So I Entered the Land Rover family in February Bought a 99 Land rover discovery 2 4.3 V8 142,000 miles 3000 dollars.

Car needed considerable maintenance because the previous owner thought these vehicles needed no care whats so ever. So I've been updating cleaning and getting work done for the last year. But never had i considered how dramatically a new pair of tires could make on Fuel Mileage! I was so shocked i thought my fuel gauge stopped working but no im running at 18 miles to the gallon or so now! IN CITY! this is awesome i never thought tires could excite me so much! But this little shop here in Knoxville Tn Rovers Unlimited saw i was in trouble and helped me. Had a gasket in the Coolant line go out they fixed it cheap and then sold me 4 practically new tires off a parts rover for 100 bucks for all 4. I went up a tire size from 255-65-16 to a 255-70-16 Looks so much sexier then before and feels much more balanced on the road at speed.

But the biggest up grade im planing right now is to Truck bed line the whole of the Rover Under carriage to roof basket. NEVER WILL SHE RUST! lol Guys im excited for the further work. And look forward to being more involved in the rover community

 

Check out the sticky post by DiscoMike at very top of D2 subforum for any missed maintenance items. I know that on the '03-04 D2s the temp gauge doesn't move past "normal" until the coolant hits 250 deg, likely applies to the '99 as well so you will need an alternate gauge for coolant temp, oil pressure, etc. lots of options out there. The hard number for coolant temps is under 200f; when you are hotter than that reliability becomes a coin flip. If you skim through the D2 forums you can learn a whole lot more about the D2 quirks and anomalies that you could be getting well ahead of such as front driveshaft, oil pump, and cooling system. The ball joints will be toast at this age and mileage so unless they have already been replaced, you will really be in for a treat once that is addressed; night and day difference in driveability on new upper/lower BJs @ the steering knuckle. New drag link, tie-rod & steering damper at the same time.

 

I had the front drive shaft fail as in the Ujoints fail going 80 on the interstate transfer case was toast as well my new jeans. 1800 dollars later i plunged head first into the care of this vehicle. My goal is 300000 miles or more before i swap the 4.3 v8 for the TD5 Diesel hemi up grade i love this car to dam much....

 

 

The infamous front-DS failure? But hey, if it didn't also destroy the transmission at time of failure you really, really, REALLY lucked out! Unfortunately the D2s shortcomings don't end there. Keep doing work.

 

Yeah i lucked out it broke free from the front end. im eye balling a new trans and such