Range Rover Sports

Mobi Condo · Guru

RE: Range Rover Sports

keiron · Senior Member

Thanks Mobi Condi for your comments and suggestion. Your recommendation of the Disco 4 (or 5) leaves me a little lost ????

Both the Disco and the Sports are powered by a 3.0 litre twin turbo motor developing 190 kw and 600 Nm.

Given that these things are equal, what would youb suggest are the features of the Disco that the Sports may not have.

Mobi Condo · Guru

Sorry Keiron, I am definitely not up to speed re the differences between the two.

We weren't even having the Disco 4 on our list of replacements when we started thinking about the tug "Succession Plan" should our beloved 80 series go topsy turvy. It is just that our son has a Disco 4 My11 HSE and he was called to duty to reverse the BT into our tight space at home and he did it with ease and said it was the car which made it easy.

So after a brief test drive of his HSE, we dumped all of the other selections and searched for a Disco 4, not being concerned about the state of extras they contain. I just knew that a 3Litre V6 Turbo diesel had the power as you state (which is double that of the 80 series) and it had all the techno whizz bangery geeky stuff, which I am having trouble learning about.

So we trawled through hours of many and varied forums as an observer, including a very informative South African U-Tube site (they seem to be LR Disco fanatics over there equal to Toyota fanatics here in Aus.). SO I guess if the Sport has the ADR rated capacity to tow your van then it may be a good choice, we went Disco because it was (to us) common knowledge that it was rated for 3500Kg (but much less off road - whatever they mean by that - we are assuming maintained gazetted dirt roads which can be called highways in some areas are OK)

The other factor we are enjoying is the lack of need for WDH due to the load levelling aspect of the Disco. That saves us some 16 - 18 Kg of mass in our GCM (which is some 400Kg higher than the Toyota was) and of course quite a lot of hitch and unhitch hassle.

Cheers - Ian

Mobi Condo · Guru

Oh! Yes and I forgot - we are both on the large side of humanity and find some of the others vehicles are hard to enter and leave with crook back, hips, knees etc.

blaze · Guru

I am led to believe the disco 4 has more cargo space than the sports
cheers
blaze

Bobdown · Guru

Mobi Condo wrote:
Flags2 wrote:
Hi Keiron,
Not sure a Range Rover sports is ideal but the choice is yours. If I were in your position I would be looking at a Land Rover Discovery 4 (or 5) Turbo Diesel. We have the 2015 Disco 4 SE and it tows 3.5 tonnes without a blink. We compared lots of new vehicles and by the time we optioned them up for our needs, the Disco (new) was the best buy. It's a really tough vehicle so even a relatively low kms used would be a good buy.
Happy travels
Following on here - for 21 years we had an 80 Series Land Cruiser doing a fantastic job and when hitched to our 3500Kg BT in 2005 onwards still did a great job. But in September 2019 it broke in a big way. We now have a LR Disco 4 MY 11 3L V6 SE turbo Diesel and it is a dream to drive and pulls our BT superbly. Saved around $400 on fuel last trip. Ours is a 3rd owner 150,000k vehicle and has required some work on it due to some apparent lack of good servicing by well known service centre for LR's but we reckon on a good run from the tug when this is all dealt with.
Mind you we are getting a fair bit of flack from the Toyota owners we associate with. We reckon on maybe another 5 years at most towing before age tells us to part from our van. We will have a very comfortable and capable tug in the meantime.
Cheers - Ian

Hi Ian,

You sure had a good run out of the 80 series, but surely you can't compare that with a 200 series for power, comfort and room.

I've had an 80, 100 6 cyl, 100 V8, all petrol and 200 TDV8, just keep getting better and better and would recommend.

Know absolutely nothing about Range Rover, Land Rover discos or the like sorry.

Cheers Bob

Mobi Condo · Guru

Good Morning Bobdown, Bob and Jayne,
Can't argue there.
What decided us was that we did get a good price on our Disco, probably half of the comparable costs of the Toyota vehicles for sale at the time we were looking. PLUS a lot of the Toyotas which were of similar prices to our Disco were about the same K's as our 80 Series. It all depends on what we can afford these days for us as we have to eat into Super funds like a lot of others.
Cheers - Ian

2trout · Senior Member

Well, there you are Kieron. Let me sum up 2 pages of replies- everybody loves there own vehicle! And, as an added bonus, you got a first-hand fish report or two. Good luck with the Rangie.

keiron · Senior Member

Thanks Trevor,

but I must say that I hope the advice I received with regards the L/R Sports / Disco etc, are a little more believable than some tales I have heard from some "Anglers" about the one that got away.

Cheers Trevor, and trust you may well get many more bites, KB

StewG · Senior Member

In looking for a 4WD tug for my 2.5 tonne off-road caravan in 2016 my short list went down to Toyota LC200 or Land Rover Discovery 4. I test drove both and could not go past the Disco 4. Being mindful of the huge cash investment, I bought a second hand MY2013 D4 for about half the new price. For that I got SDV6 HSE 3.0 litre dual turbo loads of torque, good fuel economy and quiet, comfortable ride. On our first lap around Oz, the Disco was magnificent and never let us down while always doing what was asked of it. The 19" wheels and consequent lack of variety of tyres was of concern, but I chose Maxxis 980 Bravo light truck tyres and although a little noisy they also performed magnificently and never let us down. The downside is that the Jaguar Land Rover Dealers treat you like a billionaire when you go for a service. Find a good independent service mechanic and Land Rover is a good choice. The new choices are between the latest D5 or the Defender. I personally don't like either because I prefer the more practical boxy D4, but that is just my opinion.

Mamil · Senior Member

As a LandRover owner (Discovery Sport) I would say the main drawback for long haul travelling is the reliance on complex electronics in the more recent models. Mine is for ever needing software updates and the only people that seem to be able to do them are the dealers who are few and far between. It is generally regarded that the sweet spot in the Discovery range was the D4 and Freelander2 which were reliable and not overly reliant on electronics like the latest generation.