Just bought lr3 after lurking for a long time on this forum. I picked it up on Friday from Ca and drove straight for 12 hours to Seattle. It's 2008, really beautiful green with tan interior. I have always worked on my cars and I am wondering what type of oil and filter do lr3 owners use? I am wondering about brands not viscosity. My lr3 has 69k, always serviced at the dealer. Here are the pics

 

re: always serviced at the dealer....

That is problem number one. High priced, and at intervals that make sense to people that make a living making you buy new vehicles... sooner. Attached please find the factory maintenance schedule from their shop manual (free download of whole thing in links below). You have probably never had diff fluid changed, tranny fluid changed, coolant changed .... because they are not due yet.

The front diff holds like two soda cans of fluid. Splash lubrication. That is 1/3 the lube in a D1 diff. And your truck weighs more, and has more power from the engine. Somehow, it is not logical that the unobtanium fluid will last 10 years. Of course if it does not, the dealer is off the hook because warranty is over. $2200 for a front diff.

The ZF transmission company is advising shops to chnage the tranny fluid in the 60K range, again, not the ten year model.

And you may have had long oil change intervals. Do it at a more arduous schedule, like 5000 miles.

Coolant flush in an earlier Discovery was speced at 24 months or 30K. Radiators "grow" calcium based sludge inside 24 horus a day, just faster when heated. Systems topped off with tap water or well water are problems. 150,000 miles on a coolant flush is asking to buy a new radiator.

The spec is for a 5W30 oil, IMHO the 5W40 Shell Rotella synthetic would provide an edge of protection in hot stop and go traffic and does a great job of cleaning. Filters not to use - anything that says "FRAM".

 

Buzz thank you for your response. Does anybody uses Bosch filters? Buzz in the next week I will start replacing all the fluids in the vehicle. Has anybody had a good luck buying parts from a dealer?

 

Bosch filters are good, I use them on my Mercedes. As for parts from dealer, you'll find better prices on line and other sources. Atlantic British, Rovers North, Rock Auto, AutohausAZ, Rovah Farm, plenty of others.

 

I'm going to buy a wix filter when I do my oil change, I think. It seems to be about the cheapest I can find for a V8 LR3, with the best reputation. It seems that the motorcraft filters are made by Fram and I am not a Fram fan. (I only considered motorcraft because Ford used this engine in some of their cars.)

As far as oil goes, I think on this I'm going to stick with 5w30. It's gone quite a few miles on it so far, and this engine isn't the dinosaur that the Rover V8 is. It also has 8+ quarts of oil in it so I'm thinking they intentionally over engineered the lubrication system. I might do synthetic so that I can go the factory 7500? mile interval and not have to worry about making sticker... I'll just change the oil when the dash tells me to.

 

Wix filters are good and are what I used when I had my LR3.
My oil change interval was spring and fall (aprox 10k km intervals).
The oil (typically Castrol Syntec or Mobil1 whatever had the best sale). Lab analysis showed that there was lots of life left in the additive pack in the oil at these intervals.

I sold the 3 and bought a used 4. The 5.0l engine requires a special long life 5w-20 but the upside is 1 year and/or 24k km oil change interval. I was skeptical but a used oil analysis done at 20k km's and
1 year showed 20% oil life remaining. I have 8L of this special oil left (came with vehicle). I will run the 1 year interval again and then probably settle back into spring/fall with a more normal and cheaper synthetic. Unfortunately the filter for the LR4 is $45. Yikes.

 

Who / How / Where are you getting Oil Analysis done, this information might be useful for others.

 

Blackstone Labs

 

I just looked it up as i had not seen an LR4 filter before. It's a cartridge. So you get to pay more for a messier job!

Looks like you can get the OE filter cheaper than the wix filter for that application:

Land Rover Parts - Land Rover Parts Center - Call (800) 574-9217 for Genuine Land Rover Parts and Accessories

 

I just use the recommended Castrol 5w-30 as recommended with either a Land Rover, Bosch or Wix filter.

As far as fluid changing, I recently changed my diff and transfer case fluids at 30k miles just to be on the safe side. Do you guys agree?