Seven proper seats, real off-road ability and a diesel that will do 300,000 km. The three things to check before you buy one.
If someone asks us for one Land Rover that will carry a family, tow a trailer and still get up a forest track in February, the answer is a Discovery 4. It is old enough to be affordable and modern enough to be comfortable, and the things that go wrong on it are well documented and mostly fixable.
The 3.0 is a strong engine with one famous weakness: crankshaft failure on hard-worked, oil-neglected examples, usually the higher-output twin-turbo. It is not common and it is not random — it follows long oil intervals and heavy towing. A car with 10,000 km oil changes and a sensible history is a very different risk to one with a stamp every 25,000.
Same story as every air-sprung Land Rover: the bags fail slowly, the compressor fails because of the bags, and the car that has been used regularly is healthier than the one that has been parked. Check it rises evenly on all four corners and that the compressor stops rather than running on.
Check the parking-brake module operates before you drive it. It is an electric unit at the back of the car, it fails on neglected examples, and it is not a roadside fix.
Unlike most seven-seaters the third row is usable by adults, and the stepped roof means they can see out. Check the rear seat motors all operate and that the boot floor is dry — the rear washer and the tailgate seals both leak into it, and a wet floor over years rots the seat mechanisms.
It does eighty percent of what a Range Rover does, for a third of the money and half the anxiety.
Ivan Petrov · Master Technician
Book it into the Ram Parts workshop, or order the parts and do it yourself — either way you get the same advice.
