Why is the "most capable 4x4" so fragile ?

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Bogwhoppit

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275/70r18s and the suspension jacked all the way up. Along with me hanging out the driver's window making sure I keep the bow wave below the air intake.

Somewhere on this site I have posted a picture of a tape measure against the bottom of my air intake after somebody tried to call b******* on me in the past.

And for the love of God, do not stop when you are in the deep kimchee...
I'd agree with you on that. Mines at about 37.25, and yours has much bigger tires. One of the changes I made was to the circular vents at the bottom of each airbox; don't know how many of you have inspected those. I noticed a few years ago the rubbery compound LR had used had turned into a big gritty ball of mush, so I scraped that crap off and cut a circular rubber (Used 1mm thick rubber pond liner) disc and installed that. It allows water to drain out, but closes under suction like its supposed to.

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Richie04

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That might make it something different, so it was not considered. Changing the bushings to poly. Many thanks to the question. Driving a Discovery II '04 and LR4 '16.
 

nwoods

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...Was merely making a point about durability in light off road usage for a vehicle that lays its claim to fame to off road ruggedness...

Ah! And there's the problem. You misinterpreted the marketing. Land Rover touts their vehicles as the most capable 4x4's, and rightly so, they do not claim to be reliable. Best4x4xFar is the old slogan. It's not wrong, but the question needs to be defined, "Best at what?" I have long lamented the huge gap between capability and durability. It's different in the Jeep world. Pounding down the staggeringly bad washboard roads in Death Valley near Tea Kettle Junction, and my LR3 would flare up like a Christmas Tree and drop into Limp Home Mode and require significant service afterward. Take that same road in a Jeep, every day, for a year, and you'll just have a very dusty Jeep.

But the interior! Despite many thousands of off road miles, many of them fairly ******** and technical, the interior of my LR3 was still amazing. No squeaks or rattles, no prematurely worn plastic (not even my dash!), and then the on-road ability was amazing. It was always an enormous pleasure to conquer a difficult trail, then air up and hit the road home going 70+ in comfort and confidence. It was like driving a Transformer.

In the Jeep, everything squeaked and rattled, consoles visibly swayed about over the rough stuff, and the plastic faded, became brittle and broke, and hitting the road after a trail wasn't a huge difference from being on the actual trail, what with wind noise, buffeting, and tire noise, and the squeaks and rattles. They call it character I guess. But it could do it for 100,000 miles without any noticeable difference. Built like a tractor indeed!
 

Houm_WA

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"drop" into Limp Home mode?? You had a coiler!
 

iSurfvilano

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I just want to take a minute to say I love my LR4. It's never left me stranded, on my 2nd one now... Loved the first one so much I traded it in for one with the rear locker. My current one has 94k miles on it and has been very dependable. It's also the scv6 that everyone ******* about in here... More dependable than my 2011 jeep wrangler ever was. Always enjoy reading these expert opinions though, hahaha.
 

LVDaytripper

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My LR3 has close to 150K miles and still goes on strong. Not a ********* off-roader myself. just taking the road less traveled during my daytripping explorations but has always taken me home on its own 4 wheels.
 

nwoods

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"drop" into Limp Home mode?? You had a coiler!
Okay, it didn't "lower" into limp home mode, but the vehicle performance dropped in every possible way. Limp Home mode is brilliant and frustrating. Its great, because it will more than likely get you out of wherever you are, but its oh so frustrating because it moves so slowly with every function and feature disabled.
 

Gov na

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It's called, "Engineered Obsolescence" the folks at Land Rover get sad & lonely if the customer is gone too long so they discovered a way to have us come in and say, "Hello, please take more of my money please" Hence the line of Discovery L.R.'s, I own one (8 yrs on a 007 D3 w/ 115k) but I have thwarted their evil plans by inspecting often, preventative maintenance and being sure to use it for what it was made to do, go hard and go dirty, seems to keep it working just fine when I treat it rough. I did have that plastic blow off thingy with the brass cap for the coolant line crack and sidetrack my trip once, but other than that, I cant complain on how well and reliable it has been, I would buy it again.
 

RoverThinker

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@DMROVER @Davidinseattle or anyone on this thread! Can you guys give me some advice on lower control arms - i took mine in for alignment and found out lower control arms need to be replaced - this was not at a rover dealer as we don't have one close to us - just a local mechanic. i had a second opinion at a mechanic shop i am friends with and they said the same thing - quite a bit of movement - swinging about 2 inches.

a 3rd mechanic i used to take my last car to - a 2016 GMC yukon - said he would install for me if i buy parts. I am wondering, should i purchase the atlantic british parts? and do i need entire thing or just bushings? and what bushing should i purchase? OEM/poly/etc

any insight is very much appreciated !!!!
 

gsxr

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You may want to search the forum for past discussions on the lower control arms / bushings. There are multiple options, you need to decide which is best for your situation / usage.
 

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