feraldisco
24th June 2007, 04:48 PM
Hi - having just purchased a 99 Td5 Disco, despite being made well aware of some of their inherent and surprisingly common engine problems, I'm wondering two things:
. Graeme Cooper reckons it's too early to say whether later model Td5s are more reliable than earlier model ones - however, another way of looking at this is whether or not there were significant changes made to the motor over its model run - if not, then there's no reason why reliability should have improved.
. Secondly, given that I've taken the plunge on a 99 model due to it being in great nick at a good price, I'm wondering what some of the pre-emptive maintenance should be to reduce the chances of a breakdown in the middle of nowhere. My main concern is with the motor as the R380 is apparently reasonably trouble free, and I've got the most basic suspension set-up of coils. So far, possible key maintenance issues ascertained from this forum are:
. maintain cooling system religiously, airflow, synthetic oil etc to reduce overheating possibility with associated melting of plastic locating dowels/head gasket blowing/head warping etc. As part of this, I think I'll be fitting a water level sensor and oil pressure gauge.
. loctite oil pump bolt.
. work out some way to stop oil spreading through wiring loom - coat it in silicon?
.fuel pump - presumably not much you can do apart from ensure good fuel (Shell), use additive and change filters regularly, but still not foolproof if the fuel pumps are an inherently inferior product.
Anything else?
Why do we do it to ourselves...I guess because there's nothing else that's as nice to drive on or off road...
. Graeme Cooper reckons it's too early to say whether later model Td5s are more reliable than earlier model ones - however, another way of looking at this is whether or not there were significant changes made to the motor over its model run - if not, then there's no reason why reliability should have improved.
. Secondly, given that I've taken the plunge on a 99 model due to it being in great nick at a good price, I'm wondering what some of the pre-emptive maintenance should be to reduce the chances of a breakdown in the middle of nowhere. My main concern is with the motor as the R380 is apparently reasonably trouble free, and I've got the most basic suspension set-up of coils. So far, possible key maintenance issues ascertained from this forum are:
. maintain cooling system religiously, airflow, synthetic oil etc to reduce overheating possibility with associated melting of plastic locating dowels/head gasket blowing/head warping etc. As part of this, I think I'll be fitting a water level sensor and oil pressure gauge.
. loctite oil pump bolt.
. work out some way to stop oil spreading through wiring loom - coat it in silicon?
.fuel pump - presumably not much you can do apart from ensure good fuel (Shell), use additive and change filters regularly, but still not foolproof if the fuel pumps are an inherently inferior product.
Anything else?
Why do we do it to ourselves...I guess because there's nothing else that's as nice to drive on or off road...