onions

I had the same problem the week I bought my Disco (which is the same year and spec as yours). My problem happened after letting a main stealer try to programme my car to accept a second remote. I ended up with constant chirping and no wipers etc. The car obviously thought a door was open. After much arguing with the bloke I got him to accept responsibility, put it on testbook and fiddle about with it. On returning the car to me he said he had accidentally put it into some kind of "transport" mode while programming it for the remote. What he meant by that I don't know, but after he had it on testbook for 20 minutes the problem was sorted and hasn't arisen since. Can't help with the battery bit though.

My two-penneth: My 300 used to make a nasty knocking and banging which sounded like it was coming from under the floor at the back end. It would happen on uneven road surfaces especially cobbles and the bumps in the road weren't big enough to bring the bump stops into play (I've had one missing for a couple of years anyway). I fiddled around with all kinds of things and even fixed my back door too. In the end it turned out to be play in the a-frame ball-joint. That a-frame is a big thing to have rattling about under a car I can tell you.

Thanks for all your input chaps. Since I needed the car urgently and I have completely lost faith in the shocks that were on I got the good lady wife to repeat last year's birthday present by getting me some gas shocks (at her expense). Things I have noticed are: the threaded section is about 6mm longer than the old one making it a good bit easier to get the bottom nut on; the supplied washers were a lot stronger than the one (!) that was left; there was no play between the top bush and the top mount of the shock on the new one (the old one was moving around freely); they're a good deal more expensive, a good bit firmer and have helped with my wandering steering. In short - I had the wrong ones on in the first place. Now to do the radius arm bushes.

I've not really off-roaded it hard in over a year (I don't have a spare car any more, so I don't have the luxury of having the Disco up on axle stands for a week at a time) and I don't think I hammer it over the speed bumps too much, but I do have to go over loads of the beggars to and from work. I think I'm just going to get me a new set - for the sake of £20 it's not such a big deal. I'm more concerned that it's my poor workmanship that's causing the problem.

Being a decent sort, my good lady wife bought me a set of rear shocks for my birthday in July last year; just the standard Armstrong £10 jobs. She sourced them herself (not sure where from) and had them delivered. When I came to fit them I couldn't help noticing that the threaded end of the shock seemed a little bit shorter than the ones I was taking off and the bushes were smaller than the outgoing ones, but since I had damaged the old shocks in the process of removing them I had to plough on and fit the new ones. About 4000 miles later the offside shock pulled right through it's bottom washer and lost it's bottom bush, so I bodged a repair to get me home and replaced all the bushes and washers with the right ones. It was a real pain trying to get the nuts to grip the thread on the shocks because they were so short, but it did the job. Until yesterday. Now the nearside shock has done the same; washer missing and the bush pulled right up around the nut meaning that the shock could move freely up and down through it's mounting. So on neither occasion has the nut come adrift, I have just lost the washer. Any suggestions of what I am doing wrong? Are the shocks the wrong ones? Could a lack of travel in the shocks be causing this? Changing a rear shock is hardly a tricky operation so I can't believe it's beating me like this.

Yes it'll go in no bother. I've put one in mine which has no air-con and the one I took it out of had no air-con either. There weren't any mounting points as such, but a bit of drilling, trim pulling and the help of a slim-wristed assistant got in on in no time.

Update I have a new nearside trailing arm in place which is all good, but can someone give me an opinion or two on the following new things: 1) When the car sits on level ground there is clearly more clearance between the top of the rearside rear wheel and the top of the arch that there is on the off side. It wasn't like that before! 2) Under braking it feels like the car pulls to the off-side even with new rear pads in the past 9 months and brand new front pads. 3) I feel like I am constantly correcting the car away from the middle of the road. It's nowhere near as wandery as it was when the axle was only partly attached (obviously), but it feels different to how it did before. My 2 thoughts so far are that either the trailing arms should have been replaced as a pair rather than just on 1 side, or that the tracking was set with a bent trailing arm in the first place so now that it's back to being OK the car needs the tracking doing again. The 3rd option is that I have a case of post-repair paranoia (I'm very paranoid about my truck). Any ideas?

