Just how bad is the Land Rover Discovery? Let's Talk.

I've noticed lately that I'm seeing a lot of cheap Land Rover Discoveries on CL and FB Marketplace. These things:

Just today, I found a running/driving example, an early 2000's Discovery II that needed a caliper, for just $700. It sold rather quickly, but I'm still seeing other examples in various states of functionality for a couple grand and often much less than that. 

What is the deal with these?

Yes, I know they are British, I know all the Lucas: Prince of Darkness jokes (do they even apply to one of these?), and they have a version of the Buick/Rover aluminum V8, but that's all I know. Can they be made into competent, dependable vehicles, or are they terrible at any price?  

Speaking as someone whose wife is DD'ing a Range Rover of similar vintage - the elephant in the room are sinking cylinder liners on the 4.0 and 4.6 engines. Oddly enough there is some disagreement on either side of the Atlantic which of the two is worse (in the UK the 4.6 has the worse rep, over here it seems to be the 4.0). The 3.5L at least has a rep in the UK of needing frequent oil changes if you want to prevent premature cam wear.

Head gaskets are consumables, they will leak something somewhere unless that something needs topping up, and people seem to be afraid of the air suspension and replace it with coils. Don't do that if you want to tow.

Oh, and they have a drinking problem, especially given the performance (or lack thereof).

They are also rather good offroad and still comfy on road.

As usual, you get the problems with cheap luxobarges with stuff being bodged and/or not working.

You'll find a ton needing head gaskets or sleeves. 

My coworker had one, and adored it...But she also had her accommodating (which costs extra) British automotive mechanic on speed-dial, admitted to probably putting his kids through school because of it, and had to get dropped off at work (late and at least once even by her mechanic) or skipped the day entirely on multiple occasions because of it as well.  That thing had some of the strangest problems.

I'm also pretty certain that the DOT highway safety response truck that I saw following one, was doing so intentionally and just waiting for the inevitable to happen...I figure it just must have been a slow day for them.

Yet I still (foolishly) want to to (expensively) rebuild one out of better (more modern, more readily available, and more reliable) components .

Well, it sounds like these are tons of fun! I'll firmly put them on the AVOID list. 

A good rule to go by is that a vehicle that was expensive when brand new will cost a fortune if bought cheap like that.

I loved mine, was not to terrible to upkeep, only major issues I had was a power steering pump going out, a ignition issue, and the 3 amigos, but the grounding mod fixed that. I bought it with the headgaskets recently done and with some electrical gremlins. I doubled up all the grounds to make them redundant and we were good to go. Sold it 60K later for almost double what I had in it.

I did the lift, bumpers, lights, lift and all the small odds and ends. 

they are not bad, dont buy a beat one unless you like working on them weekly, and you cant ignore issues. 

IIRC, somebody on here had one that apparently got lonely in the middle of the night and turned on its stereo to keep itself company.  The guy's neighbour called him up to request that he make it stop, which proved to be more difficult than you might expect.

I believe there was another one (or possibly the same vehicle) with a power seat that would NOT obey instructions AT ALL, no matter what.

What with one thing and another, I have personally decided to keep them in the "source of hilarious stories when owned by other people" category.

Aside from needing a new engine, mine has needed nothing aside from routine maintenance for the past 30,000+ miles I have owned it. Yes, they do drink like fish, I have mine up to almost 15mpg. They are very comfy on and off road, and you can take one almost anywhere, from valet parking on Broadway to the Bush. I personally love my 2003, even if I do wish it were a diesel with a 5 speed and came with a locking transfer case

My father had two, the first of which was a manual. I did a few off-road driving schools in them (the local LR dealer put them on a couple times a year) and it was impressive just how capable they are axle-deep in mud or climbing at impossible angles. The mechanical upkeep, however, was more than he was willing to take, so he sold them. His experience scared me off, but they are appealing nonetheless.

They can be great, but they require work.  I know several guys who spent some money on the front end to make one more reliable and they seem to hold to that.  A lot of folks will Pin the sleeves to make sure they don't slip, and some vendors who sell donor motors will install cap sleeves.  That seems to be the major issue.  I think that a lot of it is that Land Rover owners of the era weren't in to maintenance and those motors need to be maintained.  I say go for it, they can be great rigs.  

They paid for half my wedding and I just towed them. A Discovery remains the only vehicle I’ve ever had a customer get locked IN.  The chain of failure it takes for that to happen is downright comical.  

When I started this thread, I expected to see some stuff about the Disco's issues being overblown. In that sense, we got a few people that had somewhat decent luck with them.

What I didn't expect out of this thread were the stories of magnificent vehicular failure. Getting locked your own car? Phantom midnight radios? In that sense...

THIS THREAD DELIVERS. 

mad_machine said:

Aside from needing a new engine, mine has needed nothing aside from routine maintenance for the past 30,000+ miles I have owned it. Yes, they do drink like fish, I have mine up to almost 15mpg. They are very comfy on and off road, and you can take one almost anywhere, from valet parking on Broadway to the Bush. I personally love my 2003, even if I do wish it were a diesel with a 5 speed and came with a locking transfer case

" Aside from needing a new engine " ... let's say that again. " Aside from needing a new engine ." That describes the Land Rover ownership experience pretty well.

