Am going to pick up a 2003 turd tomorrow. It does fall in the Vin range for fubar oil pumps but I ran the Carfax and it shows few repairs .maybe a good one snuck through .

 

I hope you decided to get the blue Range Rover too!

 

Yep. Gonna pick it up when the ground dries out.

 

Please already, the VIN range stuff was all dealt with years ago. If it is still running it is either fixed or wasn't a problem to begin with.

 

The blocks are still sh$t.

 

Vin range doesn't mean anything any more. Most failed in the first few thousand miles. All the oil pumps have a limited lifespan regardless of Vin range.

 

Yep being an 03 means NADA ZIP NOTHING anymore.

Heck it could have an engine out of a P38 RR vs an 04 that wasn't replaced under warranty. I knew of several 03's that failed before their first oil change and the dealership swapped the engines out with the 4.6L they had on hand for the P38 and sadly the 4.6L replacements (once they showed up) got put back in stock for the P38's they used up in the first place lol. So technically they got a better engine than what the 03-04 came with since it was probably cast in 00-02.

I have owned 5 03's. 2 were brand new, and they never fell into the VIN range and never had any problems. One was used and did fall into the VIN range, and I bought it as a LR Certified Pre-Owned vehicle with 15K on it and the engine was replaced at 8K. Honestly none of the 03's I owned back when they were new ever gave me any issues and I sold several of them with over 150K on them. Never did a HG job, and the only issues I had were purge control valve failures (hyundai part was unknown back then), and the hard lines snapping. Besides that they were great. Now sadly all the 04's I've ever owned have all eventually had ticking, HG's or like my current 04 low oil pressure issues.

I prefer the 4.0L in the earlier D2/P38 to the 4.6L, but thats just me.