Land Rover Problems

That’s quite a broad range of abilities you’ve listed there. Both the Jeep and the Land Rover are pretty serious off-roaders while, the Alfa Romeo Stelvio is an SUV that really has no pretenses to working on a bush track.

None of this trio would be cheap to service, and modern turbo-diesel engines really do need their maintenance to remain reliable. In terms of industry reputation, the Jeep has a background of electrical and build-quality problems, while the Land Rover and Alfa Romeo also have their share of quality glitches. Many owners put up with this stuff, but if you’re going to head seriously outback, there are probably better choices.

The other part of the equation is what happens when you wish to sell the vehicle in a few years. Frankly, all three of these cars will be a reasonable bet to suffer plenty of depreciation although, to be fair, a 2021 version of each will already have done some of that.

If this was just a case of the engine not starting every now and then, I’d be inclined to look at the starter motor and, in particular, its solenoid. But since the starter-stop button also sometimes refuses to switch the engine off, it sounds very much like the button itself is faulty.

You can remove the button and clean the electrical contacts with a cleaning spray, or simply swap the switch for one you know works perfectly.

Indeed it will so get in quick.

With its mix of classic Range Rover and a Rover Group parts-bin bits, Morris Marina door handles, Austin Montego van tail-lights and Buick’s ancient alloy V8 all part of the mix, this thing is pre-BMW/post-BMC era British engineering genius.

Also, the original Disco is cool, with its lovely two-door wagon body, stepped roof with skylights and airy, inviting cabin offering minimalist, attractive design. And please don't forget the Land Rover's formidable 4x4 capabilities.

All-in-all, a '90s classic worth collecting. Land Rover doesn't make 'em like this any more.

This is actually more common than you might think in cars with this type of rotary knob gear selector.

There are a couple of major causes. The first is a blown brake light or brake light switch, believe it or not. Many modern cars are set up so that unless the driver has their foot on the brake, the car won’t move out of Park. If the brake light switch (or sometimes even the brake light globe) fails, the car doesn’t get the message that the brakes are applied and the car won’t shift out of Park.

The other possibility – and it’s not unknown on Range Rovers – is a flaw in the circuit that turns the knob’s twisting action into an actual gear selection at the transmission. A specialist might be able to take the circuit apart and replace the blown component, restoring operation to normal.

Generally speaking, Range Rover isn't a brand known for its reliablility. In fact, Jaguar Land Rover -- Range Rover's owner -- are quite notorious for mechanical and electronic issues. Having said that, many Velar owners report having a positive ownership experience.

Like most cars, the Range Rover has vacuum boosted brakes. This vacuum assistance helps you apply enough physical pressure to the brakes to pull the vehicle up. Without this assistance, the brakes require much more input from the driver. In many cases, this can make the pedal feel like it has gone hard or stiff.

The danger is that, in an emergency, you may not be able to apply enough pressure on the brake pedal quickly enough to avoid a crash. So this needs to be sorted immediately. A loss of brake assistance can be caused by a leak in the vacuum system or a failure of the booster unit itself.

I wouldn’t be concerned about the cylinder configuration of a particular engine. What’s more important is how much power and torque that engine makes, and how towing-friendly that power delivery is. By which we mean how smooth and flexible is the delivery. What you don’t want is a peaky engine that needs to be revved before it delivers the good as that puts a strain on everything and make the vehicle tricky and unpleasant to drive.

The good news is that all the vehicles you’ve nominated have good, solid powerplants that are well suited to towing a caravan. Modern turbo-diesels – especially with an automatic transmission – are ideal for this task.

What you should go for, however, is the vehicle with the highest towing rating. In this case, that’s any of the Grand Cherokee, MU-X or older Discovery, all of which have variants that can handle a towed load of 3.5 tonnes. The Everest is almost as good with 3.1 tonne, but only almost. The problem is that the van you’ve nominated can easily weigh between 2.2 and 2.8 tonnes which, with a 3.1-tonne limit, leaves you very little headroom for water tanks and camping gear. You’d be amazed at how much a fully loaded caravan weighs, so don’t rely on the brochure, load the van and take it to a weighbridge to make sure the vehicle you have can legally tow it.

Land Rover still refers to the third-generation, L462-series model as the Discovery 5, but the number was dropped in some markets to distance it from the L319-series LR3 and LR4, which were the North American names for the Ford-era Discovery 3 (2003) and Discovery 4 (2009) respectively.

Though not officially confirmed, it is believed that the name change in both instances was due to the poor reliability reputation that the earlier models gained. The same fate befell the Freelander badge, when its successor became known as the much-more-chic Evoque.

Thank you for getting in touch.

When this car was new, the recommended change interval for the timing belt was nine years or 230,000km which is an awfully long interval by industry standards. In some markets, this figure was reduced to seven years and 180,000km, which is still a long interval, but much more sensible.

If it was my Land Rover, I’d be changing it even sooner, probably at 150,000km at the outside, just to be certain, as a snapped belt will turn the engine to junk in a split-second. While you’re at it, take the opportunity to change the water pump and idler pulleys while the front of the engine is apart. It’s better than having to go back and disassemble the same part of the engine a few months later when the water pump starts leaking.

The reason the scan threw up a camshaft phasing problem is because the belt has stripped and allowed the camshaft timing to become way out of synch. This is also why the engine lost power and wouldn’t restart in the first place.

Simply replacing the timing belt won’t fix it, as the engine’s original camshaft timing has to be restored for the engine to ever fire again. There’s a specific method to do this, but pretty much any mechanic will be able to retime the camshaft and get you going again.

If the engine is retimed and still won’t fire, there’s a chance the stripped belt has allowed internal damage to the engine which may need a full rebuild. You could be looking at bent valves, cracked pistons and more.