RE: The Land Rover Discovery at 30
Discussion
Big GT said:
The Disco 4. Not just one of the greatest land rovers but maybe one of the greatest cars.
Just my opinion after owning a couple. But its a do it all car that looks the part transporting royalty to towing 3 ton generators up mud tracks in the Pennines.
I think the biggest shame with the D4 (apart from the bling styling vs the D3 Just my opinion after owning a couple. But its a do it all car that looks the part transporting royalty to towing 3 ton generators up mud tracks in the Pennines.
). Is in the UK the total lack of V8 models.As a 2nd/3rd car on the used market, I'd much rather a petrol V8 than the TDV6.
300bhp/ton said:
I think the biggest shame with the D4 (apart from the bling styling vs the D3 ). Is in the UK the total lack of V8 models.
As a 2nd/3rd car on the used market, I'd much rather a petrol V8 than the TDV6.
The Jag TDV6 3.0 was a wonderful engine though and matched the car. ). Is in the UK the total lack of V8 models.As a 2nd/3rd car on the used market, I'd much rather a petrol V8 than the TDV6.
300bhp/ton said:
Big GT said:
The Disco 4. Not just one of the greatest land rovers but maybe one of the greatest cars.
Just my opinion after owning a couple. But its a do it all car that looks the part transporting royalty to towing 3 ton generators up mud tracks in the Pennines.
I think the biggest shame with the D4 (apart from the bling styling vs the D3 Just my opinion after owning a couple. But its a do it all car that looks the part transporting royalty to towing 3 ton generators up mud tracks in the Pennines.
). Is in the UK the total lack of V8 models.As a 2nd/3rd car on the used market, I'd much rather a petrol V8 than the TDV6.
E65Ross said:
300bhp/ton said:
Big GT said:
The Disco 4. Not just one of the greatest land rovers but maybe one of the greatest cars.
Just my opinion after owning a couple. But its a do it all car that looks the part transporting royalty to towing 3 ton generators up mud tracks in the Pennines.
I think the biggest shame with the D4 (apart from the bling styling vs the D3 Just my opinion after owning a couple. But its a do it all car that looks the part transporting royalty to towing 3 ton generators up mud tracks in the Pennines.
). Is in the UK the total lack of V8 models.As a 2nd/3rd car on the used market, I'd much rather a petrol V8 than the TDV6.
Limpet said:
My dad had two of them - a D1 300TDi and then a D2 Td5.
The D1 was brilliant. Dog slow and unrefined, but unbreakably reliable, and ran to huge mileage (200k or so) before the tin worm eventually got it, and even his friendly welder wanted more than it was worth to squeeze it through another MOT.
It had been such a good car, that he went out and bought a Td5. Nicer to drive on road, a lot quicker, and more refined (actually made a lovely noise). And then over the space of 18 months, much of the stuff that enabled this step up in refinement and performance went hideously and expensively wrong. The ACE and the air suspension failed, and the Td5 engine had random cutting out / non-starting issues that defeated two specialist garages (it became a question of throwing expensive parts at it), the automatic transmission warning light used to come on for fun, the car used to unlock itself randomly, the alternator went, the starter went. It was just a constant stream of nonsense to deal with. Trying to fix faults on it was like a game of Whack-a-Mole. Fix one, up pops another. Fix that, another appears. Then the original one reappears, and so on. Reminded me of our old 2004 Renault Scenic.
The reliability of a Land Rover product, much like French cars of a certain era, appears to be inversely proportional to its complexity.
We ran at least one of every Disco from D1 to D4 over the course of ~20 years. Particular highlights include failed electric seat switches, window regulators, leaky sunroofs (I kept a towel tucked into the sun visor for a while for mopping up), oil in the ECU (WTAF?) but the final straw was the leaking turbo transfer pipe on the D4 which the warranty company wouldn't pay for because it was "part of the exhaust system", which required either the engine out or body off to access. We decided on the latter and it ended up costing £1400. My love affair with JLR products ended at that point, and we've only bought German or Japanese ever since.The D1 was brilliant. Dog slow and unrefined, but unbreakably reliable, and ran to huge mileage (200k or so) before the tin worm eventually got it, and even his friendly welder wanted more than it was worth to squeeze it through another MOT.
It had been such a good car, that he went out and bought a Td5. Nicer to drive on road, a lot quicker, and more refined (actually made a lovely noise). And then over the space of 18 months, much of the stuff that enabled this step up in refinement and performance went hideously and expensively wrong. The ACE and the air suspension failed, and the Td5 engine had random cutting out / non-starting issues that defeated two specialist garages (it became a question of throwing expensive parts at it), the automatic transmission warning light used to come on for fun, the car used to unlock itself randomly, the alternator went, the starter went. It was just a constant stream of nonsense to deal with. Trying to fix faults on it was like a game of Whack-a-Mole. Fix one, up pops another. Fix that, another appears. Then the original one reappears, and so on. Reminded me of our old 2004 Renault Scenic.
The reliability of a Land Rover product, much like French cars of a certain era, appears to be inversely proportional to its complexity.
