So this guy drives a bone-stock LR4 over a reasonably difficult pass in Africa, and despite a lot of stacking, the vehicle really impressing him with its traction control.

I drive an old-school 4x4 more like the other vehicles in his convoy but I have to admit that I'm impressed by how well the sophisticated traction control works (compared to my lockers), and how much better the ground clearance turned out to be compared to what I imagine most people think of concerning an LR4 (or maybe the rock stackers have a different perspective, I don't know). The vehicle obviously won't flex or lacks articulation, but nevertheless impresses with an ability to get traction. It also obviously comes short of having all the body parts out of harm's way. Now I only wonder how well it takes bumps at any kind of reasonable speed. I mean, it seems to do alright in "rock crawler" mode for a near-luxury SUV, but how would it handle a water bar at say 20mph? Do you have to slow to a crawl for every one?

In part 2, I think he finds out that if you get hung up on a rock, you can raise the body even more than maximum ride-height to unhook yourself. That's kind of cool, like Inspector Gadget, you can basically force the suspension to top out with a button.

 

Pretty impressive with the tires he had. Wish I had the money he must have for that trip!

 

He was sponsored the Discovery 4 by Land Rover. He has a television show in South Africa and it's well worth the promotion.

He makes a lot of positive remarks about the Discovery and he confides in what I perceive to be a fairly unbiased blog that he regretted having to return it, but if you read between the lines you can also see that his guide mentions the fact that they had to build the road for him, and toward the end of the video you can see he's quite exasperated. The conclusion is that the Discovery 4 is remarkable for a stock vehicle, but it's still not really up to the task that most people going offroad would demand, and furthermore it's virtually impossible to modify it so that it is. It's a great vehicle if it happens to do what you need, but if not, you'll have to look elsewhere.