Don Pamponi
New Member
Sounds familiar, I own a highly modified '85 RX7. You need an owners club & a stubborn streak!
Sounds familiar, I own a highly modified '85 RX7. You need an owners club & a stubborn streak!
rasheed
Well-Known Member
Actually you do get a lot of car for the money. P38s are the last luxury 4x4s. What followed are computers with big wheels. I've never come across an unreliable one, only badly maintained ones and even those can show remarkable improvement with a bit of TLC. Right now the cars are cheap, parts are cheap, the workshop manual is free on the internet and so is the parts catalogue (or so I've heard, cough cough). If you're willing to be logical and proceed by elimination you can fix most faults. Don't even need to be a skilled mechanic, yes it would help but I'm not and my car is worked hard and maintained scrupulously and she runs like new. These cars give you plenty of warning and second chances when things are going wrong, ignore these and of course one day she will stop dead and leave you stranded but if you remember you are getting what was an absolute top of the line vehicle in its time and you are willing to care for it accordingly, you will in return ride like royalty.
Brilliant. :tea:
Stopped reading after that. Thort you lot were restricted to the gaylander section and not allowed in general pop?
Actually you do get a lot of car for the money. P38s are the last luxury 4x4s. What followed are computers with big wheels. I've never come across an unreliable one, only badly maintained ones and even those can show remarkable improvement with a bit of TLC. Right now the cars are cheap, parts are cheap, the workshop manual is free on the internet and so is the parts catalogue (or so I've heard, cough cough). If you're willing to be logical and proceed by elimination you can fix most faults. Don't even need to be a skilled mechanic, yes it would help but I'm not and my car is worked hard and maintained scrupulously and she runs like new. These cars give you plenty of warning and second chances when things are going wrong, ignore these and of course one day she will stop dead and leave you stranded but if you remember you are getting what was an absolute top of the line vehicle in its time and you are willing to care for it accordingly, you will in return ride like royalty.
Brilliant. :tea:
Stopped reading after that. Thort you lot were restricted to the gaylander section and not allowed in general pop?
Tis the wife's I'm just the ballast / mechanic
So, you reckon a P38 is a reasonable motor then? I've spotted a couple of diesel ones about around me and was tempted until I read some of the negative comments about them on here
Vinniejb
Active Member
Shoegun
rasheed
Well-Known Member
Tis the wife's I'm just the ballast / mechanic
So, you reckon a P38 is a reasonable motor then? I've spotted a couple of diesel ones about around me and was tempted until I read some of the negative comments about them on here
Thing to keep in mind is that people come in here only when there's a problem so that's what you see. I think it is fair to call it a reasonable car. It was the flagship model made for high-rollers and fat cats and LR designed it to be both luxurious and capable but they also expected it to be well cared for. Trouble now is many are 3rd or 4th hand and have been passed along when an owner could no longer afford to maintain it. People reckon if they bought it for 3 grand they don't want to spend more than a couple of hundred on maintenance. They forget its a 60 grand car and if it costs a few grand a year in maintenance that's neither excessive nor would it bother the target market demographic of bankers, wealthy farmers and royalty one bit. It turns out however that they are cheap to maintain and if you have the time and inclination there is a whole lot that you can do yourself! So once you've spent the initial couple of thousand (and you don't have to do it all at once) to rectify previous owners' bodges and to renew things that have just worn out with age, you'll have yourself a decent motor that you can keep for a few years.
For what its worth let me list the common faults or design flaws for you and for the OP.
The air suspension compressor is under-specced and underpowered. So if there is the slightest leak the compressor is soon overwhelmed and burns out. Next the blend and flap motors in the HEVAC can die and the o'rings at the joints of the coolant in and out pipes to the cabin heat exchanger can harden and leak. Third, the cars don't like low voltage. A weak alternator or dying battery will cause the various ECUs to imagine all manner of phantom problems but most of the time that's what they are, just phantom. Lastly, a couple of problems have appeared over time that LR could not possibly have anticipated. Such as, early P38s were made in an age before WIFI so the remote locking receiver is not sufficiently shielded and a stray WIFI signal can sometimes swamp out the key fob or keep waking up the alarm system and cause battery drain. And the immobiliser works on a rolling code that is saved between the BECM and the ECU on EPROM chips. State of the art at the time perhaps but those chips have a life of X thousand write/read/overwrite cycles and after a while they start to break down. If they fail to save the code identically at both ends then next time you try to start the engine and the codes are checked and don't match, the car thinks its being 'jacked and will refuse to budge. And that's about it! All these problems have long been resolved and all the solutions can be found right here in the forum. The overheating problem is in my view wildly exaggerated and in any case doesn't apply to diesels. The main negative comment about diesels is that they are sluggish. You can adjust your driving style or you can put in an ECU power chip or powerbox. A few people have broken their autoboxes which they blame on the extra power/torque but look closer and you'll find its talked about a lot more often than its actually happened. :blah:
So yes, get yourself a Rangie old boy, don your silk cravat and drop by the RR section in the afternoon for a Pims, won't you!
