TDI Vs 3.5V8I

Hi Len, I've had a 200Tdi, 300Tdi and now a 3.9V8 and have to say that the V8 is a much more refined vehicle to drive. The extra horsepower of the V8 makes the difference between having to push the Tdi all the time (to get some decent performance from it) and just relaxing and having a great drive.

You'll also notice how much quieter it is - holding a conversation at motorway speed is possible :-)

On the down side you'll hate the fuel consumption - mid-teens at best

- which is why mine is converted to LPG. That said, there are no other real disadvantages to the V8.

Whether, or not, you should change is, of course, dependent on many factors which only you can weigh up. If you want to drive all day with a big grin on your face you can't beat a V8 though :-)

HTH Steve G

When we bought our Discovery we had a choice of two. A TDI and a 3.5 V8i and the winner without a doubt was the V8. We were lucky in the fact that we were able to take both out on fairly long test drives and took both on a short motorway run. The V8 cruises along, is quieter than the diesel and never once sounded as if the engine was struggling. The mpg isn't great, but like Steve said, having an LPG conversion will help with this and there are a few about already done.

On or around Mon, 27 Oct 2003 06:53:00 -0000, "Len" enlightened us thusly:

if you can afford the petrol, go for it, or get it and convert it to LPG.

V8 plus ZF auto is a nice combination...

On or around Mon, 27 Oct 2003 10:58:18 +0000, Nikki enlightened us thusly:

we have a 300 TDi, and at legal speeds it's not that noisy. Having sorted out the engine, it'll now also quite happily do non-legal speeds. It is, however, noisier than a properly silenced V8. It's also not got the same grin factor you can get by flooring a V8 auto at 45, when it kicks down into