Hello, first post from a new LR3 owner. I just bought a 2006 LR3 HSE this weekend for my wife, and to be honest, it's the first time I've purchased a vehicle and not known everything there was to know about my purchase. The family car for the past 3+ years has been an Acura MDX. We both love the look of the LR3, the 3rd row is much better than the MDX was, and it seems obvious that it's 4-wheel capability is far superior.

Anyway, is there a way to identify what 'packages' the car is equipped with? I know that sounds like a stupid question as certain items are obvious, it has the cold weather package, it has NAV/bluetooth/cooler, DVD, adaptive headlights. I guess the only one I'm not clear on is the Heavy Duty Package. Is there some way to identify this one? ie, the variable differential? I do have the full size spare...anything else?

Thanks for any help.

john

 

The full size spare is a fairly sure way to tell on the Heavy Duty Package, barring the last owner didn't put one on there on his own. Since you have the nav, switch display mode to "off road info" and see if the drive train picture in the display shows lockers on the read Diff.

 

Pretty weird, I just bought my wife an LR3 LAST weekend. Coincidence huh? I'm also new to the Land Rover family and was wondering the same thing. Do I have the Heavy Duty Package? I was under the impression that the HSE usually had all the available options, but the Heavy Duty has always been an $500 option. I do show two "lock' icons on my Off-Road screen so maybe I do have the locking rear diff.

 

Jantiz,
Thanks for the reply. my display also shows the two icons, though when I played with the feature using the hill descent, only one showed locked and the other a question mark (at least I think that's what I saw).

dgee03
coincidence, huh? It's more curiosity than anything else at this point for me, as I don't tow anything myself. As for buying the LR3, the price was hard to pass up.

 

The heavy duty package isn't so much for towing.It'ssupposed tobe areal asset when you're doing some real off-roving. At least thats what myknowledgeable peoplehave told me. However many people have alsosaid that with the LR3s advances in traction control you'd rarely use the locking rear. I'm sure someone with more experience can shed some light on it for us

 

I wrote a rather large article on it some time back, certainly not going to repeat it all here again since it was a little lengthy. You can follow this link to it: https://landroverforums.com/m_49209/tm.htm

Basically dgee statement is correct. Rear lockers are awesome to have and they do react much faster when traction and terrain calls for it than depending on the traction control to kick in, but traction control does kick in eventually. The problem is that for traction control to work as designed, people need to be retrained to not react to loss of traction by giving the vehicle more gas, but to control the gas pedal input and wait for the system to redirect the traction all by itself. Giving it more gas and causing more wild tire spin only retards the vehicle's ability to redirect the traction as it should. Rear lockers are a lot more user friendly in that it will activate immediately when needed, with a lot less "thinking" involved on the drivers part.

So, take you LR3 up a rutted incline and if you have it, you will see it lock soon enough. If you happen toread this and you areone of those without it, remember to restrain the bad habit of responding to loss of traction by stepping on the gas pedal even more. Keep the gas input slow but steady and the traction control will detect the loss of forward movement and redirect traction soon enough.

 

Thanks for the insight. After reading this thread again I ran outside and layed on the 125 degree concrete only to find a temporary spare under my LR3. So looks like nolocker for me. I do get what you're saying about waiting for the traction control to kick in. I'll keep it in mind when I'm off-roving!

 

Are you looking for a full size spare?

I have and extra wheel (18, double 5 spoke) and tire (Wrangler SA 75-80% left) for $40 and shipping if interested. The tire is not mounted.

I too was disappointed to find out I was HD packageless.

 

I am looking for a full spare of that wheel type. If this is still availalbe I would love to take it off your hands.

I will send a PM also.