Changing my disco to dse rangie ???

Hi there
this will be my fifth landrover and having been a avid disco owner (on the third)Its time to up upgrade to a dse rangie. its been twenty years since i owned a 3.9 v8 range R.
now with fuel costs and being a oil burner fan dse is what i was considering.
My question is really any guidlines suggestions re which one/ what year/ faults / etc
there are many £2000/3000 1997/1999 about with 80/100000 miles on
.All my discos have done 200000 miles and as you are all aware you never stop spending on them (its Love I think)
Any advice will be welcome

In general late 99 (as in 99MY) on have less electrical gremlins and better spec than the earlier years.

The biggest/ most expensive issue with the BMW engine is overheating leading to a cracked head. If you have access to a a sniff tester bring it along but if there is any evidence of gunk inside the expansion bottle its either had a head done or is going to need it soon.
The P38 is a good bit heavier than Disco/RRC so the standard engine is a bit underpowered particularily in auto box (Its actually a bit scary how slow the take off is when cold). Chipping cures most of the power problem and brings the benefit of better fuel economy. I've averaged around 24.5mpg (real calculated value, not the readout) with a big mix of off road and road for the last 16,000 miles.
In general the BMW engine is not as torquey as the 4 and 5 pots fitted to the disco but its such a lovely engine that revs are not a problem and it is much quieter. Bar the overheating it is a very reliable engine.

There is an almost universal problem with hot starting. They're great to start when cold but once you cross 70,000miles they start getting worse when hot. There is as of yet no definitive reason (the main suspicion being wear within the fuel pump) for this but there are various fixes available - one appears to be the use of some veg oil mixed with the diesel which increase the viscosity. BTW they are reputed (at least bosch pump one) to be entirely compatible with running significant percentage of veg oil without any mods.

Moving away for the diesel variants, the air suspension either floats your boat or you're better off without (I love it and couldn't bear the thought of removing it but each to their own).
There are issues with the Hvac leaking and the blend flaps giving up the ghost.

Battery drain caused by the remote c/l reciever is another common problem.

All in all the problems are incredibly well documented here and on other RR forums so there is loads of support.

Best of luck, you couldn't be buying at a better time so don't settle for anything less than a fully loaded DSE with 80k on the clock and FSH.

It seems that there are a few problems that seem to worry me!!!
1. if its the bmw engine head gasket what sort of cost to fix on a foriegn engine.2. these power drains on the remote sensor. where is it? on the car . ai have experienced the replacement of the air con switch on my last disco whole dash out nightmare of a job!!
3.I would replace the air susp. with road springs anyway 9that sorts the sensor problems) any ideas which ones,
4. in doing so will the dash light or management system play up or there a fix kit Etc?

Sorry GUYS
(Its a ten year old £50.000 car) am I doing the right thing .
Regards paul

paul vp uk said:

It seems that there are a few problems that seem to worry me!!!
1. if its the bmw engine head gasket what sort of cost to fix on a foriegn engine.2. these power drains on the remote sensor. where is it? on the car . ai have experienced the replacement of the air con switch on my last disco whole dash out nightmare of a job!!
3.I would replace the air susp. with road springs anyway 9that sorts the sensor problems) any ideas which ones,
4. in doing so will the dash light or management system play up or there a fix kit Etc?

Sorry GUYS
(Its a ten year old £50.000 car) am I doing the right thing .
Regards paul

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Don't buy one with any hint of overheating, as you rarely get away with a simple head gasket replacement - it usually means a new head. Otherwise, the parts aren't particularly expensive as there are plenty of independant BMW specialists out there.

The remote receiver is at the back under the rear right side window. The new one costs about 150 GBP but it does sort the problem. That said, on mine, I just cut the aerial wire coming out of the box, and now I don't get the battery drain problem although I do have to walk closer to the car to unlock it.

Don't replace the air suspension, it's not that fragile and you will really have lost something. Certainly if you are prepared to replace with coils, you will have a budget to spend on maintaining the EAS.

You are right that you are buying a ten year old luxury car, so buy the best you can with a proper service history and you should be OK. There are loads out there at present. The horror stories are the 150K plus fourth or fifth hand examples that have only been owned for a year or so by the last few owners and not properly looked after.

Cheers


Andrew

If you buy a high mileage older car then you are taking more of a chance than a late model low mileage one or two owner one, kinda obvious really, I would go for the best you can afford as it will probably be cheaper in the long run. If you only have 2 or 3 grand to spend then I would buy something else to be honest as you will be lucky to find a good one at that money (you may well be lucky of course!)

looking at my budget perhps its better to spend the money on my disco.
My girl thinks it suiside to buy a complex r/rover i perhaps am starting to agree.
common sence kicking in . having the welding done on my disco next week so we shall see.
will be sorry not to upgrage though but budget prevents it ,

Hi Paul.
Having just recently lost my p38 i was left with my stage 1 109 V8 and have enjoyed lots of trouble free mioles and anything that broke was not a computer. Pretty much everything went wrong with my 38 from new engine to every fault with the eas, g/box and the £400+ alternator. I loved it dearle. I have had some trouble with the classic and would suggest the you don't buy one unless you can spend some more money, as when they start going wrong they realley do and mine convinced me even though i had the money not to buy another.

Your Discovery is a much more practical car.

Cheers, Nick.

Paul,
If you are going to do it now is a great time as prices have taken a big hit, even on the well sorted low mileage ones but I'm sure that when people start to realise just how far reaching the hike in the cost of your tax disc is then it will bring down the cost of newer cars and help some of the older ones hold value, the cut off date of March 2001 means anything older doesn't come into the graduated rate according to emissions and is currently £185 and although this will rise it wont be by as much as the newer ones.
If you are interested in a good low mileage example I may be tempted to sell mine, its a Dec 2000 (01 facelift model) with one previous owner and FSH and 77k miles but it ain't going to be 2 or 3 grand that's for certain! But, if you want a proper car with all the niggles sorted then it could be worth thinking about, I'm in Somerset if you want to take a look!