Discovery 3

HangTime · 17 Oct 2019 at 00:56

geekman said:
Even if we’re talking a 10MPG difference, that still isn’t enough to outweigh the disadvantages IMO

Bear in mind 10mpg means a lot more at the low end of the spectrum compared to the high end of the spectrum. It's the equivalent of say a 20mpg difference in smaller more economical diesels.
That said, still not particularly material unless doing very high miles, and an engine failure would clean out any savings.

Conanius · 17 Oct 2019 at 07:00

I had a ‘54’ Discovery 3 HSE with the 4.4 v8 and auto box a few (5?)years ago.

It was a great car and very capable. I really liked it.

However, if you are remotely impacted by averaging 16mpg in real world situations, don’t get one. The best I ever got was mid 20s on a motorway run at 56mph hiding behind lorries. Fuel is the cheap part of owning one of these.

I think finding a good one now will be hard.

Jez · 17 Oct 2019 at 14:09

Conanius said:
I had a ‘54’ Discovery 3 HSE with the 4.4 v8 and auto box a few (5?)years ago.

It was a great car and very capable. I really liked it.

However, if you are remotely impacted by averaging 16mpg in real world situations, don’t get one. The best I ever got was mid 20s on a motorway run at 56mph hiding behind lorries. Fuel is the cheap part of owning one of these.

I think finding a good one now will be hard.

This post could be written by me with a find and replace for Discovery 3 HSE to Range Rover L322.

Amazing car, by far and away the best car i have ever had, but you'd IMO want to go a lot newer these days to stand a chance of it being a good one. When i sold mine it was starting to rust on the chassis, and this was a good few years ago. Mine was in very good condition with one previous owner, it couldnt have been better. From that POV i am not sure that any of them from that era are probably amazingly sound any more.

geekman · 17 Oct 2019 at 14:51

Jez said:
This post could be written by me with a find and replace for Discovery 3 HSE to Range Rover L322.

Amazing car, by far and away the best car i have ever had, but you'd IMO want to go a lot newer these days to stand a chance of it being a good one. When i sold mine it was starting to rust on the chassis, and this was a good few years ago. Mine was in very good condition with one previous owner, it couldnt have been better. From that POV i am not sure that any of them from that era are probably amazingly sound any more.

My 08 supercharged RRS has been pretty good. I've put around 25k miles on it: lots of off road tracks, floods, potholed roads etc so probably more like 50k of normal driving and the only non consumables I've had to change have been the throttle body ($250) and throttle position sensor ($30). Annoyingly, it didn't even need a throttle body: my fault for listening to a bad mechanic.

There do seem to be a lot of horror stories about them though, so I wonder if I got lucky. I average mid teens MPG but it'll easily get 22MPG on a long run at 80/85. It's by far the best all rounder I've ever owned and I'll definitely miss it when I have to get rid of it.

Jez · 17 Oct 2019 at 14:54

To be fair to mine, a 2005 54 4.4 Vogue (BMW V8/Jaguar electronics hybrid year), the only thing which ever went wrong on it was a brittle BMW plastic cooling line which blew off. DIY repair using main agent part for ~£80 or so. Oh, and the hood release cable broke...that was a bit of a pain but ultimately really cheap to fix.

Had it for 3 years and approx 10-12k miles, so that isnt bad going at all! As i say though, the last MOT i did on it, my mechanic warned me that the following year it'll potentially fail through chassis rot, that was my cue to get rid of it as cosmetically it was lovely. It makes me question buying a car of that vintage now, though, as that was several years ago. I'd guess that it is firmly into needing welding territory now.

geekman · 17 Oct 2019 at 15:02

Jez said:
To be fair to mine, a 2005 54 4.4 Vogue (BMW V8/Jaguar electronics hybrid year), the only thing which ever went wrong on it was a brittle BMW plastic cooling line which blew off. DIY repair using main agent part for ~£80 or so. Oh, and the hood release cable broke...that was a bit of a pain but ultimately really cheap to fix.

Had it for 3 years and approx 10-12k miles, so that isnt bad going at all! As i say though, the last MOT i did on it, my mechanic warned me that the following year it'll potentially fail through chassis rot, that was my cue to get rid of it as cosmetically it was lovely. It makes me question buying a car of that vintage now, though, as that was several years ago. I'd guess that it is firmly into needing welding territory now.

Not surprised: I was in NYC recently and noticed a lot of early L322s with severe rot around the arches and bootlid. Mine is totally clean thankfully; where I live you still see W220s and W210s driving around with no signs of rust whatsoever so I reckon I'm safe for a long time to come

geekman · 31 Oct 2019 at 21:18

@the_r_sole any good to you? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201910183472729

the_r_sole · 3 Nov 2019 at 20:09

geekman said:
@the_r_sole any good to you? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201910183472729

sadly (very sadly) I think it's not going to happen now, probably going to get something really sad and depressing like an s-max or the citreon sheds and we'll have a crew cab pickup for a workhorse when needed...

geekman · 4 Nov 2019 at 01:07

the_r_sole said:
sadly (very sadly) I think it's not going to happen now, probably going to get something really sad and depressing like an s-max or the citreon sheds and we'll have a crew cab pickup for a workhorse when needed...

No worries, just happened to see it posted on another forum and thought of you.

matsquatch · 4 Nov 2019 at 22:24

As others have said, they can be a money pit - I had a D3, and loved it, but the bills were eye watering. Worst I had was the torque converter being rebuild for just over £3k. That went down well at home. Sold it to buy something more normal, the guy who bought it off me remapped it and blew the gearbox. Quoted £1500 for that. But, when you're up the top of a hill, with the heated seats on, or are sat on the tailgate having a brew overlooking an amazing view, they are (nearly) worth it. As others have said, just either be handy with spanners or have a decent sized maintenance budget!