Thinking of buying the above truck as a weekend adventure toy.
They seem to have a habit of blowing head gaskets. Hard job to do on these? Being push-rod driven they look simple enough. Am I wrong?
And - how strong are the blocks? Have heard the cylinder liners are not quite up to scratch. The possibility of buying a car with a cracked liner scares me way more than a mere head gasket.
Thoughts on that would be appreciated. Cheers.
monaro17,
Apr 24, 5:51am
Just a wee side note- do you realise they are horrendously thirsty? But you mention it is a weekend toy so perhaps you aren't too worried?
haventrader,
Apr 24, 7:07am
I had one when I lived in UK as my everyday vehicle. Was very reliable. Never had any issues. Was very thirsty and converted it to run on LPG with no real noticeable power loss. It's an old design motor (Buick?) so yes, simple to work on. Any reason for not going diesel?
pandai,
Apr 24, 7:12am
How thirsty is thirsty? I have heard 20-15L/100km.
I think that would be too thirsty for me.
mram,
Apr 24, 7:41am
Yes work on 12-18 litres if driven hard, disco II would be the 4.0 GEMS fuel injection, better than the old 3.9 14cux in terms of refinement and economy. Liner issue is largely due to the original rover/buick 3.5 being bored out while tooling was getting very old past use by date, hence poor fit etc. My take is that if it hasn't done it by now it'll likely be ok, however its a punt in some ways. You then have to content with a ho hum zf4hp22 trans which is a touch weak and rover diffs which dislike big tyres and wheelspin. If your not happy doing your own work on it, my advice would be to get into something else, probably a jeep Cherokee would be better all round
monaro17,
Apr 24, 7:44am
Yes they are indeed in that region. At a guess I would say at least 20L/100kms in chch traffic and no lower than 13L/100kms on a purely highway drive.
mojo49,
Apr 24, 10:15am
Best I get out of my 97 Disco 3.9 V8 petrol is 13L/100km and they run on 95 octane, so they are not cheap to run. Towing our caravan (nearly 2000Kg) fuel usage goes up to between 18-20L/100Km.Only do 5000km per annum so the fuel cost is not an issue compared to the convenience of a great fulltime 4WD tow wagon and a comfortable, quiet and sure footed ride. Any big engined weekend toy is not going to be cheap to run or maintain especially if you go off-road.
elect70,
Apr 25, 4:01am
If you think discos are unreliable buy a cherokee , once voted USA s worst SUV for reliability . I had 96 3.9 disco did the heads up in a weekend after skim at the recoditioners & it was 91 fuel model . dam good off road in the real rough stuff .
offrd1,
Apr 26, 9:10am
i have never had reliability problems [ touch wood lol ]with any of my jeeps . i have never quite under stood the unreliability thing,i have had jeeps for years and they have been thrashed . cheaper to run than all other 4x4s i have owned and that is a lot. The most problem i've had was a VX land Cruiser,
pandai,
Apr 26, 9:45pm
My boss upgraded to a RR Sport - I was thinking of buying his old disco.
Asked him yesterday about it - $200 of petrol gets him 400km away.
Wanaka is about 420km away and he only just makes it to the Caltex there.
No point having a truck that can't go anywhere without a $200 pit stop.
countrypete,
Apr 26, 9:49pm
At $2.00 per litre that's 100 litres to go 400km, which is 25l/100kms, or about 11.5 mpg in old terms.
clark20,
Apr 26, 11:19pm
Yep, guys at work did 25L/100
ema1,
Apr 27, 12:23am
Blow that it's cheaper to fly and get a rental at the other end? Think about it. Even my truck that I used to drive( Isuzu NPR 5.2litre) before retiring would do nearly that distance talking Lt/100km but cheaper $ wise being a diesel + RUC added to that would bring it nearer to parity? It would keep up with most traffic on the open road too up to it's legal speed limit in a loaded state and unloaded it was quite nippy for a truck. Averaged around 80,000km yearly in that one + extra kms in other trucks the company owned . on top of that.
morrisman1,
Apr 27, 12:52am
Thats what our damn 6-seater multi engine aircraft does cruising at 320km/h.
ema1,
Apr 27, 6:30am
Actually is nearer to 9.5 MPG. If talking US Gallons . 11.3MPG talking Imperial Gallon. Thirsty no matter how you look at it?
mram,
Apr 27, 6:38am
Must have been something wrong with it, seriously! out of my landrover 110 with 3.5 rover I could get 15l/100 easily and converted to 350 Chevrolet carburetted got 16l/100 on a recent trip to wellington. Driving with a reasonably heavy boot at times also. Aerodynamics are shocking compared to a disco too.
bwg11,
Feb 23, 3:00pm
I find the fuel consumption figures being quoted here for the Disco are quite high too. I had several FJ40's in the 70's and 80's. They would return a consistent 15 mpg (or 18.5 litres/100 km). That was hard usage, including a lot of heavy towing. I really can't see a Disco using more than the Cruiser.
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