Land Rover Discovery 3 Review (2006) | Part Two

How It Drove - Performance

For the UK Market there is choice of two engines, the petrol gas guzzling, V8 4394cc 295bhp, which is a derivative of Jaguar’s acclaimed AJ-V8 4.2-litre and thoughtfully for those of us without an oil well, the V6 2,720cc 190bhp turbo diesel engine. The quoted combined fuel consumption figure for the V8 petrol is 18.8 mpg and 27.2 mpg for the diesel automatic.

To protect our bank balance we opted to test the TDV6 HSE for our family holiday from Devon to Northumbria. Out of interest on our tour we achieved around 24 mpg which we did not consider too bad bearing in mind our family payload and touring driving style. Although be prepared for the shock of filling the car up at £80 pounds a time.

We had first seen the 2.7 litre TDV6 engine in the Jaguar S-Type and we commended it on its flexibility, refinement and delivery of power - in short it is superb. And this is still the case with the modified power plant in the Discovery 3. Land Rover has opted for a compacted graphite iron engine block rather than the heavy cast iron blocks of previous models.

With the windows up it was hard to tell that it was a Diesel, although from the outside it gave the game away.

The petrol engines are mated to a six-speed ‘intelligent shift’ electronically controlled ZF automatic transmission. It offers a ‘sport’ mode which delivers more performance-oriented throttle responses and gear shifts, and also features Land Rover’s Command Shift operation – which gives the driver full manual control over gear changes. The TDV6 is available either with this advanced automatic transmission, or with a six-speed ZF manual gearbox.

Our test car was fitted with six-speed automatic box – we remember a one week 2,500 mile trip around Scotland in an early manual Discovery and we both came home with shoulder ache.

Acceleration is adequate – official figures are quoted as 11.7 seconds to 62 mph. In practice this seems quicker but you are moving around 3 tonnes forward in just under 12 seconds. The old TD5 model took a mighty 17.1 seconds to reach 62 mph.

How It Drove - Ride and Handling

If you have driven a previous model Discovery then you will know that handling was never its strong point, even when Land Rover introduced the ACE (Active Cornering Enhancement) system you had to give cornering a great deal of thought. Handling has been vastly improved - which was proven on Northumbria's notorious twisting 'B' roads, yes you do have to think about stopping such a heavy vehicle and also be wary of its girth, but keeping up with fast moving traffic is now possible.

Body roll has been minimized and levels of grip have improved, even the steering is well weighted, giving reasonable feed back for a 4x4. The Discovery 3 is now fun to drive and covering great distances is less tiring.

The ride takes some time to become accustomed to, as the Air Suspension tends to flop over poor and uneven road surfaces.

On occasions we became a little queasy but it does make an excellent job of keeping the car level throughout demanding bends and even off-road.