LandRover Disco 3
 

Anyone on here own or owned one?
I can't make my mind up between a Disco and a Touareg so i'm looking for owners views. Is reliability still an issue for instance?

Nik.

I have a manual 2005 SE D3 (see my gallery)

Love it

Don't buy one without a warranty (warranty direct offer the best 3rd party warranty and can be haggled down from £1300 per annum to £600). Because when they go wrong (and it's usually when not if) they get very expensive very quickly! (2k for a turbo, £600 for a new air suspension pump etc etc).

Driving, they are not as quick as a Toe Rag, at 2.7 tons those 190 horses really get sapped, but once moving they're very smooth and a lovely drive for such a large vehicle.

Remaps are available to take power up to 220bhp and 425lbs of torque.

mpg between 25 and 30 (manual), 22-28 (Auto)

I have a manual (because it became available from a friend and I knew it's history) but the Auto's seam to be more popular. mpg is slightly lower with the auto, but a replacement clutch for the manual D3 is £1k.....

hope that helps

I don't know if it's an issue to you or not, but the Toerags fuel consumption is quite horrendous for a diesel!

I know all about them as my parents have a 2.5TDI Altitude, their's averages 25mpg mainly town driving.

Thanks although a little disappointed that reliability is an issue.

If you didn't already know that land rovers have got major technical problems best you stear clear of them I have yet to meet anyone that has not had major problems with discos, sports, range rovers etc

Ask anyone that has one and they will tell you!

You could say much the same about Touaregs. There's a good reason they are both attractively priced secondhand.

Anything that weighs over 2 tons is going to have reliability issues in my book, weight and use is bound to increase wear and tear and also failures (how often does a pushrod engined ka fail, missus had two of them in a row for years and never missed a beat apart from when she missed a corner, differnet story for a rainy day).
My 4.6IS X5 has a warranty direct warranty and have rescently had to call on it, car was fine through MOT (more stringent than UK mainland) and recently started making "noises" in and out of gear but seems to be coming from the box, car is currently sat at a franchised dealerships getting diagnosed under warranty directs policy.

I fancy a Freelander, but there's a recent survey by a warranty company which puts Land Rover as the worst by far - nearly a 50% annual breakdown rate for 3-6 year old cars. Second worse was 'only' around 36%. Hi repair costs too. Such a shame, as I like their cars (apart from the pretentious RR), but they haven't learnt to build them properly yet.

same story here - The UK’s largest reliability survey looked at over 26,000 new cars, and found the least dependable new car was a 4x4, the Land Rover Discovery 3.

posted this before

An AA man, I met (of 20 years) said he recovers a Land Rover Discovery every shift he has ever worked for since joining the AA

he was Ex Army trained and said the only car he has never recovered is a Toyota Landcruiser - and why when your life depends on it you dont drive RR products

This is why I said get one with a warranty (either LR or Warranty Direct, Both offer wear and tear cover as well as failure, so piece of mind is worth the £50 a month it costs).
The most common faults are the electronic parking break, the EGR valves stick (easy £12 fix), the air suspension compressor and finally the turbo (not as common but do go).

You have to also consider, the Discovery 3 (and now 4) has won large tow car of the year many many times, it's a fantastic piece of kit and I WILL be swapping it for a newer one in a year or so... Everyone who gets in in say how nice it is, with comfortable seats, (heated rears as well as fronts), front and rear A/C, 7 seats if you need them and it's sooo quite on the move (way quieter than the STI) and when it comes down to it, it's a £45k car so build quality is solid.

I took a V10 Tow tag out before getting the D3, and it was a nice place to be I must admit, but the VW's chew tyres apparently?

Yeah, the ecu has a very low tolerance to warnings, with limp home or shut downs rendering the car immobile (or very slow ) with the smallest of faults (sometimes a duff light bulb will trigger the full Christmas lights on the dash with limp home mode the lot).

Saying that I've had mine fir 12 months, and apart from a suspension fault after playing all day in a snow drift (turned out to be a broken wire just behind the chassis mount for the compressor, prob due to packed snow) It's been faultless...

You summed it up well. I've had a Discovery 3 HSE for 6 weeks and love it - intend to keep it long term. But it's much more complicated than nearly all cars and most 4x4s so there is a greater tendency for things to go wrong - and they will. Mine's a 54 plate with 88k and condition wise it's like a 2 year old car with half the mileage. I've seen some advertised with 165k and they still look good. They are built like a car and a half in every way and they will last well. Go for the automatic and buy on condition/history, not mileage.

yes -- that's is what he said, most of the time a simple "computer says no"-- in the majority of cases a recovery to a dealership so that the car can be rebooted

I love LR products btw - had a RR for 10 years, and think the Disco 3 looks fantatstic (and bet it drives really really well too)

You can now buy a faultmate for £500 that reads and re-sets the ecu fault codes...