I had a quick look underneath this morning when I got to work but I get there in the dark so it was hard to see what was going on. Which is quite surprising when on closer inspection the nearside trailing arm has completely sheared. So it turns out the car is not attached to the rear axle at all well. I'll be needing a new one of those then. Thanks for the replies. Yout hit the nail on the head 1st time. That's service for you!

I don't post here too often but I'm an avid reader - if you can be such a thing. I'm looking for a bit of diagnosis on a sudden problem that developed on the Disco on the way to work today. Background It started when I went over one of those speed-bumps that are placed in the middle of the road to tempt you to put your wheels either side of it. I didn't hit it fast by any means. At I went over it there was a bang from the back end. Now I have a Southdown tank guard on so I assumed that it was just the removable towing hitch moving about but then things started to happen: Symptoms Under power the car tracks in a straight line but as soon as I engage the clutch it veers out into the middle of the road (that's to the right - I'm in the UK). If I get to anything over 25 miles an hour the car starts to weave about as if the back end of the car is not attached to the rear axle at all! Under braking it feels similar to when I engage the clutch; it just pulls a bit to the right. What I Know It's pretty certain that there is nothing wrong at the front end - the front offside wheel bearing was changed only a week ago after collapsing completely and there is no play in the nearside one. The swivels have been recently filled with grease. In the work car park I was able to drive in circles at full lock and he steering felt positive in both directions with no excessive play to be found. The steering box is brand new. The back axle is a different matter: there seemed to be a good bit of play in the rear nearside wheel. I alos had a strange problem with the same rear wheel recently where the wheel nuts would loosen off, I'd tighten them but a week or so later they would be loose again - I put it down to local chavs mucking about, but would they really have a massive breaker-bar? On Saturday night, when I found myself in the passenger seat of the car I was sure I could hear some squeaking from an offside wheel but I put that down to "bearing paranoia" and the fact that I'd had a couple of shandies. Your Thoughts? Could a collapsed rear bearing make the car perform like this or should I be looking for something more ... well ... complicated? All suggestions are gladly received. I'm a total amateur when it comes to diagnosing anything except a flat tyre or a knackered UJ (I've had my share of those).

Mine used to take at least 15 minutes to get up to temperature and the heater wouldn't give me any heat until the temp gauge was reading normal operating temperature. Turned out to be a knackered thermostat. It cost next to nowt to buy and very little time to fit - in fact most of the time was spent draining the coolant. Now I get heat within the first couple of minutes regardless of whether the temp gauge has moved at all.

There you go - I was corrected before I even posted!

To the best of my (very limited) knowledge the Disco was only ever fitted with 2 different engines the 200tdi and the 300tdi. With both of them being 2.5 turbo diesels it's entirely possible if you're looking at car listings (Auto Trader etc..) that people could describe either of these engines as a 2.5TD. Of course I'm willing to be corrected by a proper expert at any point. I've driven Landys with both lumps in them and I can't find a lot to choose between them from a driving point of view apart from a little more refinement to the 300, but I must admit to loving my 300 to bits - often lots of oily little bits - so I'm biased. Never had the pleasure of working on a 200 engine so, again, I'll leave that opinion to one of the proper experts lurking around here. Happy Land Rovering.

As soon as the fuel light comes on I'm straight to the petrol station. Touch wood I've never had any bother doing that - the only bother I have is affording the £70-£80 to fill her up.

If it's the actuator that's gone and the set-up is the same as a 300tdi you can replace it with this unit from Maplin: 5 Way Actuator I definitely know that you can replace the other door actuators with this one: 2 Way Actuator I did the job myeslf in half-an-hour. The part was a direct replacement and only cost £10 - while you're at it you can get yourself some replacement lock springs from ebay (or a more reliable source if you can find one) and you should be back to normal.

If it's any help to someone who knows more than me about such things: My 98 Disco was running a pretty ropey set of 235/70/16s and had a nasty wobbly shake like yours at about the speed you describe. I couldn't get it to go away no matter what happened. After living with it for months on end it came to the time for a new set of tyres - as soon as I had 4 new tyres put on it went away immediately. I've had the tyres on for just over a year now and the shake is starting to come back with about 14000 miles of wear on them. My guess is the new rubber was masking another problem but I don't claim to know what. Hopefully this might help someone diagnose freeagent's problem.