2020 Range Rover Sport Coolant in Cylinder
 

I’ll start by saying I’m not a mechanic and very much a novice when it comes to major mechanical issues. Last few days my 2020 RR sport smelled like coolant but no other noticeable issues. I popped the hood and poked around with a flash light but couldn’t see any leaks. Never got a warning on the dash the coolant was low or engine was over heating. I did top off the coolant tank as I saw it was at minimum. About two, three days after I started noticing the smell I started the truck and my check engine light came on. I immediately drove to auto zone to have them read the codes as I didn’t want to put any miles on it. Luckily, auto zone is a quarter mile from my house. They told me I had a bunch of misfire codes and to take it to the mechanic asap. Dropped it off home and next day right to the mechanic. Also a quarter mile from my house. Never had an over heating message or low coolant message. Mechanic roughly diagnosed it as a head gasket leak. He said from a cold start is when it would misfire, some dark smoke would come out of the exhaust and the engine would idle very rough. He didn’t want to deal with that repair as he typically works on Hondas, etc. Went to him first as he was so close to my house. Called the mechanic who has experience working on range, explained the issues and he said it’s likely that but could be other things and immediately suggested swapping for a used engine. He did say he wanted to first do a compression test and a few other diagnostics but to me an engine swap sounds very drastic. To my knowledge the truck never over heated so I’m struggling to see why I would need to swap the whole motor.

My questions are 1) is swapping the engine really my best option here? 2) could there be that much engine damage if the truck never gave me an overheating message or a low coolant message? It was driven less than 1 total mile from when the light came on. 3) aside from the dealer who would charge me a fortune does anyone know the best mechanic to work on these issues. I’m located in Nassau county in Long Island, NY.

Thanks!