Best Disco in town?

[skoda_norman]

^ Looks good! Cracking cars D2s. With a galvanised chassis its probably the vehicle I'd choose if I could only have one car for ever more to do everything. 

[andy18s]

My Disco 300 is a 3.9 v8.

98 on a T reg it has minimal rust that's been sorted in the rear door shuts and the inner wings have a smattering about them.

Run on lpg which has to have top quality ignition parts, which aren't too expensive once you remember there's 8 of everything

2 undersill tanks give me 145 miles whilst keeping the std fuel tank.I am looking into fitting the d2 set up to get another 80ltr of gas

Both sunroofs are sealed to stop leaks

Bring an auto it's not a rocket ship and anything over 70 gets a bit wandery but it's a good drive

[twosmoke300]

So why comment on a Discovery thread?

Well , that's me told eh !!

 

Thought people might appreciate a balanced view of what is a very capable but deeply flawed machine. We have had lr products in our family since before i was born but in the last 5 years we have had a terrano commercial and it needs soo much less upkeep . it works hard for a living too.

One of the company's I do fleet work for runs 10 or so hiluxs and they are driven to destruction but still last about 200k before they are exported . they had one disco and it didn't make 80k !

 

Discos are much cheaper used but it's for a good reason .

[dollywobbler]

Terranos and Mavericks are ace, but they don't have the character nor comfort. I'm eyeing up Patrols as a better alternative, though they do like a drink! 4.2-litre non-turbo six pot FTW.

[John F]

twosmoke300, on 17 Dec 2014 - 06:55 AM, said:

Well , that's me told eh !!

 

Thought people might appreciate a balanced view of what is a very capable but deeply flawed machine. .

 

People have been getting a balanced view from the rest of us... we've hardly pulled our punches about what faults to expect from the various Discoverys.

 

Seriously mate - I don't like French cars, but I don't add comments like "Pah, I don't like Citroens / Peugeots / Renaults, buy something else instead" on French car threads. Each to their own, eh?.

[Largactil]

BiL & sister own a Disco 3, and it's been surprisingly good over the past 3 years.

 

That said, he has had to attack a few of the usual issues;

 

Rear suspension arms get FUBAR'd, and the angle grinder of doom is required to cut the old ones off to replace them. (Think they were £250 a side too).

 

Brake lines are routed between the chassis & body, so in theory you'd need to remove the body to replace them (and they do like to rot) - They can be re-routed, though.

 

Belts can be a bit of a pig to get at - Especially the rear one, but it's not timed, so you can cut the old one off and easily* slip a new one on. (Think this belt is timed on the D4, and is even more of a pig, as if it fails, the fuel pump dies).

 

Trim seems pretty hard wearing, but the steering wheel goes wrinkly as an elephant's nutsack, so he swapped his one out.

 

Other than tyres & diesel it's been fine otherwise - It's quite a handsome thing, and very capable.  

 

Not quite in AS territory just yet, but he reckons his is worth around £8k ish, with 100k on the clock on a '55' / '06' plate (can't remember which). 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Between me and my family ( dad and 3 brothers) we've had about 15 Discoveries ranging from a 1989 V8 3 door to a 54 plate TD5 HSE. Currently we're down to two; a95 300tdi which my dad abuses with a 20 ' farm trailer usually overloaded with building material between Milton Keynes and Brittany every couple of months, this never goes wrong,but he does have it serviced every 6 months by a specialist that normally costs £500 a go.

The other one is an early TD5 that has done the rounds of all of us at some point. It's had a few problems with belt pulleys and water pumps, the air suspension was scrapped a couple of years ago and it had a 3" lift,so it drives like a bag of shit,but it's not rusty and even at 250,000 miles it still pulls like a train.

 

So what have the other 3 Disco fans currently defected to?

Ones got a SWB Patrol, one uses a W124 280TE as a van/ tow wagon and I bought Mrs N a Gaylander 2. It's an a 07 HSE with everything on it ,for the same money I could have got a Disco 3 of about the same age,albeit lower spec, but I bottled it! The horror stories about Disco 3's put even me off. If it was for me to use I'd probably have risked it,but the shit ( and threats to buy a brand new Prius) I'd get off Mrs N every time it stranded her on the way to a meeting isn't worth it. As it is the baby plastic LR is great, the only problems have been random central locking and stereo faults that cure themselves, guess which parts it shares with the Disco 3 ?