V8 or TDV6 Which one is lasting best?

[TerryO]

A question for D3 owners past and present.

As some D3's are now over 5 years old and quite a few have well over 200 k's on the clock I thought I would ask the question of how these older vehicles are ageing and whether the V8 or the TDV6 is proving to be more problematic and which one is costing more to keep on the road?

I am now starting to look around for a D3 and no matter what I buy if it is a early one and has average k's on the clock within a year or two it will be a 200 k car.

Are there any other major issues that are popping up on a regular basis with a 200 k D3 that are scary?


cheers,
Terry

[Bushwanderer]

Hi Terry,
Unfortunately, petrol variants (V6 & V8) are relatively uncommon, and so statistical impressions (if there is such a thing) is limited.

On the other hand, I don't think that 200k km is a problem for any of them, provided that they have been properly maintained.

Best Wishes,
Peter

[Disco4SE]

Hi Terry,
I met a bloke a few months ago that had covered 350K in his D3 TDV6 prior to trading up to a D4.
Claims that he had no problems at all, just normal wear & tear bits.
He did make sure that he never missed a scheduled service.
Cheers, Craig

[RR P38]

It seems that the D3 is a seriously abused vehicle going on my recent inspections of TDV6 vehicles.
One i looked at had no coolant in the expansion bottle at all, and had no service records for 75000k all discs where completely shot tires gone.
On an 07 model with 144k on it i walked out of the car yard real fast $39k was the asking price.
Another i looked at was pretty much a write of on the interior side of things and the owner admitted to having cooked the engine.
Others where in generally poor condition all round.
Have heard from more than one private owner that the gear boxes are only good for 150k. $7k for a new one, ouch.
Why are people so hard on these things?
I will keep looking in the new year.

[ozscott]

Aren't these boxes sealed for 'life' (where life means 3 years...). I would be making sure, like with the Rangie current shape, that such boxes are opened and serviced as any auto should especially if towing. Because there are a lot of shiny pants buying LR3/4 and Rover is no longer such a mix of enthusiast and shiny pants most that you will see might lack drivers with...vehicle empathy....

Cheers

PS. I am a shiny pants, but a rare one who looks after their trucks obsessively. Now the vast maj of people of this site are here as enthusiasts, but Disco has become a real torak tractor with the new shape, whereas the RR was the only choice for that with D2 and even more so with D1.

[Neil P]

........early one and has average k's on the clock within a year or two it will be a 200 k car. ....

I think k200km is high for 5 years. I wouldn't touch a
4x4 vehicle at k125 miles in the old money.That's well worn out.
You can get examples with half of that . Mine has 36k at 37months .

[Neil P]

Why are people so hard on these things?


Alot of these are leased and users don't give a stuff , plus they drive
'em like V6 cars . A leased car is often treated like a rented house or a
cheap whore ..............

[Disco4SE]

Here is my theory for what its worth.
A leased car can be driven harder than if it were owned, however it is usually serviced regularly as per the book.
A high Klm vehicle engine can be in better condition than a low Klm one.
The high Klm one is usally driven daily for longer distances, whereas the low Klm one is often not driven every day and for shorter distances, normally around town etc. Just think about how many Klm's a Taxi's engine lasts compared to the average vehicle.
I usually travel around 40K per year and have sold my vehicles privately with high Klm's for their age......and always fetched good money for them.
I have learned that although a lower Klm vehicle appears more attractive to most, a well maintained high Klm vehicle will always fetch good money.
Cheers, Craig

[SuperMono]

I haven't owned my approx 200K TDV6 long enough to comment in detail as to significant issues (as I haven't had any).

When looking around I found a number of D3s with no service history and higher than average kms. Some appeared to have been looked after well, others didn't.
I stopped looking at the V8s when I decided to find a lower spec S/SE as most were HSEs. Never looked at a V8 over about 100K but they were bone dry (of oil) underneath and couldn't see 200K+ being a problem generally.
My TDV6 has been a high km rural highway use vehicle with a traceable service history. Checking with a few LR service staff (dealer and independant) the story appears to be 300-400K on the TDV6 shouldn't give you much grief subject to decent service and care. Highest KM I have heard of is above 450K with nothing other than regular servicing and still on the original transmission.

[TerryO]

I think k200km is high for 5 years. I wouldn't touch a
4x4 vehicle at k125 miles in the old money.That's well worn out.
You can get examples with half of that . Mine has 36k at 37months .


Some confusion here, I didn't say I was going to buy a 200 k car. I said if I buy an average kilometre one now within a couple of years it would have 200k on the clock.

As there are plenty of D3's around now with 200 k's I was wondering what issues I might be facing when they get to these kind of K's.

I'm guessing that a high Kilometre V8 would have less issues then the diesel as they get older and if and when needed a V8 would be cheaper to rebuild.

Anyone have any experience with a TDV6 needing to be rebuilt? Or a 4.4?

cheers,
Terry

[Graeme]

Mine has 36k at 37months .
Mine has 36K at less than 12 months and I suspect it has less wear.

