Thread: Buying a D4 - prices reduced?

Do a search,there's threads full of owners bitching about high fuel use,engines burning oil,tailshafts failing,chassis cracking,dash warning lights staying on,dealers treating owners like crap etc.Then check out this forum with the happy D3-D4 owners. Pat

Aaardvaark,

1) Don't know about the D4 but I've had my D3 for coming up to 4 years with no major problems at all. Search through the D3/D4/RSS forum here and you find some niggles, some issues and many great stories and happy owners. Just like Toyota and other brands, you only hear the bad stories.

Q for you? What's the 4WD car of the year for 2010 and the preceding 5 (?) years? What 4WD has won more international awards than any other? Surely unreliability would have filtered through to the motoring journos by now?

2) Demand. Why discount when they can't keep up with demand. People on this forum have waited for 5 month's for their car to arrive. I share your pain as I'm looking to a D4 in the NY and do not want to wait 6 months for delivery and pay for the privilege ......but that's the way it is

3) IMHO like all expensive, luxury, hi-tech cars, the resale value plummets immediately, especially as a trade-in. Having said that, looking at current used car pricing I'm expecting to get far more for my '07 V6 as a private sale in the NY than the lease payout figure.

Cheers.

Thanks guys. I've done plenty of searching and found plenty of people bitching about their D4's and D3's, also plenty of people raving about them. This doesn't help me to sort out if the vehicle is actually reliable or not since as pointed out every make and model has good stories and bad. What I was looking for was some kind of serious summary of the situation.

When I bought my '93 disco (is that a D1?) ALL of the reviews were positive for more than a year. Every one of them raved about it. So I bought one, only to discover that the unreliability and many shortcomings seem to have been missed by every reviewer. That's exactly why I'm asking here, I don't want to make the same mistake again.

All in all I'm thinking that the D4 is still unreliable and badly supported in Australia, but have no hard evidence.

And I guess you are right about the continuing demand so no need to keep prices 'fair'...

the very first of any model is a land rover test car, so when it fails they fix it for the next MY car, so thats the go with the d4s, as did with the d3s, the late my10 and my11 cars are now all prirty good, the erly ones have come back with probs from keyless start not working to needing to remove a few bodys to replace turbos,

the back bone of the car is the same as the d3, but there are so many add ons that you dont see witch are new, they are mostly prity good now, and are been put together better now then b4,

air sus has the same problems as before just not as frequent, and with new computers to run it the sys as a hole seems better off, prity much every one has complained how slow it goes up now after 1-2 goes with the buttons, but this is to save the system from working to hard( plus why do you need to put the car up down then up and back down then up again???)

the 3L has been sorted now it seems, seem to be having more probs with sports then d4s but nothing realy major, just niggle little things,

hope that helps a lil as we see the new cars everyday,

QUOTE ..prity much every one has complained how slow it goes up now after 1-2 goes with the buttons, but this is to save the system from working to hard( plus why do you need to put the car up down then up and back down then up again???)

,[/QUOTE]

Hi ,because the suspension at offroad height lowers at 50k/h, when on the beach, with hard sand and want to do more than 50k/h it lowers, then you get to a patch of soft sand ,chopped up and you want offroad height ,so that you do not bottom out and plough, hence up and down some what regularly.
Biggest annoyance is that not all the D4s are slow, and LRA's answer is it is within their spec, ( must mean some OK some slow)
Cheers Ken

My 05 D3 was good car but did have a few issues..However it never let me down, was a joy to drive and I got 50% of its cost price when I sold it recently .. If the new ones had dropped price due to dollar the second hand value would have dropped too..So its all swings and roundabouts. I did pay $4000 less for my new 2.7D4 than I paid for my D3. . I am so glad I went for the 2.7, it is definitley more powerfull than my D3 (even though the figures are the same) and cost me a load less than the 3tlr. And I can fit 17' wheels on it which is a big plus. So far it feels so much better than my D3 and I can't find any reason to it take back for warranty issues unlike when I first got my D3. Also had a nice phone call from LR Australia checking everything was good.. That wouldn't happen with Toyota or Nissan. I too have heard stories of various probs with Toyota 200s series , two I know were brought back form the outback on a truck one with steering probs and the other with propshaft issues. Also economy for the diesel is like a petrol and you have to keep feeing the a litre of oil every 1000k. My mate just bought a 70 series ute and within 4 weeks the driver's seat fell apart. He cannot get better than 15ltr/100 and when I asked what he thought about he said "Its just a truck".

I bought the last of the D3's and to date it has been faultless.

I am glad I bought the D3 particularly as it was nearly 15K less than a similarly equipped D4 although to be fair mine was a demo & runout.

I have had a D1 & D2 & to be fair they had their faults but not once was I let down whilst out in the bush.

In comparison I have also had a hilux & 60 series which both suffered catastrophic failure in the bush.
1 Was a destroyed front diff - hilux.
2. Was broken engine mounts after just having engine rebuilt resulting in fan going thru radiator in very steep terrain.

In addition every one of the discoveries was & is far superior to drive with regard to comfort.

Hope this helps with your decision making.

Regards

Chuck

Prior to purchasing a D3 to replace our second D1 I did the research the Internet bit.

Found heaps of horror stories...

...but all of the 'I knew a bloke" sort. The only one attributable to an owner was some woman complaining about brake wear. And I got the impression she previously owned a Corolla or similar.

Our mechanic, a specialist Land Rover man, said if everyone owned D3s he'd have to shut up shop 'cos all he'd be doing is routine servicing, and at 15000 kms wouldn't mean much work.

Do the research, validate the sources, and make sure they're not talking about D2. I think you'll find there is nothing to match D3/ D4.

HTH