The 04 is one of the best vehicles Land Rover has produced. On the luxury side, it may not be quite as nice a an LR3, but compared it to a nissan Xterra, chevy trailblazer, ford exploder, or any SUV in its class and you'll find that the disco is still top of the line in luxury. And looks... I think the disco blows the LR3 out of the water. Its b-e-a-utiful!

I'm 6'5" and the leg room is fine for me, head room is better than our suburban by a long shot.

When you go out to buy, try and test more than one, even though 04's are harder to come by. You will find that a head-to-head test can really bring a the bad side out of one vehicle. Also, if you can have a mechanic look over it for leaks and anything that really stands out. Good Luck!

 

The simple solution for this is not to pull up so close to the stop lights.


Iam 5'5" and I have plenty of headroom, I have no idea why you guys are all concerned about it.

 

Hah, I'd like to see the reaction of the drivers behind me when I stop 100 yards from the light so that I can see it without crouching over!

 

lol!!

 

I've had a fair few LR's and the 04 D2 is the only one I'm not constantly thinking, "what was that noise?" while driving. Not having access to a dealer would really put a damper on the LR2/3/4 for me. I'm short too but my tall friends don't have fitment issues once the seats are adjusted.

 

Smokey-I see that you have had your fair share of LR's, which did you like best and do you rember how many miles you had on each one?

 

Let's see...

The 69 SIIa was definitely the coolest, but was like driving a tractor around town while being hit in the back with a shovel. I think I only put 10,000 or so miles on this before selling it. The smell and noise also scared my (timid) 3 year old.

The 98 RR was actually one of the 50th Anniversary models that had a cool logo on the rear carpet and unique (?) leather colors. I got this one with 45,000 miles and sold it with about 70,000, but the guy I sold it to emailed me a few years later and it had 120,000 miles and was going strong.

The 94 D1 was my original LR, I put about 130,000 miles on that one over 8 years.

I love the 04 but it's not as easy to work on as the older ones. Fortunately nothing big has broken yet. Put about 40,000 miles on in 20 months. The kids love the forward facing rear seats.

The 98 D1 (155,000) is a summer project vehicle and I believe it will be in very good shape after I catch up on all the delayed maintenance. I think I mainly got this one because it felt weird having a car (below) in the garage that didn't leave a mark ever. See, I do have the disease.

My favorite was the D90, of course, but eventually I needed an F350 for hauling and trailering, so the D90 had to go. I think I only put about 30,000 miles on that and sold it for what I paid for it.

Now I'm not living on a farm anymore and I drive about 100 miles a day so I have an S2000, which is as fun to drive on the road as the LR's are off the road. It's funny having to drive the car up on ramps just to slide the floor jack underneath to lift it up enough to do an oil change but it's just as simple to do maintenance on as the LR's are.

(sorry for the hijack)

 

There's tons of headroom, but if you're tall enough, you can't see stop lights if you're the first car in line... I cheat, and look at the reflection on the hood, but otherwise, I'd have no clue. No. Seriously.

On my '80 Euro 930, I cut the seat rails, fabricated a new plinth for mounting the sliders to, cut out the sunroof, and used the english wheel to fab up a new top panel. Once I got Jim Brazealle to find me a set of non-sunroof headliner stay rods, I put in a new black headliner and the only clue that the car hadn't always been that way was the sunroof switch on the dash...

I'm about to tackle the Disco seats, with the goal of dropping the seat height by as close to 2" as I can manage. I can see there's going to be a fair amount of fabrication involved...

I've had over two dozen 911s, and actually find similarities in the "cockpit feel" between the 911 and the Disco. They're both snug side-to-side, and there's a sense of "purpose" about them, unlike most cars...

If you do your own maintenance on a 911 (even though it is a DME Carerra, one of the most maintenance free Porsches ever made), you will be comfortable doing most of your own work on the Disco. One thing, unlike the 911, which doesn't have much on-board diagnostic capability, you *HAVE* to have, or have access to, an OBD scanner, and for some things, there's no substitute for the dealer T4 (or the Black Box equivalent)...

Best of luck with your purchase!

I used to emphasize in my presentations about excellence that I drove 911s and Land Rovers, because I wanted the best for a given task. Glad to see another believer in the same vein!

Stan

 

Hell, Im 5'10 and I have to lean my head over to see stoplights.

 

sweet!!