A little reassurance

martynv8 said:

Maybe manuals but autos don't cope well.

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StuckAgainSteve said:

V8 aren't that long-lived by modern standards due to the removal of zinc from oil giving the cam lobes and tappets a hard time but they can be reliable, the diesel is underpowered. The 4.6 transmission is up to the job and last well, later four pin diffs aren't bad and last pretty well if you keep on top of oil changes.

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Datatek said:

Oh come on, there are millions of engine running quite happily on Zinc free oil with no cam wear problems.

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StuckAgainSteve said:

There are, but the Rover V8 is hard on its tappets and cam lobes for some reason - I'm not saying it's a great design but when it was designed in the 1950s there was plenty of zinc in the oil. I had plenty of experience of 200,000 mile+ Rover V8s in the 80s with no cam issues - ring wear used to be the issue along with oil pressure problems caused by sludge - this cam problem seems to have appeared with vengeance since the early 90s when catalysts became mandatory and zinc was simultaneously removed or massively reduced in oil.

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Datatek said:

So LR should have changed the cam spec to suit but were too short of cash or just couldn't be bothered.

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