Affordable Land Rover, Range Rover, Radio Repair

These guys fix the radios for Rovers or sell you one.

 

No thanks. I'm cool with the Alpine iPod head unit I have. I'll save my cash for all the other crap that I'll need because it's a Land Rover.

 

I don't mind working on mine, so most of the little things don't bother me.

I don't like the crummy cooling system.
Or the idiot temp gauge.

Other than that, the only problem I have is the SE7 doesn't have enough storage cubbies.

 

This isn't true. The Rover V8 is brilliant. It's the best lightweight V8 in a production vehicle up until the LS. The Rover diesels are horrible. They don't even have the torque of the V8 much less the horsepower. They're not fuel efficient either. The 300 is the best of them (the TD5 was where engine management electronics took a left turn for regulatory reasons and left off-roaders in the dark) but it's still nowhere near as good as the V8. North Americans just lust for the diesels because they can't have them.

In any of the markets where both are available, the Rover V8 outshines any of the diesels in Land Rovers by far and is far more desirable (provided the owner can afford the fuel). The V8's have been in the Range Rover since the early 70's and they have a worldwide reputation as a rock-solid, reliable engine. There's nothing that even comes close for an offroad vehicle until you get to the LS several decades later and then only as a engine-swap option. The LS is also lightweight but has better fuel economy and power due to to ability to produce the far more sophisticated components with modern tooling. For the same reasons you can't practically upgrade a SBC to modern standards, it was time to retire the Rover V8, but saying its junk is non-sense. That's like saying the SBC and the Buick V6 are junk. Those are legendary motors and the Rover V8 is better than both.

The Rover V8 is also powerful. I don't know why people say the Discoveries are underpowered. Underpowered for what? Certainly not for offroad driving. That's ridiculous. A mainstay of offroading is the Toyota 22R. Was the 4.0 in the TJ more powerful? No. What about the 3.8 in the JK? No. Who in their right mind needs 300hp to go offroad? Yes, if you want to have a new Range Rover to keep up with your neighbor's AMG ML63 or whatever but it does not help offroad. The Discovery is not underpowered unless you put one of those diesels in it, then it's weak.

 

Diesels have nice torque at the bottom but they weigh too much for offroad unless they're so small as to be useless on the road. The all-aluminum V8 makes plenty of power on the highway and loads of torque once you get over the stall speed of the torque converter which is all that matters. The diesel might have some advantages with a manual transmission but the weight, noise, and weakness isn't worth it.


Now for what I do not like about the Discovery II:

1. The rear suspension with radius arms and a watts link. With this setup, you might as well have a G-wagon. The rear suspension on the original Range Rover is the best offroad suspension ever on any production vehicle. It was used when Land Rover decided to switch the Series to coil springs for the 110 and 90 (later to be called Defender), and it was used for the Discovery I. By dropping this, the Discovery II and P38 gained cargo space from a lowered floor level (in addition to the added rear overhang), but they lost rear axle articulation.

2. The rear overhang. Although I can appreciate the need for a larger vehicle, there should be 10 inches more wheelbase as well.


3. The changes to the axles. I like the original coil sprung axles on the Land Rovers with the swivel ***** replaceable bearings and everything.

4. Plastic headlights instead of glass.



What I do like:

1. Higher quality interior that's also newer and easier to find with less wear on it

2. Flush rear windows. They look nice from the outside, but I mostly care about the view from inside. The Discovery is awesome with it's tall windows not the "chopped" look on every new SUV and Crossover. I guess you don't need windows if you're busy looking at your phone.

3. The 4.6 engine with longer stroke -- a smart upgrade (as for Bosch vs. Gems I don't know enough about both so my comment is just on the increase in stroke)

 

I don't like the gas mileage, but its still better than some similar vehicles.

I don't like the placement of the door handles on the inside. It has left people who aren't used to that vehicle looking around for the handle.

I don't like the placement of the window controls in the front. I don't like how the controls are reversed from the D1.

I don't much like how the rear door looks. Its just kind of there.

Thats really about it.

 

I don't know how the handles are on the DII, but I dislike my D1's inside they're a little hard to use with gloves. Outside I like that their flush (something I dislike about the DII is that they stick out), but the outside handles on the D1 aren't exactly great either.

The rear door is so much better than what they have on new SUV's. Look at these squat little windows and tell me you can see anything out of those from the other end of a long cabin interior:

 

Then some of us prefer diesels because we prefer diesel. Nothing to do with availability.

I'm not sure what you're basing that on. Diesels are very popular in markets where both are available. Geared properly, and driven properly, and diesels have all the power the majority of people need. On top of that you're talking close to 30mpg for the 300Tdi.

 

I cannot even comprehend your statement binvanna. I don't know how to respond. There's a reason the TDi swap RN offered for NAS D90s was hugely popular. The 300TDi is MUCH preferred to any V8 LR offered, torquey enough, GREAT GAS MILEAGE(not sure what you meant by bad mileage, it gets near 30 in a vehicle shaped like a brick) and QUITE reliable. The Rover V8 is in no way a lusted after engine, it's joke.

 

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. This is the perfect discussion for this board. Have any of you actually seen a real life 300td anything? Those things suck complete whole entire sweaty ***. They cant get out of they're own way, let alone pull into 55 mph traffic like here in NJ. Sure you can pull a building down while tied to a tree while pulling a 40 foot boat in low range... But that's it, it's like trying to change your taillight, or tighten your throttle body heater screws with a 1/2 inch breaker bar. Smokey, Noisy, Slow, Harsh, Diesel.