Well, folks, it happened again. My Discovery stranded me. You all laughed at me last week and said, “the content will write itself if you have a Land Rover.” Here we are. That strategy has certainly worked for other individuals, cough cough Doug Demuro, and well, maybe it’ll work for me. Keep reading my stories and we shall see.
This past Tuesday, while on a day off, my friends and I wanted to take a trip to visit an automotive museum. We decided on the Newport Car Museum in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. I live on Long Island, about 4 hours away. Before you jump to conclusions, no I absolutely did not take my Disco on the trip. I’m much smarter than that, I’d like to think. My friend drove us in his BMW X7, a much comfier and dare I say more reliable ride.
Anyway, before departing, I was meeting my friend at his house, about 25 minutes away from where I live. I elected to take my Disco. I figured she could use some love. She’d not been getting as much attention from me, as I was busy with class, midterms, family, and my two jobs. The vehicle drove beautifully to my friend’s house – suspiciously so. Hmmm.
I left the Disco in front of the house for the day, and we set sail to Newport. It was a fun trip. I saw a Porsche Carrera GT, BMW Isetta, blah blah blah. Cool cars, I guess.
We got home around 8:30 PM, and I decided to leave a bit early from my friend’s house. I was exhausted; I had to do some writing for three papers due this upcoming Tuesday – well, I still have to, oops, so I decided to hit the road.
Good thing I did, rather than at 2 AM. Not even one exit after entering the highway I heard a loud pop, like a confetti popper thing people use on New Year’s Eve. Initially, I dismissed it as a pothole, as we have a lot of those in New York. Boy oh boy was I wrong. I suddenly lost all power steering and the battery light came on – not fun when you’re traveling 65MPH in a an old, tippy box!
Then my motor overheated. Of course it did, because it’s a 22-year-old Land Rover. For those unfamiliar with these Discos and the Rover 4.0 Bosch V8, overheating is the kiss of death. The most common outcome of an overheat is blown head gaskets. The Discovery 2’s complicated thermostat bypass loop does not help, often warping the gaskets. Additionally, Land Rover recommends the use of Dexcool coolant which corrodes aluminum parts, such as the block and heads. Not to mention, to comply with emission standards, the Discovery 2’s 4.0 runs significantly hotter than it did in the earlier Discovery 1 but did nothing to rectify that. Nice going, Land Rover.
The illuminated dashboard engine temperature red light, “Rudolph’s Nose,” was shining nice and bright at me. I pulled over. This can’t be good, I thought. I was right, it wasn’t!
I immediately turned the Disco off and opened the hood. It was an absolute disaster. There were pieces of broken belt, cracked fan blades, broken plastics, and coolant everywhere. It smelled horrendous. Hoses were flung around like pool noodles. It was also smoking like an Irish chimney. Ouch. I was stranded!
Naturally I called Triple A who stated that my membership had expired two days ago. I was in disbelief; my card wasn’t automatically charged apparently?
While stuck on the side of the busiest highway on Long Island, at 10 PM, I had to dig my card out and read the number aloud in the dark to the melancholy Triple-A agent. But get this: Triple-A was unable to come to my location. Why? The parkway I was stuck on, for you Long Islanders, the Southern State, has low clearance overpasses deeming a Triple-A tow-truck ineligible for travel.
The agent said to me, essentially: “You’re on your kid. Crawl home if I care. Your fault for buying a Land Rover.” He didn’t say that, but he might as well have since my emotions were certainly messing with my coherence.
He connected me to the highway department, and they showed up within 10 minutes and were a cheaper tow than I expected. Who needs Triple A?
My Disco and I got towed home as I sat in the front seat with the tow-truck driver, who proceeded to list off all the other cars he had picked up that day. I had him dump the Land Rover in the street in front of my house. I immediately went to bed, after some expletives of course, and said something like, “I’ll deal with this sh*t in the morning.”
The next morning I popped the hood and did some examining in the daylight. Thank you Mr. Sun for shining nice and bright onto my engine bay so I could see that a failed pulley wreaked havoc on the engine compartment. Yikes! There were no prior warning signs of this destruction. Believe me, I wouldn’t have driven it if so.