Limpet said:
My dad had two of them - a D1 300TDi and then a D2 Td5.
The D1 was brilliant. Dog slow and unrefined, but unbreakably reliable, and ran to huge mileage (200k or so) before the tin worm eventually got it, and even his friendly welder wanted more than it was worth to squeeze it through another MOT.
It had been such a good car, that he went out and bought a Td5. Nicer to drive on road, a lot quicker, and more refined (actually made a lovely noise). And then over the space of 18 months, much of the stuff that enabled this step up in refinement and performance went hideously and expensively wrong. The ACE and the air suspension failed, and the Td5 engine had random cutting out / non-starting issues that defeated two specialist garages (it became a question of throwing expensive parts at it), the automatic transmission warning light used to come on for fun, the car used to unlock itself randomly, the alternator went, the starter went. It was just a constant stream of nonsense to deal with. Trying to fix faults on it was like a game of Whack-a-Mole. Fix one, up pops another. Fix that, another appears. Then the original one reappears, and so on. Reminded me of our old 2004 Renault Scenic.
The reliability of a Land Rover product, much like French cars of a certain era, appears to be inversely proportional to its complexity.
This was pretty much my family's experience of Discos as well.The D1 was brilliant. Dog slow and unrefined, but unbreakably reliable, and ran to huge mileage (200k or so) before the tin worm eventually got it, and even his friendly welder wanted more than it was worth to squeeze it through another MOT.
It had been such a good car, that he went out and bought a Td5. Nicer to drive on road, a lot quicker, and more refined (actually made a lovely noise). And then over the space of 18 months, much of the stuff that enabled this step up in refinement and performance went hideously and expensively wrong. The ACE and the air suspension failed, and the Td5 engine had random cutting out / non-starting issues that defeated two specialist garages (it became a question of throwing expensive parts at it), the automatic transmission warning light used to come on for fun, the car used to unlock itself randomly, the alternator went, the starter went. It was just a constant stream of nonsense to deal with. Trying to fix faults on it was like a game of Whack-a-Mole. Fix one, up pops another. Fix that, another appears. Then the original one reappears, and so on. Reminded me of our old 2004 Renault Scenic.
The reliability of a Land Rover product, much like French cars of a certain era, appears to be inversely proportional to its complexity.
We long-term borrowed an H-reg 3-door 7-seater V8i manual (in Nightfire red with the compass graphics, bull bar, steel wheels and Sonar Blue interior) from some friends when we needed a tow vehicle for car trailers, boat trailers and a horse box. It was brilliant - the suspension bushes were all worn so when we first had it it rolled around like a lifeboat in the Southern Ocean, but once that was sorted it was rock solidly reliable and a superb towing vehicle. Its only vice was that the Efi system would get confused if you started it from cold, backed it up to the trailer to hitch it on then switched off to load up, then tried to start it again with the engine not-properly-cold-but-not-really-warm. And it had the world's noisiest, most power-sapping but least effective air conditioning system.
When the V8 had to go back Mum replaced her Renault Scenic with an R-reg 300Tdi 5-door 7-seat GS, which was her daily driver and designated weekend towing vehicle for the next decade. It lived outside, it did 50 miles per weekday and often another 200 miles at the weekends and it was not pampered at all. It did over 160,000 hard-worked miles while we had it and it was absolutely faultless. It had an annual service and MoT at the local LR specialist and apart from consumables and service items all I can remember it needing was an oil cooler hose and some a/c parts. Then the tin-worm started getting to it (rear floor, inner front wings, B-pillars), not helped when a car battery tipped over and dumped its contents into the rear footwell.
Dad (by now separated from Mum) needed his own towing wagon and bought a 2001 Disco Series II Td5 ES, with air suspension, ACE and all the other gubbins. While it was perfectly good to drive and just as good at lugging stuff as the S1s had been, it was almost continually having electronic glitches of some sort. The previous owner had spend literally £thousands on it in the five years before Dad bought it, with the service history recording all sorts of typical Disco Td5 mechanical and electronic errors. While Dad had the air suspension system failed again (it would pump up but not down, so as it self-levelled the rear end would gradually pump itself up to maximum height), the ACE packed up, it had engine misfiring/limp-home problems, it had gear position sensor failure, it had ABS/ETC problems and more that I can't specifically remember. It never actually let him down but I would guess that it was only fully, properly functional for about 25% of the time he had it.
In hindsight, the D1 was quite a revelation really, even with its obviously recycled bits. The D2 was a step up though in quality, wasn't it?
A mate has run a 54 D3 for years now and seemingly can't see any need to upgrade. D4 has the best looks though to my mind and I'd have struggled to resist upgrading to that. He had two D2s in succession before the D3, one of which was an auto that he didn't like. I suspect he's hanging onto his manual D3 as it's harder - or is it impossible? - to get into a manual D4.
Despite me ribbing him about LR reliability for years, his seems to have been fine. Wish I could say the same about our Disco Sport!