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Thing to keep in mind is that people come in here only when there's a problem so that's what you see. I think it is fair to call it a reasonable car. It was the flagship model made for high-rollers and fat cats and LR designed it to be both luxurious and capable but they also expected it to be well cared for. Trouble now is many are 3rd or 4th hand and have been passed along when an owner could no longer afford to maintain it. People reckon if they bought it for 3 grand they don't want to spend more than a couple of hundred on maintenance. They forget its a 60 grand car and if it costs a few grand a year in maintenance that's neither excessive nor would it bother the target market demographic of bankers, wealthy farmers and royalty one bit. It turns out however that they are cheap to maintain and if you have the time and inclination there is a whole lot that you can do yourself! So once you've spent the initial couple of thousand (and you don't have to do it all at once) to rectify previous owners' bodges and to renew things that have just worn out with age, you'll have yourself a decent motor that you can keep for a few years.
For what its worth let me list the common faults or design flaws for you and for the OP.
The air suspension compressor is under-specced and underpowered. So if there is the slightest leak the compressor is soon overwhelmed and burns out. Next the blend and flap motors in the HEVAC can die and the o'rings at the joints of the coolant in and out pipes to the cabin heat exchanger can harden and leak. Third, the cars don't like low voltage. A weak alternator or dying battery will cause the various ECUs to imagine all manner of phantom problems but most of the time that's what they are, just phantom. Lastly, a couple of problems have appeared over time that LR could not possibly have anticipated. Such as, early P38s were made in an age before WIFI so the remote locking receiver is not sufficiently shielded and a stray WIFI signal can sometimes swamp out the key fob or keep waking up the alarm system and cause battery drain. And the immobiliser works on a rolling code that is saved between the BECM and the ECU on EPROM chips. State of the art at the time perhaps but those chips have a life of X thousand write/read/overwrite cycles and after a while they start to break down. If they fail to save the code identically at both ends then next time you try to start the engine and the codes are checked and don't match, the car thinks its being 'jacked and will refuse to budge. And that's about it! All these problems have long been resolved and all the solutions can be found right here in the forum. The overheating problem is in my view wildly exaggerated and in any case doesn't apply to diesels. The main negative comment about diesels is that they are sluggish. You can adjust your driving style or you can put in an ECU power chip or powerbox. A few people have broken their autoboxes which they blame on the extra power/torque but look closer and you'll find its talked about a lot more often than its actually happened. :blah:
So yes, get yourself a Rangie old boy, don your silk cravat and drop by the RR section in the afternoon for a Pims, won't you!
Thank You.
I'll keep my eyes open for a decent sensble mileage diesel.
Since joining this place I've fancied doing some off roading, but as the wife doesn't me to 'break' her Freelander by off roading it getting a decent 4x4 of my own is sneaking onto my 'to do' list, the thing that's been holding me back is the comfort level in the Rover 75 conny I've had for the last 5 years
disco147
Well-Known Member
I'm no expert but I've done a fair bit of research as I've been hunting for 6 months and ended up buying a 300tdi discover ES.... I chose this as they seem to be more reliable and you can get a better example than you can a p38 for the money... all the Range rover has that my ES doesn't is heated seats and cruise control... its much more capable off road too.
Go for a Range Rover if you find a cracker thats been lovingly cared for as a second car by a 60 year old man since new... otherwise, IMO steer clear... to many chavved up drug dealers get them round london and abuse them to look "gangster" the amount I saw when I was looking with chrome and "missing but full service history" was a joke... but then within 60 miles on autotrader covered most of london for me!
Go for a Range Rover if you find a cracker thats been lovingly cared for as a second car by a 60 year old man since new... otherwise, IMO steer clear... to many chavved up drug dealers get them round london and abuse them to look "gangster" the amount I saw when I was looking with chrome and "missing but full service history" was a joke... but then within 60 miles on autotrader covered most of london for me!
rasheed
Well-Known Member
Thank You.
I'll keep my eyes open for a decent sensble mileage diesel.
Since joining this place I've fancied doing some off roading, but as the wife doesn't me to 'break' her Freelander by off roading it getting a decent 4x4 of my own is sneaking onto my 'to do' list, the thing that's been holding me back is the comfort level in the Rover 75 conny I've had for the last 5 years
You seem to have a dilemma. If you want one just to play in the mud, get a 90. If you want comfort, get a Rangie.
I'm sort of hoping for both, just call me greedy, but from what I have read and seen a Range Rover will meet both.
All I need now is a Range Rover that does 50mpg around town and costs under 2k and me = happy.
Yup, I want it all, I'll probably get it too, or close, with a little innovation and the help on here
classic will be "probbably" more reliable in the mud or more specifically water, but p 38s are plenty capable. Classicics have more offroad mods availible to em.Both are nice places to be, top of the range motors, my 600 quid ****ter was 38 and a bit large in 91, just a bit scruffy when i had it.I'm sort of hoping for both, just call me greedy, but from what I have read and seen a Range Rover will meet both.
All I need now is a Range Rover that does 50mpg around town and costs under 2k and me = happy.
Yup, I want it all, I'll probably get it too, or close, with a little innovation and the help on here