I called my mechanic, Bart at Independent MotorCar of Smithtown, NY, and he sent a tow truck to pick up my Disco. I watched as my Disco got loaded onto a flatbed for the 10th time since I took delivery of it in July 2022. Yikes!
A few hours later Bart called me up and listed off everything that was broken and needed repair. He sent me pictures and laughed with me about my license plate, CREAKY.
Here’s what the shop replaced: serpentine belt, belt tensioner, two pulleys, throttle body hoses, coolant tank cap, fan, and fan blades.
Between the two tows, the collection of OEM parts, 4.5 hours of labor, and my mental sanity, my Disco set me back about $1500. Not too bad for an old self-destructive Land Rover, but certainly not what a college kid wants to spend his work paychecks on. Disclaimer: I would have loved to have tackled the project myself and learned from experience, but it’s tough when I’m out of the house from 8 am-8 pm every day at school and work. If anything goes wrong over the summer, or I should say, WHEN something goes wrong, I will be sure to start a wrenching series.
I picked up my Disco early Friday morning and parked it right in front of my house. That’s where it’ll rest indefinitely until I muster up the courage to drive it again. We’re in a fight right now; I’m mad at it. It’s scary driving a car that can blow up on you at any second!
So that was just another week of Land Rover ownership. What do you all think, should I sell it? Should I sell my Disco to another unassuming college kid or should I keep it around for a bit? You tell me. In the meantime, make me an offer. I’ll still want an NAS Land Rover Defender. Don’t we all…
You’re not far from me. Good to know there’s an awesome mechanic nearby if my Jeep guy ever is too busy (he is sometimes). I get the not having time to wrench. I just had all the rockers done on my Pentastar-equipped Wrangler – if I had the time, I might have tried it myself.
Difference is, my Wrangler has been pretty reliable for the six years I’ve had it. I was once a college student with an unreliable vehicle that I had no time to wrench. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I’d sell it now, while it’s working.
He is a Land Rover Jaguar specialist, but I’m sure he could take a look at your Jeep.
For what it’s worth. I think the LR3 and LR4 are quite a bit more reliable. My stepdad had an LR3 that had some stilly stuff fail. The entertainment system and I think the air suspension but the ticky tacky engine stuff was non existent at 150k miles.
4.4V8 LR3 is considered to be the most reliable Land Rover out there. LR4 is decent, but they eat timing chains like Tootsie Rolls.
Since it’s not your daily driver, and since you are willing to wrench on it yourself when you have the time, I say it’s a keeper. That’s what I did my Oldsmobile.
Granted, doing it that way, it took me 15 years to finally get the thing sorted out, but I digress.
If you must sell it, get it in decent presentable shape and flip it for a Disco 1 or a Range Rover Classic (They’re the same platform) — Non-Bosch Rovers are simpler, more reliable.
FYI, should you ever go hunting down a classic Rangie, and you notice that the suspension seems to be making it sag toward the passenger side, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s designed that so that it will level out with a driver of average weight in the seat. Once the suspension is loaded that way, it will remain essentially level regardless of where other passengers sit. Yes, it has springs specifically for “left” and “right” sides, based on RHD or LHD configurations. This quirky feature was left out of Discos, which have a simple center spring in the load-leveling beam of the rear suspension. Rangies have a special gas spring there which makes the suspension more responsive at light loading, hence the special spring setup at the corners.
That probably seems over-engineered, but the if there’s one single thing that makes people go nuts about and hang onto Land Rovers of that vintage is the sheer tenacious traction and stability of their suspension combined with a surprisingly comfortable ride both on- and off- pavement. And the coil-sprung Rangie/Disco/Defender platform really is the definitive original coil-spring/live axle 4×4 design. Every coil-sprung off-roader since has been an attempt to (not always successfully…) emulate the Land Rover.
It’s extremely difficult to find a RRC these days. I’d harp on one much sooner than my Disco. Bosch Rovers suck!
