Losing the Discovery

I've written earlier about my car history and how I'd managed to find another local early 3-door Discovery 200 TDi, and didn't resist the urge to purchase it. By that point, I'd had it for a few months and undertaken a lot of the major work to get it roadworthy to a certain point, but it needed quite a bit more doing to it. This is the continuation and conclusion of our relationship. This time, I'm not going out looking for another.

Stability and Fixes

First of all, early 2023 necessitated a few more fixes on top of the ones that I'd invested in the year before. The car was dropped off in time for it's MOT, but a fair bit was needed to get it through (along with around 3 months of on-and-off work by my chosen garage) which included:

• 4x new Goodyear tyres and an alignment
• A full service with engine oil + filter, and an air filter
• Gearbox and transfer box service including oils for both
• Front and rear axle oils
• Alternator belt change
• Reconditioned alternator (a new one was not easy or cheap to find)
• Power steering pipe replacement, as this had split and rendered the power steering inoperative

But the result was fairly clear to see: I had a stable, working and reliable car. It no longer had a death wobble at high speeds, the gear changes were smooth and there were no untoward rattles or knocks. I was using it to head to the airport when I was travelling, and using it for trips to and from the local tip, including a few random drives every now and then. Things were going well! Although I was still driving around with no rear seatbelts and a rusty set of front seat mounts which I wasn't too happy with.

Breakdown

About a month later, I got 10 miles away from home, came off the motorway and happened to glance at the temperature gauge, which had suddenly jumped well above normal and almost into the red - very unusual, as although the front electric fan was disabled it very rarely got hot at all, these old diesel motors run very cool. I immediately found somewhere to pull over and noticed a fair amount of steam starting to sprout from the bonnet. I opened it up and found the coolant had exploded all over the side of the engine bay - something catastrophic had happened, but I'd managed to catch it before the engine overheated and the block seized.

One call later and the recovery lorry was loaded.

One of the engine core plugs had given in and shot out, ejecting all of the coolant out of the water jacket at the same time. Not impossible, but fairly rare. At the garage, it turns out this had been relatively fortuitous! The head gasket was also about to give in, so the head gasket and core plugs were all replaced, along with a fuel hose that decided to split at that exact moment. Once again I was lighter in wallet but the car was back on the road and running well.

Even More Fixes

I held off doing too much more for a couple of months, but then started stacking parts for when I was off in the summer holidays. I wanted to try and get a few cosmetic and quality of life parts improved, and spent a bit of time in the garage myself for a change. In the end, I ended up working on the following:

• Repaired some replacement front seat mounts and swapped out for the existing seats, as these were in better condition
• Replaced the rear seat
• Re-fitted the rear seat belts
• Removed the broken electric fan and fitted a viscous fan instead, as it would have had originally

After all of this, the wire between the ignition and the starter broke, necessitating a bit of a random jumper wire to get the car started again, so that was taken into the garage to fix.

But - and this time it really was, completely fixed. For 6 months I happily drove it around without a problem at all: staying cool and reliable.

Dude, Where's My Car?

One day in late February I decided I wanted a drive. I walked up to the top of the street, key in hand, but couldn't find where I'd parked the car last time. Strange, I though.

Then it hit me. I had parked it exactly where I looked, the car just happened to no longer be there. It had been stolen!

I was straight onto the police, who phoned me back the next day, where I'd had to travel to Amsterdam for work, and swiftly informed me that despite some footage from my neighbour's CCTV clearly showing an orchestrated and planned robbery at 4am the previous morning, they had no hope in finding it and suggested I contacted my insurance company.

I'd lost all the time, money and effort I'd put into the car. The insurance company were prepared to settle for a token amount that was representative of its value, but that was all.

I gave up, and forgot about it.

Except for a month later, when the police phoned me back and said they'd managed to recover it, working, as they'd pulled it over approximately 20 miles away being used to ferry illegal goods around. It was in a local recovery yard, and I could head over there and pick it up. Except I couldn't, as it now belonged to the insurance company.

I seriously considered offering to buy it back, but in the end decided I should close this chapter and move on. Although I'd never get back what I put into it, the time had come to move on. I had a child rapidly approaching (now here and doing well) and had other things to think about other than trying to get an ageing Land Rover back on the road that I had no time or space for.

The Future

For now, I still have my Honda Civic Type-R. It's a 3-door, which means it's not fantastically suited for our new trips together as a family, so it will be getting replaced in the near future with something else. Then, when I have a bit more space (mentally, for the most part), I'll think about getting another second car. But for now, I'm chalking all of this down to experience and writing about it here.