Hey guys, I am about to purchase a 2004 Diso 2 with 84000 Miles, V8. All maintenance has been conducted by the dealership. A few questions and keep in mind It is fully stock.

A.) I don't see any info in the past maintenance of head gasket work. Should I plan on diving in immediately with a head gasket job to get it out of the way?
B.) If you answered no above, should I just drive it until it goes out and monitor it with an aftermarket temp gauge? When do the head gaskets give out in 2004's typically?
C.) What should I do to keep ahead on the overheating issue? Preventive maintenance?
D.) Overall what is the average life expectancy of these motors with maintenance? From the wrap, these things get I am hoping I am not going to be wrenching on it every 3000 miles.

Thank you in advance.

Plan on lifting it, tires, snorkel and then I going to drive the **** out of it.

 

Do you mean all maintenance done by a Land Rover dealership? Or a used car dealerhship?

Where are you located? There are quite a few non LR dealerships that put lipstick on pigs and charge over 15k for trucks like you are describing... Mostly from Atlanta and Houston if I recall correctly.

Show us some pictures.

HG usually go to 120k if just driven. I would drive it until it needs it. You'll know if you are paying attention. Most of these do not need wrenching every 3000 miles unless you and the PO neglected it.

I would not hesitate to go on a 3000 mile trip in mine.

As for preventive, Get a 180 degree thermostat, lots of info on here about which one to buy and which to avoid. Then get a way to monitor real time temps from the OBDII port... The temp gauge is an idiot.

 

Back when both my 03's were brand new I drove em back n forth from Austin Bandera Kerrville, Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Houston, and Galveston. I racked up the miles pretty quickly and each of em got 159K & 189K on the original HG's (mileage I sold them at without any issues). I never had to monitor the coolant tank and heck I honestly had no way of monitoring the OBD2 temps like we do now. I'm sure I was in the 210-220F range no question. Lots of wire wrap under the hoods crumbled to bits, and I went thru a good amount of OEM Bosch spark plug wires, but I never did a single HG job on either of them. Now all LR's have age against them, and owners that might not have done any maintenance at all except filling the tank and hopefully the engine with oil....

Have that D2 Pre Purchase Inspected especially since you are new to LR's.

People go nuts over the 04 model and honestly I do my best to stay the heck away from them! I'd much rather have a 99-02 without SAI with the 4.0L vs SAI and the 4.6L. In 04 LR could have cared less about fixing any bugs with the 4.6L. The LR3 was already about to roll out, so all LR cared about was getting em off the assembly line as fast as possible so they could start LR3 production. At least in 99-02 LR was really trying to impress people with the D2 and I honestly think the build quality was better in the earlier models. 03-04 = end of the line so LR truly could have cared less. The LR V8 was dead, solid axles were dead, so they had no reason to improve anything or get new tooling equipment to make the blocks.

A LR V8 if taken care of will get you typical pushrod V8 life expectancy. My 02 has nearly 240K on it, and it runs like a new vehicle. Keep em cool, full of fluids, and don't expect it to be a race car and it will last you. Let it overheat once you might get away with it, but do it a few times, and that engine is going to make you hate it! I treat all my vehicles with military type pre-flight checks and that system works for me. These are not Toyota's or Honda's by any means, but if you care for them, they'll care for you.

 

Okay, Interesting. Thank you for this info guys. Really! LR dealership did the work. Okay, thank you for the reinsuring words of comfort lol. "Get a 180-degree thermostat" Okay I remember reading that somewhere. For some reason the photos won't upload. Anyway, I am going to look at it on Monday. He is asking 7700 but I spoke with him on the phone and he is okay to let it go for 6500 considering he has had no interest in it with the COVID situation.

 

To prevent spammers the forum requires 5 posts before you can upload photos...

Otherwise Price sounds good! Keep reading the various threads on the 180 thermostat here, as well as the OBDII reader... Those will be very important.

Best of luck!

 

Thank you sir! Really appreciate you guys taking tune out of your day to give me your opinions.

 

i have two '04's and love them both. one stock and one lifted and lightly armoured.

i have done HG's on the stock Discovery once and done them twice on my DD with 174,000 miles or so. just did the head gaskets the second time two weeks ago. pretty sure the previous time was not done properly. still, i got 60,000 miles out of them.

i also have an '01 with the 4.0 and no SAI. while fun to drive and easy to work on it does not have the power the 4.6 does. not that the 4.6 is a beast, but i can still feel a difference.

 

A. Bring an OBDII tool to monitor the temps while you test drive. Check coolant level before and after, drive it as long as you can. If they will allow it rent the pressure tester from Autozone and test it pre purchase. Inspect the entire cooling system.
C. Yes, especially thermostat.
D. If you take care of it, it will last a long time. That said, these engines are old and yours won’t be new so you won’t have total control.

It’s a 16 year old truck. You’re going to wrench on it.

 

In my very limited experience, I have found that I am always fixing something and that is with replacing the whole engine. It's a 16 year vehicle so it will need more TLC than you might anticipate. Plus if you add a bunch of stuff to it, that will invariably cause stress in additional areas which will cause more wrenching.

Lastly, I have spent about 8K more on my Disco than I anticipated. That was largely due to a replacement engine but I think you get my point. There is always something.

 

x2, there is always something.......