles on the back of an AA lorry). Got it working again then drove it to Spain at a flat-out 55mph with all my worldly possessions inside, and two cats. Think I aged 10 years on that journey.
Incidentally, it backfired to a halt on the hottest day of the year in Tours. When the smoke settled, I realised it had stopped right outside an aircooled VW specialist garage. Owner got us going again for free. Weird.
Let me know if you need a hand with anything, I live 10 mins from Exeter airport have a good toolbox and pretty handy with landrovers.
Arrived in Glasgow to chaos. No flight listing on the departures board. Folks are getting ratty
By pure chance I bumped into a fellow lost passenger who recognised me from the bus trip. Apparently Glasgow can't list Edinburgh's diverted flights on their departures board.
Our plane has. Even here since before ten and hasn't been refuelled
Flybe's customer services dept are going to have a busy Monday morning
Trusting that the rest of my day will be less stressful
sounds like your return journey will be a piece of cake compared to your outward one
Flymaybe....
I use them for work, sometimes every week & I can probably count on one hand the number of on time flights I've had last year
its ominously quiet.. its either holding steady at legal maximum speeds and just south of bristol heading north or still sitting at Edinburgh waiting to travel..
Trusting that the rest of my day will be less stressful
Such positivity in the face of overwhelming odds.
I have visions of mcmoonter pulling onto a dual carriageway and his new purchase making broken Millenium Falcon hyperdrive noises as he puts his foot down.
The consolation of owning a LandRiver is that wherever you are, it has just got you there. Where you want to go may be a different matter...
Flybe are clearly lowering his expectations to a more realistic level....
(Fwiw, I fly about 8x a year Edinburgh-Southampton with Flybe and yet to have an issue other than weather)
Lets say McM is in the air now . Its 1800 on a cold ,dark saturday night.
By the time he lands, gets met or gets taxi to find the LR in question it will most likely be 1930.
Leave Exeter area at 2000, give or take. All will be fine for 3hrs or 150 miles, then , on the Birmingham M5/M6 interchange a huge ploom of white smoke will make an appearence. Its now 11pm , on a cold dark saturday night.
While McM waits on the hard shoulder for the AA man to confirm the lower rad hose has split and funnily enough he cannot fix it, it suddenly turns into a ' I dont care what it costs , get me a hotel asap and I will fix it myself tomorrow'
£79 later its a desperate search for a Halfrauds with a "universal" hose, a screwdriver and a pair of jubilee clips. To arrive home 36hrs after leaving with a dodgy LR product
I reckon it'll be fine, it might stink like a cats toilet inside, but it'll run like clockwork and he'll be so bored he will turn left at Carlisle for a pootle amongst the Lakes before doing a bit of "awfrowd" near Keilder Water..
Loving this one! Go McMoonter!!!!
I reckon it'll die just as he gets back home, then in a couple of years it'll turn up on a thread here where's he's turned it into some kind of garden feature.
There really should be a Vendee Globe style tracker for this adventure, a fantast LR delivery game wouldn't go amiss either!
Dang, my posting skills are poorer than the Land Rover
I did the deal with the vendor, a posh Somerset carpenter, think High Fearnley Whittingstall with a plane and chisel. His friend Walter has done much of the servicing on the Discovery.
Walter has overlooked the self parking function on the wipers. I'd mastered a deft self cancel move before leaving the airport car park.
I was less (totally) unsuccessfull at stopping the wireless's self seeking operation. I can get all the channels, but only ten seconds of each before they switch
It only has a cassette player, I'll have a search in the boot for a CD player. It's going to a long road trip without sounds
A quarter of a tank and I'm a junction short of the M6 below Birmingham
So far so good.
My td5 defender is kind to me in some ways. If it starts first thing it's fine for the rest of the day. And it seems to choose to only break down on my drive so at least I don't get stranded.
Only time I got stuck road side was after letting a garage near it.
Sorry can't help with the radio as I don't have one in the 110
Are you doing the trip in a 'one er'?
You need to turn the autoscan off for it to stick to one station, usually buried in the menu somewhere. If that doesn't work pull over in a layby on a dual carriageway and you'll probably find an old, discarded cassette.
Musical lottery 😆
Pie stop at Tebay services. 150 miles to home. Holy cow I think he's going to make it
