The Worst Engine Ever Made?

[LuwiigiMaster]

Buick: "wow this engine is terrible"
Land Rover: "we'll take your entire stock!"

[SUPRAMIKE]

A family friend of mine bought one of these brand new only because it had the Buick engine, he was an old time racer and diehard Buick fan and new those engines like the back of his hand from working on them in the 60s and 70s he set it up with a bunch of old school performance parts, converted to a 4bbl carburetor, performance heads, long tube headers, and a big radiator to avoid the overheating issue, he gave it "the works" as he calls it, makes around 400hp to the wheels and it's been his daily driver for all these years, last time I spoke with him he had it up to 240, 000 miles with no issue.

Edit: I'm not saying they are good, they are absolute garbage straight from the factory, my friend just had the knowledge and means to make it work and make it work reliably.

[alfamonk]

classic example of how mis-information spreads like wildfire on the internet.

[dalemyers]

This engine is actually one of the best V8 engines ever made. The rover V8 was put into some iconic cars. What killed this engine was the BMW ownership of Landrover. The engine was originally designed to run at 82°C and BMW decided to run it between 110-130°C for whatever reason the decided that was necessary.

Throw an Inline Thermostat in and By pass the bottom radiator hoses and you'll never ever have an over heating issue again... My 20 year old D2 is still running like a dream up and down mountains here in Queensland😁👍

[TrevorMcGary]

Having been a Rover Dealer technician for nearly 20 years, the issue with the head gaskets on these was a combination of the original thermostat temp being too high and the original head gaskets being garbage from the start. The trucks with the original gaskets needed new gaskets every 30-40k miles. If you replaced them with aftermarket gaskets that issue stopped. I’ve had 3 that I put over 100k on after replacing head gaskets and never had another cooling issue after.

[Rillishammis]

This motor was actually the first turbocharged v8 introduced in the 1961 Oldsmobile starfire.

[paulog]

The V8 Rover engine was used in a multitude of vehicles. From various brands. The problem you mention affected only the last interaction of these engines by Land Rover. The 4.0 and 4.6 under BMW ownership. Up to the 3.9 engine used on the Discovery 1, it was a reliable engine. The main problem with the Discovery 2 were the rear air suspension and the 3 amigos lights in the dash.

[damilolaakanni]

That V8 was also extremely underpowered, it was less powerful than even some N/A 6 cylinder engines of the era. Honda's 3.0 V6 made about 240hp in 2003, same with Nissan's 3.5 V6.

[snakattack]

Compared to what I work on now the 4liter was even easier to work on than the 4.6 and the 4.6 wasnt too bad. Its a wet dream compared to doing 5liter super charged timing chains now. In block cam, headgaskets werent too bad. Ive tore down the blovks and front covers and oil oans and done complete engine reseals all the time. Loved the work.

[oliverlondon]

I bought a new Disco with that exact same engine. The car had a few faults, but the engine was certainly never one of them. It was as smooth as silk and super reliable. So, I really can’t relate to any of these comments. Still one of my favourite cars I ever owned

[tomscameras]

The Rover V8 was a fantastic, even iconic engine actually. Maybe they did something wrong when installing it in that Discovery? I know it was in the first-gen Range Rovers and it hever had any special problems, also not in the many other great cars it was used in.

[Roko-eljx]

It was so bad it’s still running to this day😮

[billsmith]

If it doesn't run, you can STILL park in front of Starbucks and smile at people from the LR ! 😂😂😂😂

[truckermarc]

5.4 triton 3v and Cadillac northstar enter the chat

[TheMickeyvdc]

My Disco 2 is more than 200, 000 miles and has never overheated. I changed the thermostat when it was new for one from GM.

[emptyspace]

“one of the worst engines” is such a stretch considering what’s actually out there. i had one of these and it went to 175k miles with no issues even after the previous owner abused it

[josephthigpen]

Weirdly enough none of these issues arise in the factory Buick blocks

[soundmindtv]

This video is very misinformed and misleading. Most of the things stated would classify as "false" or "partly true."
1. The overheating is definitely a problem, which traces to meeting an EPA "cold start" requirement standard that came out as they were planning to phase out the 4.6, so rather than do a redesign, they did a "bandaid" fix to pass the standard, and the "fix" ended up making the engines run hot. FWIW, this is completely fixable with a $100 modification.
2. The cylinder sleeve issue is not related to the design, not repated to the above overheating issue, and is completely unrelated to head gaskets. There was a run of blocks that were machined out of tolerance, and the mfr issued a recall and replaced any that failed under a certain mileage. If one failed, it would do so by around 50-70K miles max. If one has 100K+ on it, then that one didn't have this issue and is no more likely to have a sleeve slip than any other make that uses sleeved cylinders.
3. The "Discovery" name was not killed off, but modified. Rather than offering a "Discovery 3, 4, 5, etc., " they offered a,
"LR3 Discovery, LR4 Discovery, " etc. In fact, the Discovery is still offered today.

[leonpjhb]

Head gasket failed twice on mine. Horrible power and terrible gas mileage!
The car itself was brilliant and SO good offroad!

[ivantuma]

The Buick aluminum V8 engine did have like a 40+ year production run in one form or another. My guess is, many of the problems evolved out of trying to squeeze just a few more years out of a design that was already having a hard time meeting modern efficiency/emissions requirements. An early version of that engine was used in arguably the first mid-engine equipped Le Mans race cars (before the Ford GT40 appeared on the scene). Would I want a "Disco" today - No - but it has its place in history.