That does seem like a pretty good deal. As for the front DS, you're only looking at about 350-400 for the part and an hour or so to install, so just go ahead and get it done when you get back.

 

Dont think negative about. Drive and you will enjoy. Good luck with it

 

I love this board but don't let these guys scare you. My mechanics have seen a few oil pump failures outside the vin range and some in the '04 model year. Just becasue it's in the VIN range doesn't mean it has to fail. And just because you have an 04 doesn't mean yours won't. I have an '03 in the vin range with 83k and everything is running fine. Knock on wood. After a lot of thinking on what makes these 03 and 04's fail when others don't even though they all suffer from the same misaligned dowel design, I've come to a few conclusions -

1) A lot of non-dealer LR mechanics do not pull the oil separator out of the RH valve cover and clean or replace the oil separator. It is a pain on these model years. If this is clogged, gaskets blow, etc. Clean the separator. It's a must. Let your engine breathe.

2) And this is critical - most non LR mechanics will not change the oil the way it is written up in the manual. That is - drain the oil and refill WITH the old filter still in place. When the engine is filled with new oil - THEN AND ONLY THEN unscrew the old filter - FILL the new one to the top with new oil (it takes a while as it has to soak in - so wait a bit) then screw on the new OIL-FILLED filter. Check your oil level - if you're a 1/4" below ful level it's okay to start it. Now when you start, the oil pressure light will only stay on for a second or so. This procedure is critical so the pump doesn't run dry while the filter primes. I'm convinced not doing this over and over with oil chganges is one of the reasons some pumps go and some don't. After you've let it idle a while, turn it off, let the oil settle and carefully top off. I say carefully becuase a few times I've put in a little too much oil. It's tricky to get it perfect. Land Rover would not have written up this procedure in the Owner's Manual if it wasn't critical.

3) Keep your cooling system in PERFECT, MINT condition. On the 03-04 and Discos in general there are a lot of cooling components, if any leak, you'll be overheating and looking at new heads or a new engine. Do your water pump, viscous, hoses and thermostat early rather than later. Especially at 102k. I just redid my entire cooling system myself with all new everything and it only cost $600 bucks including new pump, all new hoses, viscous and fan and thermostat (viscous fan was most expensive at $239). Took about a day.

4) If the oil pressure light goes on, pull over as soon as it is safe and stop. For good. Get a tow. If the pump has gone bad and the light was only on briefly, you can probably replace the pump and timing cover ($750 for the part itself) and probably be back in busines for another 102k if you follow the above.

5) When people respond to you on this board make sure they know you have a 2003 with secondary air. A lot of times I get incredible help here and I am supremely grateful but after executing the suggestions I realize the poster had an earlier disco and doesn't realize some things are different on an 03-04 with SAI. This won't happen a lot, but it's worth clarifying.

6) Be very, very careful when buying into the CHANGE IMMEDIATELY to SYNTHETIC OIL rap you will get from a few members here. Do this at your own risk. I have done it three times on older 4.6 v8s and it has boned me every time. Oil leaks can happen within a couple days after doing this. If your 03 had a history of synthetic and you can absolutely prove this, then take the plunge. If you're not sure and don't have leaks, stick to what's in there when buying new oil. This advice causes a lot of debate, but if you switch and I'm right about the synthetic leak issue, you might be looking at new valve cover gaskets, valley pan and rear main which adds up to about $3k in repairs unless you can do that work yourself. Re: the Valve covers gaskets and valley pan, might not be a bad idea anyway as the new Bosch intake on the later discos cover up the inside of the valve covers and you can't tighten them down. I just did mine. Replacing these gaskets is a B**** on 03-04s with secondary air but well worth it. About $49 in parts for the valley pan and valve cover gaskets. FWIW: Some argue that "well, the synthetic is only revealing gasket issues that were masked by dino". Hey, that's true. But I didn't need those issues unmasked when I didn't have the $3k to fix them. So thank you very much, but I should have stuck to dino. And make sure whatever oil you use is designed for older high compression flat tappet engines. Yours was design in the 1960s.

