Hi all,

I'm trying to understand the 03 death vin for Disco II's. There is a nice 03 on ebay, but its VIN (3A803570) is in the death range. Its a 2 owner car with 122k miles. Some of the posts I read say that if the car made it this far, you have nothing to worry about it. Other says if your VIN is in range, then the dowel pin alignment issue exists, and it only a matter of time until the engine bites it, or you have to pro-actively replace the oil pump frequently.

Any advice? Or should I just avoid 03's?

 

Dunno who those "others" are, but they're completely full of it. I am willing to bet my LR career on this, but unless an 03 D2 has been hiding in a cargo container, with less than 500 miles on it there is not a chance in the world there is an 03 D2 out there today which has not either blown up and had the engine replaced, or the front cover was replaced as soon as the 03 D2 rolled off the auto transport trailer before it even made it past it's PDI. Most didn't make it past their first oil change, and the ones that did certainly didn't make it past the warranty period.

If you have oil pressure and the light goes off within 2-3 sec upon startup I promise you are fine. Heck most 03's that got replacement 4.6L engines ended up with P38 4.6L engines because most dealers already had those in stock vs replacement D2 4.6L engines.

 

Should I ask the seller for engine codes? Obviously the vin is the whole car, maybe a value fix was done unknowingly way back when? The 1st owner had it from 03-04, then the 2nd owner was 04 to present. So its possible something happened very early on (1st owner), that the 2nd owner doesn't know about. Was it common for LR to completely swap out the bad engines? If so, I assume the engine code/vin would show this? Anything more specific I should ask?

 

If it is still running I wouldn't bother questioning it. Rumours of the death range are greatly exaggerated. Especially 18 years later.

 

I owned a 2003 back in the day that was OUTSIDE the death range for VIN's, and guess what -- I had the oil pump / cover alignment issue. It is basically a meaningless range. I had a noise, low oil pressure, oil pressure light, and took it to the dealer.

My point is this. Every 2003 is a potential problem. In the range or not in the range. The problem has likely been dealt with by now, as others have pointed out. But I wouldn't focus too much on the range of VIN's.

 

An engine number will not help,there is no way to know if that engine is effected or not. but I agree if it was going to die it would have by now

 

03 and even some early 04's suffered the same fate.

Like I said most were repaired immediately after being unloaded from the truck at the LR Dealership before the PDI (Pre-Delivery Inspection) was even done. It was basically, run the VIN # once off the auto transport, and if in the range roll it into a service bay where it was torn down/inspected, and it either got a new front cover, or a new engine immediately. Then it was inspected, and placed on the lot for sale. The storage room at LR Austin had at one time nearly had 25-30 if not more 03 D2 4.6L engines which were waiting to go back to LR for credit. They were either complete or in pieces. Not to mention a big old pile of front covers. LR eventually didn't want the engines shipped back because freight was so much so a lot of the complete engines grew legs, or were swapped out for 3.9/4.0/4.2L blocks. Eventually the engines were just sent off for scrap metal. Several of my friends had dibs on a few engines, and I was even going to get one until they vanished one day off to the metal scrap yard.

I owned 2 03's when they were brand new. 1 fell into the VIN range and it was a Certified Pre-Owned with a service history of being repaired (did not list how). Both my 03's got well over 159-189k and I never even had to do a single HG job. Only thing I ever replaced was a Bosch Purge Control Valve, Spark Plug wires, and the hard plastic lines running to the coolant reservoir. Both were fantastic trucks, and if I was in the market for an 03 I wouldn't even think about the oil pump/front cover issues as that would be like finding a needle in a haystack as technically you could still drag it down to LR and get it repaired. I know several people that fought for the very old recall on the RRC/D1 fuel tank replacements within the last 2 years, and 1 I know for a fact actually got a replacement fuel tank as it had never been done on their LR. I highly doubt you'd find an 03 like that these days.

 

My 03 had the oil pump rotor chew into the front timing cover at 156,422 miles, per the POs teardown analysis. 83 miles after the PO spent $1,259 on 5 Duratracs. It was in the death VIN range, was that a factor? Dunno.

 

It's interesting reading this Best 4x4.... You know what is utter ****e? I had a 2003 SE just outside vin range. At the time (2004 I think right when the new Lr3's hit the showrooms )- the Land Rover dealer in my old hometown (take a guess from my user name) claimed that they had NO knowledge of 2003's having an issue. I even showed them the TSB that I got off Discoweb or wherever. They first refused to warranty my oil pump issue. Then they left both my sunroofs open in the biggest rainstorm ever while we were discussing and tried to claim that I had a bad BCU that opened them 'by itself' and they were 100% closed when I dropped the truck off 2 or 3 weeks earlier.

Promptly towed it to another dealer (Huntsville) at my own expense - it was $600 bucks -- and it was taken care of, under warranty, without any question whatsoever - but so interesting that one dealer (Austin) would have piles of engines, and another large volume dealer (the one I bought from) was pulling shenanigans trying to pretend there was no issue.

Hopefully that lame behavior has worked itself out of the system.

 

Yep Austin had a massive rear storage room (not to be confused with the parts room). They stored Safety Device Roof Racks, Headliners, wheels, and spare engines in the storage room. When the issues started with the 03 D2's plenty of 99-02 Bosch 4.6L engines which were in stock were used on customer 03 D2's which had front timing cover or oil starvation issues. Then the bad engines were marked, and sat in the room. They had a decent sized bin full of nothing but front timing covers. Those engines sat back there for at least 2-3 years and LR eventually said there was no need to return them due to that engine being obsolete and due to shipping/handing charges. That's when techs got dibs on the left over engines, and other parts. 5 Techs I know for sure dropped those 4.6L engines into their personal LR's and never had any issues for years. The other engines that didn't get taken got sent to the scrap yard.

All 4 Land Rover Dealerships in TX at that time (Austin/Dallas/Houston/San Antonio) during that time handled the 03 D2 issue the same. There was never any question or doubt, if the VIN fell into the range of the TSB/Recall it was repaired no question and the customer was given a loaner LR or a rental vehicle until the repairs were made.

My Pre-Owned LR Certified 03 D2 came from the Old Katy Rd LR Dealership in Houston, and it had less than 25K on it when I got it. When I asked about the VIN # they then showed me the LR paperwork stating the issue had been taken care of. It didn't go into the exact details on what was done, but I put 189K on that D2 without a single hiccup from the engine.

Only dealership that has ever treated me like that was every single Jeep Dealership I ever went to with my 05 Wrangler Rubicon. They tried to void the darn warranty every time I took it in trying to tell me I abused it. I always called the main # at Jeep and got it taken care of but the Dealerships always did extremely poor work after that and I eventually gave up and just fixed the issues myself vs dealing with them.