I've always loved these SUV's and am really considering buying one soon. My only worries is the reliability. As far as reviews go, they are great for off-road, but do suffer from reliability issues. I want to know from drivers with experience with the Discovery and what type of issues are common. Are they really built that bad?

Please chime in with any tips on things to look out for. Thanks!

 

I'm guessing you could just read the thread on the old Audi A4, and substitute LR for A4 in most of the posts.

LR models routinely finish dead last in reliability rankings.

 

I was reading that thread and thinking about the LR. Guess being built by Ford, the acronym stands true. Fix or repair daily!

 

I had an '07 LR3 that was in the shop ever 6 weeks or so. I sold that when the warranty was up and bought an 01 Disco II. My brother in law has an 03 Disco II and a friend of mine has an 01 Disco II. The reliability of the Disco's depends on 2 major issues: How well maintained the vehicle was and how many miles the vehicle has.

My friend with the 01 has done a ton of modifications to make it an exceptional wheeler. He has suffered from some reliability issues around the modifications he made. My brother in law and I both have had our cars for 18-20 months. Our cars had between 75k and 80k miles on them when we bought them and they were well maintained by the previous owners. Neither of us have had any major issues. I had the cable on the hood release snap in a spot that I could not get to so I took it to a LR specialist shop and with parts it cost me about $200 to replace. My wife got our vehicle hi-centered on a boulder when she was doing some solo wheeling and ended up knocking the exhaust manifold loose. I have yet to replace it because I am putting an aftermarket manifold on but again, that issue has nothing to do with the build quaility and rather operator error. The headliner is starting to drop a bit on our car but that is an easy fix.

Overall, the Disco II's are well built and as long as they are well built and in the 60-80k range, you should be able to get 30-50k miles on it before major issues come up.

 

My Dad had a late 90's, lower mileage Discovery that he enjoyed taking off road, but got tired of the maintenance costs.

A co-worker of mine bought an early 2000's model with about 130K, but he's selling it after only four or five months of ownership. First it was the radiator, then the starter, then the ECU, etc. Granted, any car with 130K will need maintenance, but this was back to back to back, and the parts and labor costs were high.

Unless you have lots of discretionary income for maintenance, and seriously love them, you shouldn't do it.

 

The only thing you're going to Discover is how many Land Rover mechanics there are in your area.

 

2nd.

They are not well built. Combine that with very high part/labor costs and the fun factor goes way down. Even if you are fortunate enough to escape "major" repairs, buttons will break, electrical problems will arise, door handles will stop working, windows will fall into the door, etc.

 

range rovers are poop.

 

Neighbor has one, main bearing shot at 54k miles

Only if that thing was DIRT cheap would I own it.

 

Land Cruiser > Land Rover