Off-road Land Rover Discovery 3 - the owner of a dubious reputation and an ambiguous image, despite which he wins the hearts of many car owners, who become his ardent fans for years. The car is distinguished not only by quite frequent malfunctions, but also by a very curious history of creation and original design. The new version of Discovery 3 is designed taking into account current automotive trends, as buyers pay attention primarily to the exterior of SUVs, and only then to their cross-country ability. The new generation of the car has become more difficult from a structural point of view, in connection with which, in the reviews of Land Rover Discovery 3, the owners note that they will not be able to repair the car in case of breakdown.
Engines and common faults
Land Rover Discovery 3 cars supplied to the CIS market were equipped with two engines: a 2.7-liter turbodiesel with a capacity of 190 horsepower and a 4.4-liter gasoline engine with a capacity of 300 horsepower. Among motorists, the version of the gasoline-powered SUV is not in great demand, and therefore the main problems have not been identified, with the exception of inefficiency - the consumption is about 20 liters per 100 kilometers. The diesel Land Rover Discovery 3 is a joint development of the Peugeot-Citroen alliance and Ford. With proper maintenance, the engine's operating life is 500 thousand kilometers, but it also has its drawbacks. For example, exhaust gas recirculation valves quickly become covered with soot, which leads to their breakdown. Their cleaning or replacement is required if the engine is difficult to start or its dynamic performance is reduced. Often owners talk about the unreliability of the EGR valve cooler.
Quite often, a high-pressure fuel pump and a fuel submersible pump fail. Over time, the manufacturer upgraded both pumps, which increased their reliability and operating life. The crankshaft front oil seal often starts to let in oil, which leads to knocking in the Land Rover Discovery 3 engine. The 2.7-liter power unit fails due to a lack of oil, which is caused by incorrect operation of the oil pump. After numerous complaints, the manufacturer eliminated this defect. Other system malfunctions include a malfunction in the exhaust pipe of the exhaust system, cranking of the crankshaft liners, problems with the crank mechanism and the oil temperature sensor.
The Land Rover Discovery 3 engine, like the fuel nozzles, is very sensitive to the quality of the fuel being poured: when using low-quality diesel fuel, the nozzles fail after 100-120 thousand kilometers. A similar working resource for glow plugs. One of the advantages of the TdV6 y Land Rover Discovery 3 power unit is the resource of the turbine: with proper operation, it can last more than one hundred thousand kilometers, but any repair of it will cost the owner of an SUV a large amount. The diesel engine of the SUV has considerable "appetites": consumption in the urban cycle is 14 liters.
Transmission
Land Rover Discovery 3 is equipped with a six-speed automatic or mechanical transmission. A mechanical gearbox is considered more reliable, since the machine after 130 thousand kilometers suffers from jerks when driving in traffic jams and shifting gears. You can fix this problem either by resetting the errors in the control unit or by replacing the torque converter.
With regular use of the car as a full-fledged SUV, four-wheel drive starts to hurt. The reason lies in the interaxal couplings: they quickly wear out under the influence of high loads and temperatures, which causes expensive transmission repairs. If the rear differential lock fails, the problem is most likely in the drive servo. Quite rarely, owners of Land Rover Discovery 3 face damage to the front differential and propeller shaft mount. It is possible to increase the life of the transfer case, transmission and gearbox only by timely replacement of filters and oil in them.
Interior
The SUV has excellent visibility and a comfortable fit. The interior is made in the style of minimalism, which the creators managed to do. Very high-quality materials were used to decorate and soundproof the cabin, which eliminated third-party noise. The advantages of the Land Rover Discovery 3 interior include an audio system with excellent sound quality.
The electrical equipment is not particularly reliable: quite often the sound signal breaks, the speedometer stops functioning due to the failure of the ABS sensor, the Terrain Response system fails and the radio turns off arbitrarily.
Car electrician
The biggest disadvantage of the British SUV is the electronics. The problems associated with it fall into two main categories: software failure and oxidation of wire contacts. The firmware for the vehicle control units is carried out during each maintenance of the SUV. Actually, this allowed to reduce to zero the number of shortcomings, and the remaining ones are eliminated by a banal reboot of the system. Solving the problem with the oxidation of the terminals is more difficult: most often the electrical wiring of the center differential and the rear left wheel fails. Loss of communication in the circuit leads to lowering the body and flickering dashboard lights.
Driving performance
The third generation of Discovery differs from previous versions in the presence of an independent suspension and the ability to adjust the ride height. Such innovations have improved the smoothness, patency and handling of an SUV. Quite often, owners of Land Rover Discovery 3 have to deal with problems with air cylinders, which are also covered by metal protective covers. In the secondary market, you can find models with a conventional suspension, but they are incredibly rare. The SUV itself has a very weak suspension for a car of this class, and therefore it has to be sorted out quite often - approximately every 60-80 thousand kilometers.
In most cases, the silent blocks of the front levers and stabilizer struts, the front wheel bearings, steering tips and ball bearings fail. Particular attention is required to air suspension - with proper care, its working life is 100-120 thousand kilometers. Land Rover Discovery 3, unlike other SUVs, does not require large investments in chassis repair.
SUV Benefits
- Rich functionality and equipment of complete sets.
- Frame body structure.
- Harman Kardon high-quality sound system with great sound.
- Comfortable and reliable suspension.
Car disadvantages
- With the active operation of the SUV in the city, traces of corrosion appear on the frame structure.
- Extremely small suspension working life.
- Unreliable electrician.
- Too high fuel consumption.
Summary
When buying a used Land Rover Discovery 3 SUV, it is advisable not to purchase the cars of the first years of production, since the manufacturer corrected the main shortcomings with each subsequent version, respectively, most of them were corrected only after several years of active production of the model. In this regard, we can safely say that the fairly common myths that the Discovery is an unreliable car are fundamentally wrong, so the acquisition of such an SUV, albeit in the secondary market, will be a very good and reasonable solution.