Hello all - glad to be a part of the forum.

Long story short - our family has had a 2004 Disco for about 5 years now. Prior to our purchase the engine had been replaced and possibly some other things that I am not privy too at the moment. Over the 5 years we've had it someone in our family (mostly my father) have spent around $10k in repairs and maintenance.

I started driving it about 2 weeks ago when my daily 3-series BMW had one too many repairs and got rid of it. I love, love, love driving the disco. There is something about it that probably only disco drivers can understand. However, I've seen the three amigos almost every time I've driven it. Through this website and a recent evaluation I'm pretty sure the battery was causing that problem.

Last Friday when driving the truck half a mile to the movie theater the battery light flicked on, the temp gauge went haywire, the power steering went bye-bye and the engine bay started steaming. Got the truck home - had some anxiety about repair costs, but eventually summoned the courage to peep under the hood at the belt (from reading this forum). Sure enough it was shredded. I sort of had some relief from my anxiety and set out to purchase a new belt and go about the process of acting a mechanic for the first time since I owned an 02' Ford Lightning. Lots of cuss words and cuts and scrapes later I had the new belt 99% on when I noticed the power steering pulley was quite a bit mis-aligned from the rest of the pulleys. Tapped it back a bit and got the belt back on and started the engine. Battery light was off but I watched the belt and sure enough it started slipping off.

Had the truck towed to a land rover dealer here in KC. The power steering pump had been replaced by the dealership about 6-7 months ago, so they said they would replace/fix that for free this time. However, the water pump, tensioner pulley, belt, and battery all need to be replaced and the estimate came back to $1,100.

I've watched videos on Youtube on replacing the water pump. I'm pretty sure I can do it myself.

Question is this. I have a young family. Just changed jobs earlier this year. Do I keep the Disco and pay $1,100 or try to fix it myself? Or is it time to part ways with what has seemed like a very fun, enjoyable money pit?

 

Oh yeah... I should also mention that I just replaced the headliner last week for a nice $600. The rear hatch locking mechanism is wonky too.

 

How is your collection of tools? Do you have a garage? Have a decent Torque wrench? Have you downloaded the RAVE?

Water pump will be the most complex, and you will want to understand the proper sealants to use, and where to use them. That said, This stuff will require taking much of the front engine off, but this is not a difficult thing to do. The guys here will give you excellent advice. The rest of it is super simple.

This shouldn't take more than a weekend, unless your an idiot like me and want to paint everything.

 

Take the LR Badge off and spray WD-40 in the latch, Bob's your uncle.

 

My collection of tools is kind of laughable at the moment. I have a torque wrench and I have an attached garage at our house. I have downloaded the RAVE manual. When replacing the belt last weekend I wished very badly I had the correct tools to take off the fan, but I didn't so that made replacing the belt a pain. If I do the work myself I will buy the appropriate tool to get the fan off this time.

I wouldn't say I'm an idiot necessarily... just inexperienced when it comes to fixing cars.

 

I've read about this fix, but I wasn't so sure it would fix the problem I'm having. When the vehicle locks and unlocks the rear hatch lock won't unlock. I've resorted to putting duct tape around the interior lock to prevent it from locking at all, but that won't last once spring comes and my golf clubs will be in the back 24/7.

Should I still try the WD-40 fix? Guess it can't hurt to try.

 

Should have mentioned this in the first post. The Disco has approx 150,000 miles and I'm located in Overland Park, KS. We have a good family friend that heads up the Land Rover maintenance portion of Aristocrat Motors but I hesitate to keep going back time after time to him. He probably doesn't care though.

 

I would start by seeing who rents tools locally, my bet it is you can rent a lot of them and only buy what you need.

The water pump is not hard just time consuming, the tensioner is simple as is the battery.

The biggest thing is to take your time and think it through, and keep stuff organized - a sharpie and ziplock bags are your friend.

 

An indy shop will charge you half of what that dealer is quoting... Don't ever take it back to the dealer, ever. Unless of course they will fix the PS pump free and let you handle the other issues on your own terms.