Thread: Buying a discovery 4

A test drive in a D3 wont give much of an idea of a D4 especially if you're not looking at buying a used 2.7 D4.

Went through the same angst about Land Rover reliability issues in 2013 and ended up buying a new D4 HSE in October of that year. Had a Pajero for about 12 years prior to that. I couldn't be happier with my decision to buy a Land Rover. The D4 is well into its production cycle and most of the issues would have been sorted by now. From what I've read on this forum over the last 18 months or so if you maintain the car it will serve you well. Cost of services at dealers is excessive like it is at most, if not all, brand dealers but there are a number of independent specialists around that charge a lot less and come highly recommended. Like all car purchases, you pay your money and you take your chances. Anyone can get a lemon no matter what brand of car you buy. What you usually don't see is the majority of people who don't get on a forum just to say this car is great. The forum by it's nature is a place to get help and support which it supplies in spades.

Hope this helps a bit.

Martin

Thanks Martin that's the kind of information I was after, you are right about lemons as well don't want to go their spending this amount of money!!
Graeme I have never driven a Disco so am curious about the driving position and for the better halves comfort, happy wife happy life etc
Cheers for the comments Wayne

I bought my D4 second hand from Trivetts in Paramatta via CarSales, sight unseen, after driving my son's Disco 1, Patrols and Cruisers prior to this. It was way better in every way than any other 4WD I had driven so I wasn't disappointed. I arrived from Perth on a Friday afternoon, had a quick look and couldn't fault it and within 30 minutes was driving back to Perth in the D4 with 55,000km on the clock. I should also add that I had never driven a D4 or D3 or RR prior to picking mine up. I still have my GQ Patrol but it never gets used unless I specifically decide to drive the truck instead of the car!


We arrived in Perth on the Monday after the most comfortable and enjoyable long distance trip I had ever driven. Since then we have done Cape York in 3 weeks (14,000km), Darwin, Kakadu, Lichfield, the Binns track, Great Central Road in three weeks and Mount Augustus in one week, usually taking the roughest roads and tracks to stay off the bitumen as much as possible. Also many weekend round trips of 1600km to visit my daughter in Esperance. The car has been brilliant, on road and off, towing or not, city or country.


The main negative for me is the EPB (electronic parking brake), which was replaced at about 90,000km at a cost of around $2000 and just failed again on the weekend at 177,000km. I will see if I can clean the drums etc and get more life out of it without the expensive new bits. My car does lots of off road and water crossings etc so I probably should clean the drums much more often than at 90,000km intervals!! The LR schedule says to do this every day in arduous conditions.

I rarely use the handbrake for that reason, only using it on Hills or 4wding again on Hills. Yes clean those drums if you have driven through muddy water

We'll have just gone for a test drive of the D4 which I thought was a D3 my bad.
It has the 2.7 motor 2010 model, after driving this for a good hour and getting a good feel for the car I've gotta say it's like chalk and cheese my Patrol is so truck like compared to the D4.
I am amazed how good they ride and have to say they 2.7 motor is very surprising on pickup.
Bob thanks for your comments I can see how good they are, I'm impressed. I have to take a LC200 for a ride but can't see it being as good as the Disco.
Thanks for the comments so far...
Wayne

The other thing that you would probably not have picked up in your test drive is that the turning circle is like a small car and there is no problem turning into a parking bay like there is in a Patrol. Hence my comment that they are good in the city, which I would never say about a Patrol! The only negative is that it is a surprisingly big car in the city even though it feels relatively small to drive and doesn't look that big until you park next to normal cars. Mine is particularly long with the Kaymar rear bar and twin spares on the back plus the ECB bullbar.

Originally Posted by ~Rich~

I rarely use the handbrake for that reason, only using it on Hills or 4wding again on Hills. Yes clean those drums if you have driven through muddy water

My wife uses ours at every shutdown, no matter where she is or whether it is flat or not. 90,000km seems to be about the limit without maintenance when used all the time, based on my experience. I am hoping to pull the drums off and have a look on the weekend if I get time.