[big guy]

Log book maintenance costs big money and cost cutting has hit most of us.
The family/work car has been hit by that and often the buying of a luxury vehicle that is 5 years old costs to keep on the road. Just look at the P38's.
They were $100k when new and although a bargain buy now, they can cost a bomb to keep as the manufacturer intended.

Not sure exactly how a leased car is so different to others.
A lease is much like a loan except there is usually a ballon to be paid out at the end and many people do trade them in after their lease is up, that is correct but like a loan, you don't own it till its paid fully out.
A badly serviced leased vehicle will attract less at trade in time than a well serviced vehicle, sometimes even less than the payout.

Best advise I figure is patience and get any potential new car fully checked and have some $$ spare in a slush fund should something go wrong.

Merry xmas.

[TerryO]

Thanks Big Guy,

right now I'm really just on a fact finding mission about how the 4.4 V8 and the TDV6 are ageing and holding together as the K's get up there over the 200k mark. Is the V8 more reliable then the diesel or vice a versa?

I just want to try and find out what is blowing up or failing and what is not.

cheers,
Terry

[CaverD3]

There is someone in the D3 UK site with 377,000 miles on his TDV6 and he tows a car trailer for a living. :o

[sniegy]

The difference in finding info is going to be hard as the numbers of vehicles sold in comparison to each other are vastly different.
TDV6 takes mostly 90% of the market, Then the V8 with the remaining 10%.
This is not including the V6 Petrol as the figures would change again.

We have at 4 V8 customers at work, that i know personally that have over 200K on the speedo. Full service history & the vehicle has been faultless apart from the common ones.

Again you will probably hear more about the TDV6 being problematic only due to the numbers on the road.

Again more customers with big K's on the vehicle & i know of 1 customer who runs a business with his D3 as a tourer & has had the common issues fixed with his vehicle.

Both vehicle have similar issues & them being the 3 most common :- Ball joints, Steering Rack, EAS comp.

As said spend a little time & get the vehicle checked over. I have seen some shockers come to us with no service history, & boy some of the niggling problems. One small fault can lead to an array of messages.

Good luck, I do like the as i had one a few Easters ago & it was great, nice power, fuel economy was very acceptable for a vehicle of its size, but realy wanted the Diesel.

Cheers.;)

[101RRS]

Both vehicle have similar issues & them being the 3 most common :- Ball joints, Steering Rack, EAS comp.



I assume ball joints just wear earlier than expected - what sort of Km.

Is it the same with the steering rack - is this in fact cause by the ball joints wearing out? Is the rack rebuildable or a throw away item?

I already know about the EAS Comp - I understand it is the exhaust valve that fails so it does not provide pressure but the pump itself basically Ok - I understand some parts are available - is the pump better replaced with an aftermarket one?

Garry

[Disco44]

There is someone in the D3 UK site with 377,000 miles on his TDV6 and he tows a car trailer for a living. :o

Crikey How would you put that many miles up in the UK.When I lived over there in Runcorn if I did the equivalent of Brisbane to Perth ( just under 5000K's Not Miles) I would have ended up in Egypt.

[CaverD3]

He tows things from one end of the UK to the other for living.

[big guy]

Crikey How would you put that many miles up in the UK.When I lived over there in Runcorn if I did the equivalent of Brisbane to Perth ( just under 5000K's Not Miles) I would have ended up in Egypt.

Egypt be a max of 15k km's.
It be 10 trips around the world actually.:D

[Mike_S]

ex-work colleague of mine moved out to Melbourne in June and had his 3 year old D3 TDV6 HSE shipped out from the UK with him. When it left here, it already had 95k miles on the clock and he only shipped because it had been reliable. He'd had a couple of EGR valves replaced and 3 sets of balljoints / bushes, other than that it was just standard service items. He did say he'd made sure the service intervals were stuck to as it was the first new car he'd bought so he wanted to look after it and, to be fair, we do a hell of a lot of miles in our jobs so we need them to stay reliable.

My RRS has had a few balljoints / bushes. The last set of front arb bushes were fitted when I bought it a year / 30k miles ago and they're knocking again so need doing. I had the LR dealer check the front end 2 days ago and the balljoints were all fine so they've done 40k miles. I'm told brakes can go in remarkably short time but again, I'm up to 30k miles on both front & rear pads albeit it's definitely due a set over christmas, they're pretty low.

Mechanically these cars seem fairly tough *if* they're looked after. Like anything though if you don't maintain them, then they go wrong.

Dunno why this has a thumb down smiley either, I don't think I pressed anything !!

[TerryO]

Thanks Mike, this is the sort of info I was chasing.

It sounds like the D3 has a few weaknesses, like ball joints etc but nothing compared to D2's.

I believe they didn't sell the V8 in the UK so I'm guessing I can only get feedback from Australian owners. Hopefully there are a few high mileage V8's out there.

cheers,
Terry

[dangermousehouse]

Sorry 'TerryO', this won't be much help to you, but I just wanted to say that I totally agree with the comments made by 'Disco4SE' and disagree with 'Neil P'.

