Land Rover Forum

Last updated: 2003.12.12

Land Rover/Discovery for Dummies

So you bought yourself a Land Rover Discovery...what's next? If you have the slightest resemblance to me (and most other Discovery-owners) you have a lot of ideas on what's going to happen, what you should purchase, what is needed, and what is cool. New owners tend to purchase bull-bars, more lights, snorkel, roofracks, light protectors, GPS - and opt for winches and lockers if the wallet is bottomless. Owners of Defenders or series vehicles purchase treadplate for anywhere and everywhere or other fancy stuff. We all tend to forget the important stuff, and flog off our money for what looks cool.

This article guides you in 9+ steps towards the more important aspects of purchasing stuff for your new Land Rover/Discovery.

1: How old is Your vehicle? How will it be serviced?

Discoveries and Land Rovers are vehicles in need of more attention than other cars you might have experienced. The older, the more work to be done. You will not be able to run a 10 year old vehicle on a low budget if you do not want to do most of the service/repairs yourself as a DIY mechanic. This means you will have to purchase tools for this - and this should be allowed for as part of your purchasing budget.

Tooltips: Go here

2: Wait! Wait! Wait! Don't buy anything now!

Whatever you want from your vehicle, wait a couple of months before doing any (big)purchases. You will learn to know your vehicle and your own needs, and make your choices on a more informed basis. Your needs will change, and the vehicle might need a bit TLC or repairs after the change of driver, so postponing purchase of cool stuff will enable you some leverage for what might turn up. Any vehicle tends to give problems when a new owner takes charge, so you should try allowing some cash for what might happen.

So one of the first choices to be made, is for how long You should wait before purchasing anything - and what you intend to do with your vehicle before doing any modification. A weekend camping trip enables you to decide on issues concerning creature comforts, packing etc. To decide offroad improvements begs doing some greenlaning(offroading.

Expect your target range until draining your wallet for goodies to be 1-6 months, and stick to that decision!

3: Learn, read, greenlane (forget the cool - go for the important stuff)

Start learning about your vehicle, by purchasing a few books and read some magazines. Join a club. Enter a forum. Check out other vehicles, see what they use, listen to the owners.

After trying a bit of greenlaning, you will have a better sense for what's needed and what's not, so helps guiding your choices. "Never" purchase anything but literature for your vehicle until you have tried your vehicle offroad at least a few times. Then you'll know more about what you need and what do really work.

There's four international, monthly, glossy Land Rover dedicated magazines - any of these will both help you understand your vehicle and its uses, and helps you get a feel for what you can get and what's the price on stuff on the all-important accessory and parts-market.

If you intend servicing your vehicle yourself, you will have to purchase Haynes manual or workshop manual (or both). If you intend just to enjoy the ride of the Discovery, enjoying the roverism etc, you could just stick to the Haynes manual. Don't skip this one, as you will need to for diagnostic purposes, to identify fuses, to find correct spec and amount of fluids while away from internet, and so on. Tom Sheppards Off-roader driving (pictured) will vastly improve your knowledge on 4WD systems, driving techniques, etc.

A vehicle that's as cool as a Land Rover/Discovery can be prepped with a sorts of gadgets and add-ons.

As new Land Rover/Discovery owner, you probably have a feel for expeditions, trips, greenlaning etc. - and want to prep your vehicle for such a purpose. So dummies like you and me want a winch, a bull bar, lockers, roof ladder, sliders, snorkel etc. And some really serious chequer plating!

None of this is necessary for even quite extreme offroading.

Much of the stuff available are a bit pricey, and doesn't do too much for enhancing the performance of the vehicle.

Try identifying what's the most important stuff for your use, and await the nice-to-have equipment until later. How to identify? Start using the vehicle, read, meet, look, discuss!

4: Load area stuffings: Ropes, shackles etc.

Whatever offroading you will be into, some shackles, ropes, gloves etc. are needed to get yourself recovered. Or to recover cars on winter roads - which you eventually will be called in for - even if you will never venture off road. Scramble some of this, put in a fluorescent vest, and you're ready for both road- and off road recovery.

