Amfab

A friend is looking to buy a 2004. Anyone have experience? Whats the best forum for these vehicles

TheBen

My mum has one of these since new and about 100k miles later its still a pretty solid vehicle. No electrical gremlins to speak of. A little weep of oil around the gaskets but easily dealt with. These cars are fairly simple mechanically and electrically. Not the fastest thing around. The LR3/4's engine is much smoother. The 4.6 in the Discovery II has around 230 hp if I'm not mistaken.

Ish993

2004 is the best year for the Discovery, best engine, lockers etc. It truly is a tough *** truck. I owned a 2000 & 2003, loved them both, very good off road and they look cool as chit lifted and modded.

Discoweb and Land Rovers Only are two popular sites

If he is going to mod it make sure he buys one with the standard coil spring suspension and not the "ACE" package

Another vehicle that I de-badged, the hood in particular looked much better without the plastic letters

cpdjfd107

I had an 04. I only had it for 2 years but it was a great truck. Real strong. The 4x4 will get you through anything. I had the SE with dual sunroofs. Everything felt well built on interior and exterior. My only issue was that for a pretty big truck the drivers seat was very tight. The steering wheel didnt have much adjustment on it. I am 6 feet 210 lbs and my legs had the squeeze between the seat and steering wheel entering and exiting. Fuel mileage sucks too but that is to be expected in a AWD heavy SUV.

sdcabrio

I have an '04 as a daily driver. I'm not a mechanic, but as stated above, they are still fairly simple machines. I have 88,000 miles on mine and (knock on wood) it's running great. It is slow and gets really bad gas mileage around town and just bad gas mileage on freeway. I just took the family to Palm Desert this past weekend,...averaged 13.5 mpg on freeway doing 75 with a/c on.

I recently added a 2" Old Man Emu lift (shocks & springs) and larger tires on my 18" rims and the factory front brush guard with some PIAA fogs. Rides great and looks much better than stock IMHO.

Like a 993, get a good PPI from a qualified rover shop before you buy. A good forum to visit would be Landroversonly.com.

Weak points are headgaskets, sunroof leaks, saggy headliners (not necessarily related) and front drive shafts.

initial

I drive an 04 Disco SE as a daily driver. It has just over 60,000 miles on it. I did have a winshield gaket leak which I had fixed. Another issue is that is misfires when its humid out and this clears out within about a minute. Its never misfired when it rains. I probably just need to change the ignition wires.
The cargo space is perfect for me and it pulls my little searay around nicely.

Make sure to check the bulkhead above the windshield outside. The body is aluminium and most likely corrosion free but the bulkhead is steel. That flat windshield and front hits every rock and bug you will encounter and you might see some rust starting to build in the pits above the windshield.

David993S

I've owned an '03 Discovery. I put nealry 60,000+ miles on it with next to no issues. Build quality was good as was reliability. The 03 and 04 are nearly identical, and are better, more reliable vehicles than 02 and earlier. LR addressed a lot of the engine reliability issues starting with 03. They are incredibly rugged and solid vehicles that, if taken care of, will last you 300,000 miles easily. I used mine off road occasionally and it was the best winter vehicle I've ever owned.

A downside is gas mileage, but it is much heavier than your standard SUV. Compared to other similar SUV's it is a little more thirsty, but what's a few mpg with a vehicle like this?