It also unlocks all the HSE goodies on the display, so off road nav, 4x4 info screen etc etc..something the Dealer cannot do.

Agree 100%

Mine's an 05 with 47k and basically feels like a new car.

Drives superbly

I've got 20" Range Rover Sport alloys on mine with 295 grabbers and it sticks to the road.

The do have a presence I must admit... I love mine, whenever we go out as a family the D3 always gets used, nice and tall with loads of space for the kids stuff, plus luxury for the adults.

Please don't take this personally, but am i missing something here, you say what a wonderful car the LR is, yet you advise people to buy a £600 warranty because you don't really trust it's reliability, and another £500 to buy a code reader so you can reset all the fault codes that appear on a regular basis. :cuckoo:

Just buy a Landcruiser and have done with it. :thumb:

i take it your on about the old model freelander? the new one is the best performing suv out there, fact

I love the Disco 3/4 too. It drives remarkably well considering its weight and is the best packaged car of its type.

BUT.....a warranty doesn't stop you breaking down. If you are transporting your family around the warranty may cover the cost of repairs but doesn't do anything about being stranded at the side of a motorway with young kids on board or having your holiday ruined.
Friends of ours got rid of their Range Rover swearing they wouldn't touch another Land Rover product but have subsequently gone back to the new one after a few years with a Cayenne.
It's a remarkable achievment to sell such a troublesome product with such poor dealer support and still get repeat business! There must be something right with the cars and/or the "brand image".

Why do you want a LR? is it for off roading? if it is then there is nothing better out there than you can also use for popping the shops in complete luxury as well as plugging through deep mud and over rocks.

Toyotas are good yes, but they still have there issues, the difference is the toyota network is better at sorting them out

The reliability of some D3s takes nothing away from the fact it's still a great car.
Ferrari's are inherently unreliable.... still a great car..and if I owned one, and someone asked about owning one, I'd say the same, great car but get a good warranty
Ref the Faultmate: I said it in response to Hodgy's comment about most LR recovery's being the old ecu limp mode's "over-reaction" to minor faults.

Mine's never had a fault like this and I do not own a faultmate either ;)

PS No offence taken...
oh and I hope no offence is also taken if i decline your Landcruiser offer ;)..I'd rather be seen in a Kia :D

Don't mention Kia's to me, my missus is seriously considering buying a Sorento, but i'm doing my best to talk her out of it! :)

yes the sante fe is much nicer haha

Don't forget that Warranty Direct (who are DREADFUL IMO) type "warranties" are actually just insurance. You pay a big excess when you claim.

Add that excess to the annual cost and you are often looking at north of £700 if something goes wrong. Had the same dilemma on my 335d (warranty nearly £500, excess £250) and decided to just keep it meticulously well serviced/cared for and if something does go, I'll just pay for it.

I really can't stand insured warranties - a way of fleecing those who can only just afford the car they have bought. If you buy an LR products, you need £5k in the bank, just in case.

We considered "riding bareback" ;):D

But in the end I'd rather insure myself and pay W/D my annual £600 then any excess of £200 than possibly having to fork out £2k+ to the local LR stealer...
My local dealer charges £165+VAT an hour now, with the initial fault diagnostic time immediately added to the final bill, so as soon as you get there you know you're leaving at least £165+VAT worse off. (charged at a minimum of an hour). That's pretty much the excess used up in one go.

With the insurance you also know that all work will be carried out at a franchised dealer, rather than searching out a cheaper independent who might not use LR parts.

They are not cheap to run...Still love it though :D

So should the Disco be okay, you will be £1200 worse off over two years.
Should you claim once, you'll be shelling out £1400 in two years.

Ouch.

it's the same as you insuring yourself fully comp though... you don;t need to, but if the worse happens you get something back for your outlay.

Fully comp insurance is a bit different though - it's not much more than 3rd party only, which is a legal requirement, yet it covers the value of the whole car. There's also convenience - if you car gets wrecked, you get a courtesy car, legals costs covered, etc.

With a WD "warranty" you get treated like a criminal, they drag their feet so any claim takes forever to process, they only pay half the going labour rate, they use the cheapest parts they can get and their service is utterly tragic - I used them for a year on the Astra - never again. Manufacturers ones are better but clearly a lot more expensive.

IMO of you run a pricey car, you need to have some cash available to repair it if needed. Then if you don't need to (I suspect Scooby L that you really look after the Disco?) you save a wad.

The loaded people I know get the bare minimum of insurance for everything and are even more quids in because of it.