Still, you should consider fitting a fire extinguisher. Offroad sites tend to demand you keeping a 2kg apparatus, and it is probably wise to fit one anyway.

5: Not cool at all: Enabling recovery...

Range Rovers and Discoveries do not have any front recovery point - there's a lash-down ring protruding the spoiler, and one welded loop each chassis rail, but none of these are rated for the forces needed for recovery. Still, we do use these rings, but as they are not rated for the strain involved in an heavy recovery, it is really worth consideration to fit a couple of JATE-rings.

Talking about importance, this is among the first things to look into. Either using JATE-ring as pictured, or fitting a steering guard that doubles with recovery points. Expect to pay £10-20 for each JATE-ring.

Rear end, the tow hitch is rated for heavy recovery, so at that end, there isn't much to look into.

6: Tyres do matter!

New owners tend to forget tyres are the most important to keep your vehicle moving.

This amounts to type of tyre, and size of tyre. A more aggressive tyre will greatly enhance the abilities of your vehicle, as will increased height of tyre. If you really want to improve the ability of your vehicle, tyres is where to look.

For the fundamentals of tyre choice, go here.

7: The not so cool important stuff: Steering links

Next step might be protection for the steering linkages: a steering guard for instance. It's nice choice purchasing such, and it look cool for anyone to see.

You won't regret purchasing a guard, but don't buy anything until you've seen a few and have a bit of experience to build you choice on.

There's setups giving jacking-points for hi-lift-jack, and recovery eyes as well - but others to only protect the steering drag link and drop arm. This is an important aspect if you have a Range Rover or Discovery, as there's no recovery points up front, and no jacking points either. Expect to pay around £100. It will protect the drag link and drop arm.

But protection for the track rod is more important than the cool-looking blade everyone seems to be wanting. Which doesn't show off, but works! So you really so protect or strengthen the track rod before purchasing the steering guard. It's the track-rod that use to take the bending - the drag link protected by the guard seldom gets knackered. The track rod including the steering damper, is the lowest point on your vehicle. So this is the obvious starting point.

Basically, there's two practical ways of protecting the track-rod:

You can purchase strenghtened rods, made from hi-tec steel alloys (around £50 for track rod only; a kit with both links and a steering damper relocation kit should cost maybe £120). The manufacturers claim you can jack your vehicle from these rods, even if I can see no reason why you should need to do so...

Or you can encapsulate the track rod in box section steel mounted to the differential housing. This should cost around the same as a full steering linkage set.

8: Protecting your Precious... diff protection

Lean down in front of your vehicle... The lowest point of your axles is your differential housing. Tap on it with a screwdriver or a key... Yes, it is that thin! Hitting a rock with this, and you might be running into very costly repairs - but usually nothing happens.

Only the conoisseurs will see it, and it brags about a vehicle being used for what it's made for. So not the coolest for you old friends, but your new LR-friends will definetly know your serious about Land Rovering!

If you want to protect the vehicle, this might be where you start and most people seem to do, but actually the steering linkages get more often broken, so I put the diffguard as secondary things to flog off your money for. A differential guard is a bolt-on affair costing ~£40.

9 - ∞: Now, for the rest of your list for Santa Claus

After going through the above listed items, you're ready to purchase more freely and probably also more informed. You have a vehicle that's out-of-the box capable of coping with the most severe terrain. You have the underbody protection and recovery gear to make up for your lacking skills or over-ambitiousness. You have the tools to service your precious. You are starting to acquire knowledge and building a network of Land Rovering fellows.

You are now ready to look deeper into ways of improving your vehicle into a machine capable of doing what you want from your vehicle. You are now ready to flog the big money for cool stuff you need or would love to have anyway: bull bar, snorkel, hi lift, roofrack, rooflights, GPS, CB-radio-set, bigger intercooler, stainless exhaust, lift kit, treadplate, aluminium wheels, etc. etc.