Eh, how’s your bank balance? Will the next two tows mean you need to apply to the Parental Bank? If so, discuss with them now. Given your schedule, a breakdown-prone vehicle may not be for you right now.
Sometimes you absolutely have to walk away—before you put a large wrench through the windshield
The Parental Bank is closed. This steaming pile of sh*t is entirely on the bank of Rob.
There is something about the disco ive a near end of life one I just can’t part with ???? I’ve looked at jeeps and range rovers but I just can’t do it, I’ve fixed alot of the stuff myself, front hub ball joints by far the worst.
Its pulled up hedges, moved us house, knows it’s own way to the local tip, so far it’s never failed to get us home, good luck from over the pond.
Face it dude “She’s just not that into you”
A mechanic improperly handled components of the transmission of my first car, a ’71 Fiat 128 and put a nick on a cross shaft. The result of this is that if I didn’t shift in a perfect pattern into reverse, the transmission got stuck in second. After getting a tow home one time, and driving on the causeway between Davis and Sacramento at 25 mph and getting pushed off onto the shoulder a couple of times., I had to get it fixed. After this happening a couple of times, and watching the mechanic just push the rod back into place after removing the side plate, I drilled a hole where the rod was located. I ground off a nail so I could remove the wood screw and poke the shaft back into position. I finally found the car I really wanted (a ’67 VW squareback) so sold the Fiat. Being a schmuck college kid, I didn’t tell the buyer about the tranny, but I did leave the nail on the dash. I sold it at college and hitchhiked back home. I got a call from the new buyer about a week later. Oh crap, caught! Turned out I didn’t sign some DMV paperwork. Whew!
Dude, sell her while she still looks good.
I know when I was a college student I could not afford to pay someone to fix my vehicles and if you’re being honest with yourself, that $1500.00 would have been better spent towards a college degree rather than your very unreliable Disco!
Good point! Haha
Dude, sell her while she still looks good.
I know when I was a college student I could not afford to pay someone to fix my vehicles and, if you’re being honest with yourself, that $1500.00 would be better spent towards a college degree than your very unreliable Disco!
A Landrover demonstrates why it’s an off road vehicle. As much as I like the looks and image of the Discovery I hate the 70s Jaguar unreliability. Give me a Series IIa fixable by a bush mechanic with a hammer and a welder
“A Landrover demonstrates why it’s an off road vehicle.
I assume that you are including “Off-Street” in the definition of ” Off – Road”
Yep, just like a 70s Jaguar was an off road vehicle
It overheated though right?… so you’re bound to have some problems related to that soon right?
Yep. Don’t remind me. If I keep it, I plan to tackle heads and cylinder sleeves over the summer.
Convert it to an electric disco. Lots of totaled Tesla drive trains out there.
I say keep it. Most relationships are dysfunctional anyway, so just take your lumps. Furthermore, at some point you will have replaced enough parts to make it semi-reliable. However, not as your daily driver. Trying to DD a 20+ Disco will only lead to profound emotional trauma.
Ain’t denial fun? 😀
Thankfully my daily driver is a Toyota.
What you gonna get for your hard earned money?
The Car Of Your Dreams
In legal circles the term “discovery” is used to refer to the process of gathering and sharing of evidence between the prosecution and the defense prior to a trial. The one thing you can count on is that it’s always going to be bad news for someone. Just saying.
I have gotten plenty of bad news with this thing
“What do you all think, should I sell it?”
I think you answered your own question a couple paragraphs above…
“I watched as my Disco got loaded onto a flatbed for the 10th time since I took delivery of it in July 2022.”
So, with most used cars, if you keep pouring money in, eventually you get all the stuff fixed that the prior owner didn’t bother with. Eventually you get a pretty reliable vehicle, needing only maintenance with the very occasional oops.
But this isn’t most used cars. In this case, the popcorn never stops popping in the Disco microwave. It takes a break in popping for a few seconds, and then suddenly pops again. That makes for good reading in a blog that’s all about this sort of angst. However, as a former Long Island student (many decades ago) and as a fellow human, it’d make more sense to pass this off the the next fool in line. Been there with a few too many vehicles. Now older and wiser.