Regarding the electrics - a friend of mine in the UK was one of the original production engineers who helped LR to set up the production line. He owned (and I think still owns) an early Diesel Disco that's all manual. Yes, including hand cranked windows . His take was that this was a massive reliability boost for the small stuff.

grover said:

They can be great, but they require work.  I know several guys who spent some money on the front end to make one more reliable and they seem to hold to that.  A lot of folks will Pin the sleeves to make sure they don't slip, and some vendors who sell donor motors will install cap sleeves.  That seems to be the major issue.  I think that a lot of it is that Land Rover owners of the era weren't in to maintenance and those motors need to be maintained.  I say go for it, they can be great rigs.  

that about sums it up. It's a semi-modern vehicle that still requires older fashioned maintenance. People expect honda reliability from everything these days and that is something LR could not deliver until fairly recently (if they even can). The problem with engines on these trucks is that they do NOT tolerate being overheated... not even once. The liners, unless pinned or "tophatted" will slip. The replacement engine I have in mine has tophatted liners. They will never slip again. Because I bought mine at 80,000 miles, who knows if it had been overheated. I know it came with some vague paperwork about a head gasket, but that was probably a bandaid for a slipping liner.

It's funny, I hear about people replacing engines all the time on this board, nobody bitches about it on those cars, but because Rover has a "reputation" they pile all over it. Simply put, do the proper maintenance, don't abuse it, and it should run for a very long time. I did have to replace the O2 sensors and an ABS sensor (I did both to be sure) but that could happen to any car or truck. Other than those two and a couple of blown lamps, not a single electrical glitch has plagued me.

I’ve always been interested in Discos because they’re relatively small SUVs that have surprisingly high tow ratings. And they’re more stylish than your Suburban, Expedition, or whatever.

But, with such a short wheelbase, relatively long rear overhang, and famously squishy suspension ... I just don’t see how they could be a safe tow vehicle at highway speeds. 

it has a 100 inch wheel base which is not too bad, with an aluminum body on a heavy steel frame. All the weight is down low with very little outside of the wheels. Most Discos (at least most of the SE and HSE) came with air bags on the rear, my SE did not and was perfectly controlled bringing my 3200 pound boat back from Lake Champlain on a heavy trailer with inop brakes.

While I never did any emergency maneuvers while towing it, it never played wag the dog either.

And just remember for a "Small" SUV, they are surprisingly heavy, closing in on 2.5 tons. All that weight is down low and they have great gearing and equally good brakes

My cousin had one. Having driven it a couple of times, they are wonderful on and off road. However, as was mentioned, I recall it being a reliability nightmare. But she wasn't a car gal, so I often assumed those issues were secondary to preventative maintenance. My recent take on these is that they are great project cars and perfect if you want to do some off roading here and there and just have something cool to drive on nice days. I don't think I'd DD one though as my exclusive vehicle. 

LanEvo: yeah, this was my suspicion, too, but I towed a couple open trailers with HEAVY lawn equipment and it didn't seem to miss a beat. Maybe it wasn't heavy enough for the limits of the vehicle, I dunno. 

Like all vehicles, they have weaknesses. Remember, they are trusted enough by some people to be used in Africa and South America. You just need to know the problem areas and prepare. As RR classics keep going up, these will become collectable. Just remember that a beater is 500 and a minter is 2500 and it will take a lot more than 2k to turn a beater into a minter.

In reply to markwemple :

The British might still have an empire if they’d used Jeeps.  

In reply to Wally :

LOL. Reliability and Jeep? You're kidding right? Right up there with Harley Davidson. Chrysler and HD are the antithesis or reliable.

penultimeta said:

My recent take on these is that they are great project cars and perfect if you want to do some off roading here and there and just have something cool to drive on nice days. I don't think I'd DD one though as my exclusive vehicle. 

 

I dd mine. Aside from it's mighty thirst, it's not missed a beat. The only place I won't take her is over 70mph, the miles per gallon drop to single digits at around 72ish. Thing to remember, mine was 5 grand disco,  she was very clean and low miliage

I look at mine like a $1500 4-wheeler with leather seats...and A/C...and a berkeleying DVD player! (Recently discovered.) 

A reliable DD? Probably not. But man, it’s fun in the mud! 

mad_machine said:

grover said:

They can be great, but they require work.  I know several guys who spent some money on the front end to make one more reliable and they seem to hold to that.  A lot of folks will Pin the sleeves to make sure they don't slip, and some vendors who sell donor motors will install cap sleeves.  That seems to be the major issue.  I think that a lot of it is that Land Rover owners of the era weren't in to maintenance and those motors need to be maintained.  I say go for it, they can be great rigs.  

that about sums it up. It's a semi-modern vehicle that still requires older fashioned maintenance. People expect honda reliability from everything these days and that is something LR could not deliver until fairly recently (if they even can). The problem with engines on these trucks is that they do NOT tolerate being overheated... not even once. The liners, unless pinned or "tophatted" will slip. The replacement engine I have in mine has tophatted liners. They will never slip again. Because I bought mine at 80,000 miles, who knows if it had been overheated. I know it came with some vague paperwork about a head gasket, but that was probably a bandaid for a slipping liner.

It's funny, I hear about people replacing engines all the time on this board, nobody bitches about it on those cars, but because Rover has a "reputation" they pile all over it. Simply put, do the proper maintenance, don't abuse it, and it should run for a very long time. I did have to replace the O2 sensors and an ABS sensor (I did both to be sure) but that could happen to any car or truck. Other than those two and a couple of blown lamps, not a single electrical glitch has plagued me.

Iirc your engine replacement story didn’t sound that simple at the time.  Sounded like it was a nightmare between the issues with replacement engine,  the mechanic,  etc.  Plus,  didn’t it end up being 12k or so?