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★★★☆☆

“Mixed view of this car, on one hand it's very...”

written by RCSH on 17/03/2008

Good Points
Comfort, equipment, driving position and off road ability.

Bad Points
Reliability. Running costs.

General Comments
Mixed view of this car, on one hand it's very comfortable and capable car. On the other, it's proved itself unreliable and prone to give us some rather unwelcome bills.

We bought the Discovery to replace a Volvo 850 estate that had run up 185000 miles. The reason for the Land Rover was it's off road ability would be useful when we go skiing. The first trip was however a summer one to the South of France.

Even before we set off we had problems, the injector harness in the cylinder head leaked oil into the loom and caused a misfire. Relatively easily to cure but not a very good start after owning it 3 weeks.

Once in France, it was a pleasant steady drive down to Bordeaux, then off east across to Carcassonne via Toulouse. On the return towards Bordeaux it overheated in Toulouse.

A local dealer topped up the coolant and bled the system and found no fault. When we got to Bordeaux, the level was low again, it obviously had a problem.

Armed with lots of water, I drove the car back to the UK, stopping at regular intervals to keep the level right and put it back into my local dealer. They informed me the radiator was partially blocked and flushed it out. They were wrong; it still kept on losing coolant. After several visits back to the dealer I put it into a local independent specialist who was recommended to me. The result? Head gasket failure, the original dealer obviously didn't want to know.

Since then I've had an ABS failure on the right rear hub, needing a complete hub replaced, bearings cannot be done separate, and the air suspension compressor failed. Add to that a replacement key and it's cost us an additional £1500 in 6 months of ownership.

The ironic part is, it's a great car to drive, but after reading a few forums I found I'm not alone in the problems it's had. In fact quite the opposite, all the faults I've had are quite common.

Oh, and the sunroof's leak. Some other owners have told us this is standard....

If this car was reliable it would be fantastic, but as it stands, I'm reluctant to take it abroad again. The dealers are next to useless and as unhelpful as they can be, probably as mine's not brand new I suppose, and the build quality is diabolical.

Would I buy one again? Not likely.

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