Thread: D4 Servicing and Wheel Alignment

Congrats on your purchase and welcome to the forum. I'll have to let Melbourne locals answer your question about mechanics.

What kind of life will your Disco lead? Sounds like you have a caravan in mind?

Originally Posted by TB

Congrats on your purchase and welcome to the forum. I'll have to let Melbourne locals answer your question about mechanics.

What kind of life will your Disco lead? Sounds like you have a caravan in mind?

We have an Australian Off Road Odyssey camper trailer (hence my username) which we tow (until now with our PK Ford Ranger). Last year we had seven months away through the Flinders Ranges, Oodnadatta Track, Binns Track To Alice, Uluru and Kata Tjuta, up the Tanami to Purnululu NP and Broome, Dampier Peninsula then Karijini NP and south to Perth and home across the Nullarbor.

The grand future plan is to do all the Beadell Highways and the Great Central Road, and probably back to the Kimberley which we loved, especially Middle Lagoon on the Dampier Peninsula. Also the south western corner of WA which we missed last time.

The Disco will make life considerably more refined and luxurious. Can’t wait to get going again but unfortunately not until May next year due to other family commitments. Gives me plenty of time to get to know it and set it up completely. I have now fitted a Gordigear Explorer Plus Rooftop tent so we can also have a few days here and there in the Vic High Country.

The car car has an Active rear e-diff, I fitted a Llams system the other day, going today to pick up APT rock sliders and compressor cover, a Mitch Hitch is on the way and it’s booked in for a Fourby Fitouts touring setup in the rear. That should cover it for the moment.

Bring it on!!

David

Originally Posted by Odysseyman

We have an Australian Off Road Odyssey camper trailer (hence my username) which we tow (until now with our PK Ford Ranger). Last year we had seven months away through the Flinders Ranges, Oodnadatta Track, Binns Track To Alice, Uluru and Kata Tjuta, up the Tanami to Purnululu NP and Broome, Dampier Peninsula then Karijini NP and south to Perth and home across the Nullarbor.

The grand future plan is to do all the Beadell Highways and the Great Central Road, and probably back to the Kimberley which we loved, especially Middle Lagoon on the Dampier Peninsula. Also the south western corner of WA which we missed last time.

The Disco will make life considerably more refined and luxurious. Can’t wait to get going again but unfortunately not until May next year due to other family commitments. Gives me plenty of time to get to know it and set it up completely. I have now fitted a Gordigear Explorer Plus Rooftop tent so we can also have a few days here and there in the Vic High Country.

The car car has an Active rear e-diff, I fitted a Llams system the other day, going today to pick up APT rock sliders and compressor cover, a Mitch Hitch is on the way and it’s booked in for a Fourby Fitouts touring setup in the rear. That should cover it for the moment.

You've got the car I'd like to have! Sounds like a bloody weapon, David. Great pick up!

Whilst I can't offer you any Melbourne-specific advice, I've got three strong recommendations:

1. Particularly if you're going to do remote area travel, buy yourself an Gap Diagnostic IIDTool. They're worth their weight in gold. It'll also let you put the suspension in "tight tolerance mode" for wheel alignment, so you can get use out of it straight away. They're a little bit of an investment (I reckon I paid about $700 for the bluetooth model, which I reckon is the one to get), but it's paid for itself a couple of times over already.
2. Wheel alignment is a big thing, but so too are control arm bushes. If you're slightly mechanically minded, it's not a particularly complicated job to undertake, but our Discos do tend to chew them up. It's a choice between forking out thousands for the dealer to do them when the time comes, or do some research and take it on yourself (and do it for hundreds, or less, depending on whether or not you replace the entire arm assembly or just the bushes).
3. Change the oil, oil filter and fuel filter more regularly than the book recommends. It's a dead easy job which you can do yourself in the garage in an hour or so. 10K maximum intervals. It's cheap insurance and the service schedule doesn't do it often enough. Filters can be had cheaply online (either locally or from any one of the excellent UK-based suppliers) and is an extremely cheap and easy way to protect your engine, particularly given you're going to take it out bush.

Enjoy that car!

Cheers,

- Andrew

They do wear in the inside of tyres even when aligned. My old tyres had gone on the inside and I had a wheel alignment before getting new tyres and it was still technically in spec though at the extreme.

Good luck

Garry

Originally Posted by Odysseyman

While on the hoist we noticed quite a bit of wear on the inside of the rear tyres, especially the right rear, so after searching the forum I have tentatively concluded that it needs a wheel alignment.

I spotted that with ours recently. The inside of the rear tyres are actually scalloped (which explains the vibration under braking now I think about it). It turns out much earlier this year my wife had it aligned at the local tyre place (who to be fair are usually totally awesome), *but* they'd never dealt with active suspension before and the likelihood is it was progressively moving while the aliment was in progress. So the alignment is way off and has destroyed the tyres. Yay.

They've agreed to give me a good deal on some newies and a free alignment if I put the car in TTM for them before they start. Lesson learned.

Hi and welcome,

Just to let you know, the E-Diff requires different oil to the front diff. Not sure on the spec ATM but hopefully your mechanic realised this when purchasing your fluids.

Sounds like a great car & enjoy

Originally Posted by Cannon

Hi and welcome,

Just to let you know, the E-Diff requires different oil to the front diff. Not sure on the spec ATM but hopefully your mechanic realised this when purchasing your fluids.

Sounds like a great car & enjoy

yes we did ensure they used the correct oils in each diff. Thanks for the reminder.
I get a bit anal with stuff like that and ended up telling them about it several times, so it wasn’t forgotten.
Cheers
David

Originally Posted by ndrew

You've got the car I'd like to have! Sounds like a bloody weapon, David. Great pick up!

Whilst I can't offer you any Melbourne-specific advice, I've got three strong recommendations:

1. Particularly if you're going to do remote area travel, buy yourself an Gap Diagnostic IIDTool. They're worth their weight in gold. It'll also let you put the suspension in "tight tolerance mode" for wheel alignment, so you can get use out of it straight away. They're a little bit of an investment (I reckon I paid about $700 for the bluetooth model, which I reckon is the one to get), but it's paid for itself a couple of times over already.
2. Wheel alignment is a big thing, but so too are control arm bushes. If you're slightly mechanically minded, it's not a particularly complicated job to undertake, but our Discos do tend to chew them up. It's a choice between forking out thousands for the dealer to do them when the time comes, or do some research and take it on yourself (and do it for hundreds, or less, depending on whether or not you replace the entire arm assembly or just the bushes).
3. Change the oil, oil filter and fuel filter more regularly than the book recommends. It's a dead easy job which you can do yourself in the garage in an hour or so. 10K maximum intervals. It's cheap insurance and the service schedule doesn't do it often enough. Filters can be had cheaply online (either locally or from any one of the excellent UK-based suppliers) and is an extremely cheap and easy way to protect your engine, particularly given you're going to take it out bush.

Enjoy that car!

Cheers,

- Andrew

Thanks for those tips Andrew. Very useful, and it’s great knowing there are people on here willing to support and share their experience.
I am reasonably handy mechanically so in future will have a crack at those jobs as they come up. This time I just wanted to get it done because, in spite of the previous owner recently having taken the car across the Simpson west to east from Brisbane since it’s 50000 km service, he had only ever followed the standard service schedule and in my view it was way overdue, plus I wanted an expert eye cast over the car, before anything untoward happened.
The GapIID tool is on my shopping list. Just forgot to mention it.

Im looking forward to a long and happy ownership experience.

Cheers
David