I finally after many years of thinking about owning a Land Rover I finally pulled the trigger and got a 2003 Discovery HSE with 148,000 miles on it. It seems to have been pretty well taken care of, the inside is in very good shape and body wise its in good shape. I plan on doing the major service just to be on the safe side as money and time allows. What do you guy's think I should do first on the list? Drive terrain, coolant system (hoses, t-stat)? A few things I have noticed is It does smell a little rich when I first start it and the transmission light has come off and on a couple of times and sometimes when I think it has time to cool off and I start it the temp gauge will go straight to the middle. And what is a good entry level code reader/scanner? This is a second vehicle that will be used for short hunting trips, some around town driving and I would like to get into some off-roading since that is what these rigs were made for. Thanks, Robert

 

Inspect the driveshafts, and make sure the cooling system is in good shape. I would swap the thermostat. Obviously, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, but those two typically are the most urgent.

I have a scanguage and it does fine, would like something that would bleed brakes and do some more stuff, but it does the job. There are bluetooth tools and apps for your phone you can get that will do the same thing.

As far as running rich, clean the intake manifold, and make sure to run premium gas only. Put some seafoam through it as well.

 

Thanks for the response CR. The person I bought it from had just put a new front drive shaft in and a new air conditioner compressor. I will take your advice and work on the coolant system first.

 

Those are really the two issues that cause catastrophic failure. I had my thermostat go bad and that cost me an engine, I got to the driveshaft in time. If you have those two things taken care of and go through the checklist you will just need to monitor it. They are high maintenance vehicles.

Make sure to switch to Rotella oil, lots of literature on this site about it. It will lube the engine better. It honestly does make a difference.

You will enjoy the vehicle, when they are running properly they are a pleasure. Congrats on the new vehicle, I hope you get a ton of mileage out of it.