I spent a long time looking at Rangies and was surprised how some people presented them for sale. Worn tyres, panel damage (without mentioning it when discussing the vehicle on the phone), overdue servicing etc etc.

After a lot of advice from friends (some of whom work at LR) I gave up the idea of the Rangie and bought a D3 TDV6 HSE. It is an ex tour vehicle (I think this may be the vehicle 'Sniegy' refers to in his post) and was pretty much the first one we looked at.

It's been exceptionally well maintained and hasn't missed a beat during the trip from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast. (The owner was also a gent).

230,000 kms and it feels and looks new.

The fact that the vehicle was his business meant that anything that needed to be done, was done.

Not sure this would be the case for a private vehicle, given what I'd inspected up until a couple of weeks ago.

Again, sorry 'TerryO', not what you're looking for but I just wanted to say my piece. :)

[Mike_S]

Thanks Mike, this is the sort of info I was chasing.

It sounds like the D3 has a few weaknesses, like ball joints etc but nothing compared to D2's.

I believe they didn't sell the V8 in the UK so I'm guessing I can only get feedback from Australian owners. Hopefully there are a few high mileage V8's out there.

cheers,
Terry

No problem :)

The 4.4 petrol V8 was sold in the UK, but only for about the first 18 months of production through to the end of 2006 I think, (I've certainly seen 06 registered V8's) so there aren't many of them about. Those that are available are generally very cheap when compared to the TDV6, due to the high cost of fuel here. A lot are being converted to run on LPG.

Same went for the RRS, my G4 car is the 4.4 V8 petrol but again, for the UK market that engine was dropped in favour of the supercharged. After 2006 I think it was only you guys and the US that got the 4.4 normally aspirated engine (and now the 5 litre normally aspirated V8).

Even though I'm running my car on LPG, I'm still finding it to be OK in the mechanical department and it's now done 52k miles (bought a year ago with 22k miles on), so barely run in. I'm expecting it to cover at least 150k miles in my hands at a rate of about 30k per year. Like all LR products it has its off days and pops up the EML but that's to do with the LPG conversion, they're really sensitive to it and in general it's accepted that the V8 shouldn't be run on LPG without some modifications to the cylinder heads. I do think though that all these cars are better when they're used, rather than used sparingly. I've heard many a horror story about how unreliable the car has been when it's just used for taking the kids to school or the shopping run. Use them for plenty of miles and they're generally fine is my & my colleagues experience. Matey has an 06 RRS HSE TDV6 that he bought 3 years ago with 20k on the clock, it turned 115k miles last week and has only ever had routine service items (I include the 2 sets of balljoints and ARB bushes as service items :p ). He has however had the 'sealed for life' boxes drained and flushed, as have I. The oil was filthy in them, so I'm pleased I did.

I think Caver's mentioned the D3 website in the UK, it's your best source of information on them to be honest. As ever, read between the lines of the horror stories and you'll find a wealth of information there (and the sister rrsport site) www.disco3.co.uk (http://www.disco3.co.uk)

[TerryO]

Mike,

Thanks again for all the feedback especially about the V8's as I have a bit of a soft spot for V8 petrol engines over rattlers even though I want a D3 for towing a 2.5 caravan, one question are you actually quoting miles or k's in distances travelled?


cheers,
Terry

[Mike_S]

All in miles, so 115k is 115,000 miles (or 184,000 km's)

Never have been one for all this metric km's bollox :p

I tow a caravan with mine, which is about 1.5 tonnes and it doesn't struggle. Fuel economy is 'interesting' though, at 50mph (80km/h) it'll do about 280 miles to a tank of fuel. Push that up to over 65mph (100km/h+) and it's down to 180 miles total range. It's steady as a rock at 65+ though, doesn't struggle at all. I've towed our old boat, which was 2.5 tonnes and it certainly knew it was there !

[ozscott]

All in miles, so 115k is 115,000 miles (or 184,000 km's)

Never have been one for all this metric km's bollox :p

I tow a caravan with mine, which is about 1.5 tonnes and it doesn't struggle. Fuel economy is 'interesting' though, at 50mph (80km/h) it'll do about 280 miles to a tank of fuel. Push that up to over 65mph (100km/h+) and it's down to 180 miles total range. It's steady as a rock at 65+ though, doesn't struggle at all. I've towed our old boat, which was 2.5 tonnes and it certainly knew it was there !

Thats interesting about the weight of the boat and performance (the fuel economy difference given wind resistance at 60mph does not surprise me). My D2 V8 tows a 2 tonn dual axle boat trailer. It does it well, but certainly I know its there and I am working the V8 off the line (on the highway it sails along). But it sounds sweet working...

So the 4.4 bells and whisltes V8 in the D3 sounds like it does about 500kg more than my load before it knows its there...but the 4.4 is massively high tech with ****eloads more power and a fair bit more torque (although perhaps the torque comes in a little peakier...I dont know)...so it must be down to the extra 500kg of weight that the D3 carries - ie you are really asking that 4.4 to carry 1 tonn more than my D2 towing a 2 tonn boat.

Cheers