I had a 95 Disco for a while and my wife always liked it and when our POS Saturn Relay became more trouble than it was worth my wife asked me to help her find either a Volvo VC90 or a Disco to replace it.

The Volvos aren't without their own set of issues and nice ones were hard to find that weren't out of our range. Luckily we found a one owner, dealer maintaned 04 Discovery with 104k on the odometer. I know that's not "low mileage" but the car looks brand new inside and out. Even underneath. It even has new tires.

Anyway, my wife Loves the car. And I hope to keep the romance alive by keeping her new ride purring like a kitten.

The car has all of its dealer recommended services and seems to be in tip top shape. Other than the front drive shaft mod and the oil change that's due in 1500 miles what should I do?

Thanks guys

Eric

 

so, lets go down the list.

a. Watch the coolant over the next week or so make sure you are not loosing any and a cup is a sign of a minor problem. when you check the coolant, note its position cold and it position hot, it will change from hot to cold, but not hot to hot or cold to cold. Needless to say make sure coolant is in the resovior.

b. watch the oil as well.

C. check the brake fluid if it is brown it is old and should be flushed.

d. check the brakes so you have an idea how much life is on them. If you think they might not make it through the winter, change them before the snowman comes.

e. if you have any squealing sound while moving and under power take a look at that drive shaft. check your drive shaft any way, make sure all you u joints are lubed, and if two of the three u joints cant be lubed, get that drive shaft pulled and rebuild it.

f. see if that power steering fluid has been changed.

warn your wife if it squeals, "tell me" if it chirps. "tell me". it a engine light come on. "tell me "'. And finally, say, "honey please watch the temp gauge (show her were it is), it it ever gets above 3/4 you might have a severe problem that could destroy the engine, if it ever goes to the top and a red light comes on stop the vehicle right away, dont even drive another block let a lone a mile, because if you do the odds of us junking this great AWD vehicle will be in the junk yards favor.

with all that said, congratulations to you and your wife!

Finally you asked what do i do now? Drive it up a freaking mountain thats what.

 

#1 - rebuild the front driveshaft before it comes apart and destroys your transmission. When mine came apart for the previous owner, it luckily missed the tranny and just tore a hole in the floorboard. This isn't something you want to take your chances with, and it can happen with no warning.

#2 - replace the thermo with a soft spring 180 degree thermostat and flush the cooling system (replace orange Dexcool with green coolant). Replace the hoses. If you have a infrared thermometer use it to check the radiator temp is constant from top to bottom to be sure it's flowing correctly. These things eat head gaskets when they overheat, so be super duper vigilant about overheating. The Dexcool probly sludges up (people argue about it), but green is good either way as long as you make sure it's compatible with aluminum blocks and flush it every two years.

#3 - buy an ultragauge. It's a programmable digital gauge set. Program it to set off alarms if the temp goes over 230, and tell her to shut it down the instant the alarm goes off.

#4 - I personally would replace the idler pulleys, tensioner, and belt as an anti-overheating measure. I had a idler fail with no warning while on the interstate this summer. No fun.

After those, do whatever you want. But overheating and bad front driveshafts have put many of these trucks in junkyards, so I'd jump on them ASAP. You might consider preemptively replacing the crankshaft position sensor. They tend to leave people stranded around 100k miles.

 

Shutting down could be just as bad... I'd suggest setting alarm a little lower (220ish?) and when it goes off turn the heater on FULL BLAST, let the temp drop, then shut it down.

 

The PO had the thermostat, belts and hoses replaced by the dealer a few years ago. Is this ok or are they of particularly bad quality? Are these the parts that cause the overheating or is it the water pump or something else?

Seems to be very good flow through the expansion tank.

The truck has perforated leather seats does this mean it has the heating elements installed and I just need the switches?

Thanks for all the advice

Eric

 

No the Discovery is a great SUV the vehicle has two reoccurring issues that can have a very bad result.

Issue one .... If your car overheats the engine could be severely damaged. The reason is the cylinders have a sleeve in them. if your engine gets two hot it can either dislodge the sleeve or warp the sleeve. imagine throw a beer can into a fire and what happens. So the remedy is to watch the cooling system, dont neglect it like chevy.

Issue Two. ..... The u joints on the factory drive shaft, specifically the front drive shaft can break. Reason, they didn't make two of the u joints grease-able. so the fix is to pull the factory shaft and rebuild it or replace it. If it does fail, it could, rip a hole in your floor boards and transmission, or it could take out your catalytic converters, or it could just fail and ruin your day. imagine rolling your disco on its side and beating the crap ou of her underside with a sledge hammer x 10.

so because of these two issues we are just throwing a heads up your way. So if your drive shaft has not been upgraded to have all serviceable u joints it will fail and may destroy thousand of dollars in parts, thus upgrade it before bad things happens for about 400. If you loose coolant your engine could overheat and you could slip a sleeve, thus make sure your cooling system is sound.


she is going to love it , you will obsess about it. Now climb that mountain

 

leather usually means heat is in there. there was a recent thread,on here, about locating it, if you need that, a search should find it. paul grant and others can sell you good used goodies, you might need.

and yes get a good shaft in there. new can be had $250ish on the webby. or you or a driveline shop can rebuilt yours. and its recommended that you keep your temps in the optimal range. the problem is the worthless temp gauge. they never let you know, until it is too late. there are plenty of good looking aftermarket gauge set ups, as well as, the plug ins.
here is a link to disco mikes service list. it is pretty thorough https://landroverforums.com/forum/di...service-29020/

might cross reference with your service record to see what you should tackle first.

enjoy, hope you get a couple hundred k more, at least.

 

A lower temp is definitely a good idea if he changes the thermostat. I think the highest temp I've seen is a little over 200 with my inline 180 degree stat.

I guess whether to shut down or not depends on what's happening. If it's 115 degrees outside and she's been in and out of traffic, the heater trick might work. But if she threw the belt the heater won't work, and sitting there idling just means running the truck at a very high temp for longer. The question is whether his wife can tell the difference between a thrown belt or something else.

To the OP - the factory belts and hoses should be fine, but I would replace the thermostat because they would have put in the factory 195 degree stat, which runs VERY hot and lets the truck heat up to well above 200 degrees.

These trucks generally end up overheating due to clogged radiators (it's very likely yours is partially clogged at its age), bad fan clutches (another part you should likely replace), blown hoses, or thrown belts. Water pumps typically fail in a predictable way. The problem, as dusty1 pointed out, is the gauge that literally doesn't move up until AFTER you have overheated. If it worked the way it should, you'd have far more warning there was a problem. Hence the need for the ultragauge.

The way I look at it, if my wife was driving the Disco, I'd rebuild the cooling system (except I'd leave the pump and watch for signs of failure), rebuild the front driveshaft, and replace the crankshaft position sensor. I'm personally thinking about replace the MAF sensor as well just to know it' been refreshed.

BTW, I've found the cheapest parts are ebay (which has a huge amount of new parts at good prices), Amazon, and rockauto.com. After that, you can start looking at the Land Rover websites like roverparts.com. Avoid the dealership like the plague for parts and services. Not only are they expensive, they sometimes replace faulty parts with parts that are likely to fail again (front driveshaft) or replace wildly expensive parts that can be repaired for dirt cheap (ABS modulator). These trucks are wonderfully easy to work on, but if you don't want to mess with it, find a good independent Rover shop.

 

I have a very good independent parts shop that can install the u joints if I buy them there. Is it ok to do that or do I need to go to a drive shaft shop?

Thanks

Eric

 

as long as they balance the shaft and all u joints and the centering ball are greasable, you are good.