Need some advise please, I have found a 2004 vogue 2 owners good service history however it is still on its original gearbox with no serving done on the gearbox, is it worth making an offer or should I keep looking for one that's had a replacement gearbox.

If everything else says good car check the price of a properly re-conditioned gearbox with a good local transmission specialist and make an appropriate offer. You are going to need a fluid drain, inspection and maybe flush from proper transmission specialist anyway to assess its condition.

Despite the reputation the boxes aren't necessarily 100,000 mile grenades. With sympathetic driving and right sort of use they can go much much further.

When purchasing a car with your head, not heart, you always have to consider how many miles you are buying. Despite the known fragility of the L322 in certain areas its basically a 200,000 mile vehicle. So if you plan to do sufficient miles it can be well worth taking the nuclear option of sorting all the inevitable weaknesses early in your ownership and planning to run the next 60 - 70,000 or so miles on normal servicing plus a few extra replacements. Objectively expensive but still considerably less than depreciation on a car of similar size and qualities young enough to do the same 60 - 70,000 miles on normal servicing plus a few (more) extras.

Buying for 10 or 20,000 miles is where it gets difficult.

Clive

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I sold my last TD6 on circa 180k miles and it was still on the original 'box. With hindsight, the change wasn't as smooth as it is on my current TD6, but this has had a box overhaul and new torque converter last year.

We've recently upgraded to a TDV8 (shameless plug alert!), so the '6 will be up for sale soon if you're looking for a really, really nice one that's had all the expensive bills already taken care of...

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