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Timing Belt Failure on 300 TDi engines 

By unknown 
The Land Rover 300 TDi is arguably the best engine LR ever produced in terms of power, emission, and economy. This engine is typically found on year 96 and up Discoveries and Defenders (rare in Malaysia). However through my own experience and much research, a common point of failure is the timing belt. In all it's design excellence, one cannot understand why did LR decide to use a timing belt instead of a timing chain. I suspect it was too many pints of Guiness. The timing belt lifespan is about 40000km according to the service manual, however stories abound on the net of timing failure as low as 20000 km.

My car personally had it's timing belt fail one month after it was replaced the last time, however courtesy of Land Rover and Regent Motors (and good advice from Vicky), a customer beneficial arrangement was made and I got my car back with minimum cost and hassle to me. To this I am grateful to LR, certainly proving that it's customer focused objectives are sincere. I would certainly be a loyal customer however dollars and cents rule my loyalty to the marquee. Of course if dollars and cents where not an issue, I would put in the first order for the brilliant 2003 Discovery (note Center Diff and extra approach angle included!!).

If you are driving a 300 TDi, always enquire if the timing pulleys and gears are replaced with the new ones that solve the problem of premature wear. Be sure the tension is set correctly on the timing belts, as you can see from the photo album that the screw holding one of the pulleys were worn halfway, perhaps due to high tension on the belt tensioner or the pulley itself was defective (defective bearing?). When this happened some of the pushrods bent into an S and the piston number 1 and 2 rocker arms broke.