As a matter of interest, people should read the history of the construction of the Northern State and Southern State Parkways. It’s not a pretty story. The beautiful curved stone archways on the overpasses were intentionally designed to be low. The idea was to prevent low income people from being able to ride buses from the city out to the lovely Long Island beaches and other nice things. If you are reading racist overtones into their motivations, you’d not be wrong.
If this is NOT your primary vehicle, keep it. But, also don’t drop $1500 on it with a mechanic.
If this IS your daily, sell it. 3 years from now when you are working full time and have weekends to yourself, you’ll have time and money for it. Between now and then, these aren’t going to change in value all that much.
In the back of my mind I have this weird dream that everybody who works at the Autopian gets all free repairs on any vehicle as a perk. This makes is basically impossible to NOT choose buying a vehicle like this. So, if this is indeed true, keep it.
Maybe repairs would come gratis at Galpin, if Rob could manage to drive this money pit to LA.
Odds of that happening without another 10 rounds with a tow truck?
If I can’t make it 25 minutes and 10 miles away from home, how the hell will I make it to LA????
Oh man, that would be a great perk! I’d so daily drive my V10 Touareg if I didn’t have to pay whenever it broke.
You should also hunt for other V10 VAG cars to complete the bingo card!
No need to be so limiting; be an equal opportunity consumer of the V10 lifestyle.
She might found out that other V10 manufacturer (other than BMW), the intricacy / maintence bill might not be up to the level of billing Galpin consider significant?
Keep it until you tire of dumping money into it. Nobody said keeping up a machine from the country that likes warm beer would be cheap!
Ahem. It’s *cellar* temperature, IF you please… ????
If it’s above 45*F/7*C it’s warm! 🙂
In the case of the Land Rover I think you mis-spelled “seller”
Put me down for “keep it.” Old Landies are actually super cool, and the issues will either help speed your auto mechanic training … or build character … or both.
True, but you can build skills & character with other vehicles which won’t empty the wallet as precipitously
Also help pay for auto mechanic’s progeny’s upbringing and education.
If random $1500 repairs don’t faze you, you can at least spend your time in something much nicer than an old Land Rover for your trouble.
They faze me!
Why do you own this wreck, again?
I’m a dumb college kid who likes cars. Particularly dumpster fire cars.
Yeah, for something interesting I would understand, but an old LR? Why? I briefly liked LRs before I realized they’re just utter trash that look cool in adventure movies (and even those aren’t Discos). If you’re rich, have at it (though, like my neighbors, they’re likely to have multiple new Range Rovers instead), but if you have limited funds, people to spend time with instead of unplanned time having to bust knuckles on a junker, and responsibility beyond just you? Get a vehicle that doesn’t eat money.
The way I see it people who drive the latest Rovers are not necessarily auto enthusiasts or even Land Rover enthusiasts. A lot of them see them as fashion accessories, problems that fix themselves when the leases are over. That’s why despite their reputation, the brand still have a wait list.
Then there are enthusiasts that are attracted by the ruggedness of the late Queen, old Defender 90 / 110, new Ineos Grenadier etc.
The Mercedes G are like that too. Except they are a tad easier to work on.
I gave the article a thumbs up, not of joy, but for the expression of the horror.
I think you got off relatively lucky this time, it is your call, but I vote sell it while it runs and hope the test ride goes without incident.
I don’t know what you get paid for articles, but there has to be a cheaper way for you to generate weekend content.
C’mon, man, everyone knows Disco is dead. Doug D. only made it work because he had a warranty. You got off cheap for only $1500. Consider that a warning shot across the bow – that Rover won’t be staying’ alive.
Shhhh, I will remain in denial.
Doug Demuro’s was a full blown Ranger Rover though, which is probably a magnitude more complicated than this Discovery. Air suspension, BMW / Ford electronic linerage.
You know what has a prone to overheating 4.0 that does all the same stuff as a land rover but rarely gives you 1500 dollar repair bills? Hell, if you don’t mind some rust you can buy a whole one for 1500? Hint, it rhymes with smecks chay.