Thread: Doom and Gloom for Disco owners

I bought a 96 Disco 14months ago to replace our VW Polo( the most solid well built car we have ever owned) and read all the doom and gloom and put up with my brother-in-law who works as a car wholesailer,anyway I got one,sent it to Triggs at toronto and told them to go to town on it.$1500 dollars later not a leak bump or knock,everything works and it drives and looks spot on.My better half would not part with it.It has been mentioned before that most knockers have never driven,yet owned one. Pat

Originally Posted by Rayngie

go onto www.patrol4x4.com, have a look at the problems they have, no different to any other vehicles, i'm looking at buying a new Subaru Outback, so found a forum on them, it's all the same, all sorts of problems etc, it's in no way Landrover specific,pick any model car, you are bound to find a forum with a load of issues about them...

I went and had a look at patrol4x4.com out of curiosity ...

Interestingly i noticed that there is no "Technical Subject Thread" which every car forum ive ever been a member of always has... anyway a quick look and i noticed "4.2ltr overheating issues"

It appears that the 4.2ltr TD overheats ...

Some interesting quotes-

I have a 2005 Patrol 4.2ltr which now has 48k on the clock. The reason i purchased the larger engine capacity was to two our full size 22ft caravan. Our first big trip with the new rig was a trip from Pth to Townsville return over last xmas. Whilst crossing the Nullabour on a rather warm day around 38, driving into a strong wind the temperature climbed to nearly the end of the "normal" range. The aircon then shut down which i have been informed is supposed to happen.

could it be that expecting the Patrol to pull around 5 tonnes at highway speed on a 38 degree day with the A/C on is beyond the design parameters of the vehicle?

I tried heaps of things to try and get my previous Patrol (a 2000 GU 4.2TD) to run "cool".

It all turned out to be a waste of time and money.

The big thing that makes the 4.2 run very warm is the small size of the water galleries. The water galleries are tiny (apparently) compared to the relative mass of the block....once the block gets hot, the water galleries are incapable of carrying the heat away. The motor was never designed to be run under the kinds of stress we tend to expect. They were not designed for a turbo either.

Now to me not being able to tow on days of 38deg seems a fairly serious design flaw!

When I was without my Disco for 2 weeks ( at the smash repairs ) another story thread on it last week. I missed not being able to drive it so much. My TD5 has had the usual TD5 problems oil in harness, fuel regulator and fuel pump other than that it's a great car and I would not drive anything else.

I should add it's a daily drive as well as a few trips, a 6 year old car with 140K plus going strong. I think good mantience is a help.

Originally Posted by grumpybastard

I went and had a look at patrol4x4.com out of curiosity ...

Interestingly i noticed that there is no "Technical Subject Thread" which every car forum ive ever been a member of always has... anyway a quick look and i noticed "4.2ltr overheating issues"

It appears that the 4.2ltr TD overheats ...

Some interesting quotes-







Now to me not being able to tow on days of 38deg seems a fairly serious design flaw!

The non turbo 100s Cruiser with aftermarket turbo has this overheating problem too, i suppose the Patrol and cruiser 4.2ltr engine maybe of similar design.

The thing is when you see these problems on other forums the normal comments are, "yeah that's normal" and "they all do it"

Have a look at the patrol forum and things to look for when buying a used GQ Patrol

Shagged body mount rubbers, cracks in the inner guards and firewall, rust in the rear sliding windows, and so on and so on it's a huge list.

Baz.

I think the question here is,
if you rid yourself of your Land Rover,
what would be the (non Land Rover) replacement?

Thats a scary thought....


(Might have to go back to my old 85 Bronco, wonder what ever happened to it? If you see it let me know, its obvious as it's probably towing a large fuel tanker)

GQ

Originally Posted by grumpybastard

could it be that expecting the Patrol to pull around 5 tonnes at highway speed on a 38 degree day with the A/C on is beyond the design parameters of the vehicle?

I would have thought the answer would be yes. Didn't know the Patrol could tow 5 tonnes!

There was a trhead in another forum, can't remember which, about a Ford Ranger chucking a bolt in the timing case after 75km which half destroyed the timing belt, made it slip, which put out the timing and resuted in four broken rockers. Sounds like it was from a Ford dealer because they said they checked some of the others and the same bolt was finger tight. Another case of someone forgetting the loctite! Can happen with any vehicle.

I have to add that when i started this thread last night i had just come off being on call for a rather busy week, so most things were a bit "doom and gloom".
I was looking for a 4wd for quite awhile after going on a trip into the high country with a group of mates all driving Pootrols and Cruisers, all modded and very capable, so understandably thats what i started looking for. When i found my Disco sitting in a Toyota Lot i approached it thinking, interesting but not what i'm looking for. After going for a test drive however i was sold and it's been smiles ever since.
I've endured many wise cracks from the same group of mates that i origionally went away with along the lines of "hope you enjoy working on your 4bee, you'll be fixing it alot", well i do work on it alot, but because i enjoy it.