Of course, all the other standard recommendations are valid - drive shaft change, etc.

Good luck!

 

kae, why even take a remote chance with a '03 in the failure range when there are so many cheap non failure range discos on the market?

 

I don't disagree, my point is that if you have one, it doesn't mean yours is going to fail. IMHO, there are specific things that lead them to fail, and the 'vin range to avoid' hasn't proved accurate. Dig deep and you wil find 04s with this failure and 03s outisde the vin range with this failure. I bought mine knowingly inside the vin range as it was a great deal and the Disco was in perfect condition. An 04 I looked at was the wrong color for me and looked and ran like crap. If all 03's failed you would not see values where they are. In Los Angeles 04s don't go for anything more than 03s, except for the obvious differential bewteen years you would expect to find for any car. Ask British Pacific how many timing covers/pumps they've ordered for 03s versus 04s and I'm sure they will not come back with "only for 03s in the vin range". Ditto for British Car Service in L.A. who repair our trucks.

The problem we have here in L.A. is that a lot of the great trucks were exported to foreign buyers when the market got real soft, so they're really aren't that many great 04s to choose from. If there was, I probably would have bought one at the time. I just looked at an 04 with 37k on it for a friend, my 03 with 83k on ran like a new truck compared to the 04. The 04 was so underpowered it felt like it had a blown head gasket.

 

If '03s are selling for the same price as '04s there are some uninformed buyers. The CDL option alone is worth $1,000-$1,500 IMO over the '03 and I bet several people on here would agree with that. Around here, metro atlanta, '03s go for about half what '04s do.

 

Half? Guess you got a lot of smart people in Atlanta and we got dumb people here in L.A.

 

FWIW: Here's a reply from Robison service (fairly knowledgale LR techs) to a woman with a faulty oil pump on a 2004:

"There was a problem with alignment of the holes between engine block and front cover on some 2003 Rovers, but that resulted in oil pressure loss when the engines were new. It did not produce symptoms out of the blue 4 years later.

If your engine lost oil pressure now, I'd guess the issue is sludge buildup or some oil system failure. There is no way to know how or why that happened without dismantling and examining the motor, which would be costly, and it would probably end up in the same place . . . the truck is out of warranty, so you have to pay to fix it."

See the full Q&A here: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Land-Rove...r-Discover.htm

Reason I post this is because I've heard this a lot. A lot of LR experts I know say the dowel issue was on SOME not all of the 2003s and maybe some 04s and it usually led to the pumps blowing fairly early on. Others say the gerotor on the pumps were badly designed and breakup over time causing probs in 03 and 04s. I wish there was some way to take a meaningfull poll of all 03 and 04 owners to get some clarity on the issue. I still believe if you have a high mileage 03 and the pump issue hasn't surfaced, proper cooling and lubrication system maintenance will prevent it occuring. There are 36,851 Discos in the 2003 possible bad oil pump vin range on the LRNA TSB. If all of them were doomed to fail, I think you'd see substantially more than a google search brings up. 36,000 Discos are a helluva lot of trucks.

 

Thanks for all of the post guys! My LR is NOT in the VIN range, it have checked and check again and we are clear! I drove it all the way back from Longview to San Antonio this past weekend and man, what a pleasure!! I loved it! Besides watching the gas gauge creep down, it was a dream! I am due to get the front end done next week. I don't drive far everyday, approx. 12 miles from work to home and back so im not too worried about it, and there is no highway driving.

The Disco is up for an oil change and like clock work, the check engine light came on about 50 mile past the mileage the oil change was due... Is this normal? Is there a way to reset that? Once I get the oil changed, will it reset that?

Thanks again for all the post fellas, I look forward to hearing back from you all again!!

Take care and please believe, I'm loving this thing, its incredible!!

Shane from Texas!!

 

So where do I find the VIN range that is prone to failure? I am going to be picking one up within the next few weeks and I would like to avoid any problems... I saw it somewhere yesterday but can't seem to find it again.