Opinions on Land Rover Discovery please.

Rhandir

Rhandir

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My beloved Shogun has died so I'm looking to replace it. I am however slightly drawn towards the Land Rover Discovery but know very little about them.

I would be interested to hear from fellow HHO's on the topics of fuel consumption, both normal and towing. Common faults and things to look for when viewing a second hand vehicle. Reliability and likely trouble spots.
 
i have a s reg manual diesel 300 tdi with 139,000 miles on the clos. I have owned her for nearly 4 years and she has always been reliable. She is getting to the age where things are needing to be replaced due to natural wear and tear.

I get 30 mpg in normal day to day and that drops to about 25mpg towing. Tows a IW 505 with two horses with ease, although you do know that you have got them.

you need to check for rot underneath about 6 inches from the sill as there is a L shaped bar where rot usually starts, and the back door hinges can drop. You also can find that you may have to reseal the windscreen at somepoint.

Others on here may be able to point out other issues, however those are the only things that I can think of/ had.
 
Make sure the boot floor has been replaced on the older models as this is a notorious 'expensive rust job'. also make sure that new floor is properly welded on and NOT rivetted as this is an MOT failure (can you guess we got caught this way).

We loved our 200TDI and only sold it because of said boot issue with the rivetting which, with a baby on the way and not being able to weld ourselves, we couldn't afford to have fixed.
 
I have a landrover disc series 2, hate it, underpowered water butt!! expencive to run and keep on the road, used to own Isuzu which was by far better, I would advise you to look towards the Jap made cars, or a defender
 
We have an P reg 300tdi. Bought it second hand last November for £1500 with full mot and 6 months tax.

Things to check:

boot floor
sills
rear seatbelt mounts for rust
general rust

We got a great deal as we have known the garage for a long time. We've had issues with the lights/electrics, but the great thing about the discos is that parts are mega cheap and you can fix lots of stuff yourself if you're that way inclinced and have a Haynes manual.

Love ours, it came into it's own during the snow. We prob get about 28mpg, and 26/7ish when towing. It doesn't feel a trailer on the back at all.

Have a look on the landrover forums, lots of advice on there....however, OH says if you're coming from a Shogun, you'll prob not like the disco.
 
I have a M reg Disco that has done 230k miles
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a lot of which have been racked up chugging up and down the motorway with the trailer on. I have never found it to be particularly bad on fuel consumption and I have yet to have any rust problems. Parts are easy to get hold of too. Can't compare it with a Shogun but I love my Disco and will be very
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when it eventually dies.
 
I had a Pajero (import version of Shogun) and swapped it for a Discovery - then swapped back as I didn't like the Discovery towing, I found it underpowered and 'wallowy' compared to the pajero and hated towing with it. I think I would have been ok except that I was used to the Pajero which never moves towing and has so much more power. Loads of people swear by Discoverys though, so it may just be me!
 
Great for towing but very expensive to maintain. My friend's R reg just cost £1500 to get through the MOT, mainly due to rust underneath. i wouldn't touch them again having had my own a few years back.
 
I haven't had much experience towing with it yet but so far the little bit I have done I couldn't even notice the trailer it was really effortless! I think you have to look out for rust as everyone else has said, we are lucky to have a friend who is a LR mechanic so he has fixed any probs we have had and there haven't been any major ones just the welding. It is an M-reg done 141,000 miles, am pleased to see someone above has an M-reg that has done 230k!!! Good old landys! For me insurance on the jap cars has been huge so I went for the Disco.
 
I have a 3.9 s reg that is automatic petrol converted to gas. I tow the large richardson trailer with a 17.2hh and 15.3hh in it and don't have any problems with it. I love my discovery and will definitely have another one
 
We're now on our 5th Disco in 15 years (OH and I each had one for a few years until his retirement meant we could replace one with a less greedy runabout!). It hardly needs to be said we think they're great cars, although reliability has varied. The current one, a Disco3 TD6, is by far the best for towing and general unflappability when in a tricky situation, but it's the thirstiest, and has the most electronic gizmos to go wrong.

I tend to get 25mpg towing and 30mpg in normal conditions.

With older models we found the weak areas to be rust on the wings and sills, the fuel pump, the rear door handles and locks and the air conditioning. And the day we replaced our TD5 with the current one, the window motors packed in ...

Forgot to say, I tow an Equitrek Showtreka with (usually) one 15.3 Arab and a load of water and other heavy gear with no problems.
 
Bit late, I'm not sure if you will see this! I've got an Ifor 510 and found it to be worse with 2 chunky 16hh horses, but still felt the 'wallowing' with just my 16hh chunky girl.
 
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