Hey guys, new to Land Rover Forum, looking for some help. Take it easy on me. Im young and stupid.

I have a 2002 Land Rover Discovery and have had some overheating issues with it. It will drive and get up to normal temperature, then after a little more driving the needle starts going up. Were talking a total of about 5-10 minutes driving (short but steep hill included if that makes any difference). If I pull to the side of the road and just sit (put trans. in park and not give any gas) it will slowly go back down to normal running temperature. Then, when I continue to drive, it will start going back up again but not immediately. I've had this happen a couple time before I just stopped driving it all together to avoid anything getting worse. A couple times I just kept driving it because I was not driving it hard or going far and the temp still went down after it went up. The needle never reached the red zone and the red light never came on.

I've done a little research and it looks like thermostats seem to be a common problem with these cars overheating. I don't know all the ins and outs of engines but from what I can put together with my research, the thermostat seems to be the most likely problem in my situation.

The car has a fairly new radiator in it. Before I replaced the radiator, the engine ran into the red with the light turning on multiple times. (I realize that was dumb to let it get that high. Thats why I warned you in the beginning haha). After the radiator replacement, the car ran great. This is my reason to believe that my problem is not a blown head gasket (thank god!) because I think the radiator incident would have blown it, not the recent ones.

I've looked at some of the threads and there are some very knowledgeable people on here so hopefully you guys can help me out. I am a student working my way through college while achieving deans list accolades. Money is not an abundant resource for me. I would greatly appreciate any advice that any of you out there can give me about where to start fixing my car in the least expensive way. Also if you have any questions that can help you help me please feel free.

 

Start with the thermostat, then move onto the fan clutch.
Also you might want to check and see how much if any debris there is between the radiator and the a/c condenser.
It sounds like it is only overheating while climbing the hill which steers me towards a air circulation problem,, which would be debris blocking the radiator or a bad fan clutch.

 

Will do! thanks for the advice Spike

 

Fan clutch should be stiff to spin by hand, even when warmed up. Should not spin "freewheel", shold not spin more than 1 revolution when hot. DO NOT TRY TO SPIN OR GRAB WITH ENGINE RUNNING. Would think with newer radiator that trash might not have built back up yet. When changing thermostat, be sure to inspect where it mounts (in the plumbing) for some small bypass holes around the mounting area, these need to be cleaned out sometimes.