A mate has run a 54 D3 for years now and seemingly can't see any need to upgrade. D4 has the best looks though to my mind and I'd have struggled to resist upgrading to that. He had two D2s in succession before the D3, one of which was an auto that he didn't like. I suspect he's hanging onto his manual D3 as it's harder - or is it impossible? - to get into a manual D4.
Despite me ribbing him about LR reliability for years, his seems to have been fine. Wish I could say the same about our Disco Sport!
PistonBroker said:
In hindsight, the D1 was quite a revelation really
Not really. It just filled the void in Land Rover's model lineup to replace the Range Rover, as during the 1980s the Range Rover had been pushed more up market. The Discovery did almost nothing different to the Range Rover. The only difference really was the option of two dickie side facing seats in the boot.However I think it is easy to see the Discovery as a defining model in it's sector. A shame the D5 seems to have lost the plot somewhat though and is not even remotely similar in terms of it's target audience. The new Defender Sport
seems to be very much a Discovery market segment vehicle however.PistonBroker said:
or is it impossible? - to get into a manual D4.
No manuals in the D4 sadly.ZymoTech said:
The orange and white D5 is a demonstrator search & rescue vehicle that Landrover built for the Red Cross:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVf9uUJV7QY
The roof-mounted box contains a drone that can be launched to enable the rescuers to have a look-see of any situation lying ahead.
Thanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVf9uUJV7QY
The roof-mounted box contains a drone that can be launched to enable the rescuers to have a look-see of any situation lying ahead.
Turbobanana said:
Anybody remember the 2.0 MPi Petrol from the mid-nineties?
I took one in PX once and decided to take it home, but it didn't have enough power to get out of its own way.
They had more power than the Tdi's. They didn't have the low rpm turbo fed torque, but that isn't the same thing.I took one in PX once and decided to take it home, but it didn't have enough power to get out of its own way.
In a drag race the Mpi would be quicker than the Tdi powered ones.
Land Rover also fitted the 2.0 MPi to the Defender (for the Swiss Police and others iirc). And again they went very well.
300bhp/ton said:
No manuals in the D4 sadly.
I think it was an option for a year or so on the transition. Probably whilst it was still available with the 2.7 litre engine from the D3. My D4 has been the best car I’ve ever owned. Just does everything really well and was quite a step up from my D3. D3 reliability was awful but the D4 hasn’t put a foot wrong. Yet.
The D5 takes some time to get to like. I think LR were a bit wide of the mark with it but after spending some time with my Dad’s I’ve decided to order one for myself. I still can’t find a car that rivals it for all-round abilities, despite a number of things that I’d change with it.
I do wonder if I should’ve waited for the new Defender though.
Turbobanana said:
Ah, apologies. I clearly wasn't driving it properly. Should have taken it to Santa Pod.
No not really. But it was only a 136bhp 2.0 litre na petrol in a vehicle weighing a little shy of 2000kg.I think the Defenders were fitted with the 1.6 transfer box with this engine. Which is probably what was needed in the Discovery. I believe they used the 1.4 however, but still a step up form the regular 1.2:1 box usually found in a Discovery.
I believe LR protoyped using the 2.0 Turbo version of the T-Series engine also (as per a 620/820/Tomcat) with 197hp, but I heard it out performed the 3.9 Rover V8 by too much.
Zumbruk said:
... oil in the ECU (WTAF?)...
I might be able to answer this one, possibly.We had a 1.4 Corsa D that kept giving warning lights and codes for the lambda sensor.
I took the sensor out and found the plug full of engine oil. Like you, I thought "WTF, how does oil get THERE?!".
This sensor was after the cat and under the car so I checked the pre-cat sensor, at the top of the exhaust system by the engine. It was also full of oil.
A quick Google of the issue showed that it's a fairly common issue and caused by failure of, IIRC, the oil pressure switch. The switch fails and allows oil to pass through in to the wiring. From there it migrates throughout the entire engine loom and makes it's way in to the ECU's and EGR system. Eventually it kills the ECU's and various EGR bits and you have to replace all of the contaminated pieces - including the engine loom.
We did have to replace a leaking oil pressure switch a couple of years before this.
Apparently, it was caused by poor quality oil filters (not sure how true this was, it was found on owner's forums) collapsing internally and killing the pressure switch. This annoyed me as the car had only ever been serviced by Vauxhall main dealers.
Perhaps your car had a similar issue?
300bhp/ton said:
E65Ross said:
300bhp/ton said:
Big GT said:
The Disco 4. Not just one of the greatest land rovers but maybe one of the greatest cars.
Just my opinion after owning a couple. But its a do it all car that looks the part transporting royalty to towing 3 ton generators up mud tracks in the Pennines.
I think the biggest shame with the D4 (apart from the bling styling vs the D3 Just my opinion after owning a couple. But its a do it all car that looks the part transporting royalty to towing 3 ton generators up mud tracks in the Pennines.
). Is in the UK the total lack of V8 models.As a 2nd/3rd car on the used market, I'd much rather a petrol V8 than the TDV6.
M
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