Land Rover Discovery 3 reviews

2024 Author: Erin Ralphs | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-19 11:42

The Land Rover Discovery 3 off-road vehicle has a dubious reputation and an ambiguous image, despite which it wins the hearts of many car owners who become its ardent fans for years. The car is distinguished not only by fairly frequent malfunctions, but also by a very curious history of creation and an original design. The new version of Discovery 3 was developed taking into account modern automotive trends, as buyers pay attention first of all to the exterior of SUVs, and only then to their cross-country ability. The new generation of the car has become more complex from a constructive point of view, and therefore, in the reviews of the Land Rover Discovery 3, the owners note that it will not be possible to repair the car on their own in the event of a breakdown.

Engines and common faults

The 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 SUV with a gasoline engine is not in great demand, due towith which the main problems have not been identified, with the exception of inefficiency - the consumption is about 20 liters per 100 kilometers. The Land Rover Discovery 3 diesel engine is a joint development of the Peugeot-Citroen alliance and Ford. With proper maintenance, the working life of the engine 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 failure. Their cleaning or replacement is required when it is difficult to start the engine or reduce its dynamic performance. Often, owners talk about the unreliability of the EGR valve cooler.

Quite often the high pressure fuel pump and the submersible fuel pump fail. Over time, the manufacturer upgraded both pumps, which increased their reliability and service life. The front crankshaft oil seal often begins to leak oil, which leads to knocks in the Land Rover Discovery 3 engine. The 2.7-liter power unit fails due to lack of oil, which is caused by incorrect operation of the oil pump. After numerous complaints, the manufacturer has eliminated this defect. Other system problems include a defective exhaust bypass pipe, crankshaft liners turning, problems with the crank mechanism and oil temperature sensor.

The Land Rover Discovery 3 engine, like fuel injectors, is very sensitive to the quality of the fuel being poured: when using low-quality diesel fuel, the injectors fail after 100-120 thousand kilometers. Similar workerresource 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 will cost the SUV owner a large amount. The diesel engine of the SUV has considerable "appetites": the consumption in the urban cycle is 14 liters.

Transmission

Land Rover Discovery 3 is available with a six-speed automatic or manual transmission. A manual 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, all-wheel drive begins to "sick". The reason lies in the center clutches: they wear out quickly under the influence of high loads and temperatures, which causes costly transmission repairs. If the rear differential lock fails, the problem is most likely in the drive servomotor. It is quite rare for Land Rover Discovery 3 owners to encounter damage to the front differential and propeller shaft bearings. It is possible to increase the service 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 is quite possible for the creators. Very high-quality materials were used for interior decoration and soundproofing, which made it possible to eliminate third-party noise. The advantages of the Land Rover Discovery 3 interior include an audio system with excellent sound quality.

Electrical equipment is not very reliable: the sound signal breaks quite often, the speedometer stops functioning due to the failure of the ABS sensor, the Terrain Response system fails and the radio turns off randomly.

Car electrics

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 of the vehicle control units is carried out with each maintenance of the SUV. Actually, this made it possible to reduce the number of shortcomings to zero, 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 wiring of the electric drive of the center differential and the rear left wheel fails. Loss of communication in the circuit causes the body to lower and the instrument panel lights to flicker.

Rideability

The third generation of Discovery differs from previous versions in the presence of independent suspension and the ability to adjust ride height. Such innovations have improved the smoothness of the ride,cross-country ability and handling of an off-road vehicle. Quite often, Land Rover Discovery 3 owners have to deal with problems with air springs, which are also covered with 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, silent blocks of the front levers and stabilizer struts, wheel front bearings, steering tips and ball joints fail. Particular attention is required to the 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 repairs.

Off-road advantage

• Rich functionality and equipment packages.
• Frame body structure.
• Harman Kardon quality sound system with great sound.
• Comfortable and secure suspension.

Flaws of the car

• With the active operation of an SUV in the city, traces of corrosion appear on the frame structure.
• Extremely short suspension life.
• Unreliable electrics.
• Fuel consumption too high.

Results

When buying usedoff-road vehicle Land Rover Discovery 3, it is advisable not to purchase 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 purchase of such an SUV, albeit in the secondary market, will be a very good and reasonable decision.