Man there is not a-lot of forum activity around the D5. I wanted to create a thread for SEO purposes to help people since there's not much out there about running 33s. Skip to post #3 if you don't like idiots who talk too much, but do like big tires.

Background:

In 2019 I went out looking for an LR4 after driving a mostly stock one on 32s through Hell's Revenge, and loving it. The dealer where I was checking out the LR4 also happened to have a 2011 RRS SC so I said might as well drive it. Holy crap I fell in love, fast smooth, solid, powerful. The ACE from the hydraulic sway-bars is the since most impressive piece of SUV engineering I have ever seen. They literally corner flat while weighing 5,700 lbs. Better to drive than a 955/957 Turbo. Incredible.

I put 31" ATs on it wheeled it HARD. I mean as hard as you could without wanton body damage. Only guy at the jeep clubs in a rover. Funny enough I ended up being the designated tow-out vehicle because the damn thing weighs so much, has low range and 500+ hp (only was ever defeated by a buried Excursion). They loved me haha.

Anyways, car was an 'effing nightmare, had every possible L320 problem from 60-90k miles, timing, supercharger snout, cooling fan, etc stuff that wasn't from wheeling it. Turns out they are one fo the worst cars ever made, they are mostly unfixable, and I had to get rid of it like an animal chews their leg off to get out of a trap. Makes my Porsches (which I track) look like Toyotas. Land Rover tried to charge me $15k for the timing job after they broke injectors off in the head and needed to do a whole head job as well.




So I said "I'm gonna buy me the most reliable Land Rover to go wheel" and went looking for a '07-'09 L322 FF SC. Ended up buying one with a 1" programed lift, 32" Toyo MTs and a full voyager expedition rack, skid plates and sliders, and an absolute unit stack of receipts. Car is an absolute beast off road, but I never really fell in love with it like I did the sport. Its slow as *****, drives like an old pickup truck, doesn't handle as well, interior hasn't held up well, has annoying electronics from a period that doesn't hold up well ( mean like the backup camera, bumper sensors, nav, etc) sound system is just ok. I think they look ok and I know I am in the super minority here but I don't think they look as good as the sports once you lift a sport and put some meat on it.









I did end up having to replace the MAF on it, cleaning the injectors and fuel system and replacing the crank case vent along with some control arm stays and an alignment, but for the most part, 20k miles for $2k in work and without any major issues. Anyways I just got tired of driving around that BMW designed turd while getting 12-13 mpg, sooooo........

One day I realized they made the disco 5, double locked, AND with a stupid Lion diesel that got 30 FREAKING MPG and I was sold. Turns out they are super hard to find in diesel, double locked (from the Advanced capability package) and with the tow kit, even if I didn't care about colors. Turns out they are impossible to find without the 3rd row, so I had to buy a 7 seater like an idiot, but honestly thats minor complaint, would just have appreciated maximum storage space. So find a CPO one (because land rover) at the dealer in Ann Arbor Michigan about 500 miles from my home in Rochester NY. I showed up and the car smelled like diesel fuel. I asked the guy what was up, he said it was just a cold diesel start (I've never owned a diesel vehicle) and that it went through full CPO certification and all that. I made the tech scan the car in front of me and of course it threw 700 codes, but most of them were from the battery having died of course so I didn't really get any good information, plus f@ck it, its under warranty right?

Drove it home 500 miles straight in December and it got 30.0 mpg at an average of 70 mph. HOLY CRAP. Which was good, because the rest of the car was ok.

My thoughts on the Land Rover Discovery 5 TD6:

- The handling is atrocious. These cars have more body roll than any car I have ever driven except a Toyota with the TRD package springs. Why the HELL didn't they put the sport sway bars on these (I'd pay $3k for a retrofit) or at the very least use the variable pressure system from the full size? This really sucks.

- Sound system sucks, and I have the 800 watt meridian surround, cant imagine how bad the middle meridian is. This is embarrassing for an option 800 watt sound system

- Really, really hate that the dash looks like **** and isn't stitched like in a sport or FF, I know that that's a weird complaint but it bugs me, just looks cheap, I have noticed they did at a stitched/extended leather dash option al la porsche on newer ones, not surprised.

- Smelled like combusted diesel every time I came to a stop

So turned out the fuel pump was leaking, and it spent 2 months in the shop due to parts delays and they tried to charge me $7,300 to fix it because the fuel pump isn't covered under warranty. Fun times, Land Rover! I only got them to cover it because they failed the car for inspection via emissions and once I jumped on them about it they relented. Absolute **** company.

But the ride comfortable as ****, the engine is great, the brakes are good, they look great once upgraded. I took it home finally and threw on a 1" proud rhino lift, Nokian studded snows on RR 20 wheels, a front runner slimline 2 (uhg) and a whole rear protection cover (damn dog) and in February drove it 2000 miles to Park City where I was going to stay and ski for 5 weeks. Turns out it doesn't snow anymore in Utah so I did more fly fishing than anything, but the car was pretty good.

I also got to take it to Bonneville, which is one of the coolest things I have ever done. For real, make sure you go there sometime. I highly suggest an AWD rental car or a beater, though.







I get it home back in March and one morning I'm leaving to go to the airport at 3 am for work and the damned things says "DEF injection malfunction 50 miles until no start condition" or whatever. I drive it back home and there's 2 miles left on the counter so JLR Kindly tows it for my for the third time in 4 months to the dealer. Dealer laughed at me, told me it was my fault, blamed the roof rack (I am not kidding) blamed me for "not driving it right" said i was driving it to short (you know, from Utah), regen, DPF blah blah blah, anyways turns out nothing was wrong, the car was just being a JLR and they reset it and gave it back to me for free FIFTEEN DAYS LATER because all their techs quit, everyone has covid, no one wants to work blah blah blah. Absolute **** company. So now I've officially owned the car for 5 months and it's spent close to 3 in the shop, after coming CPO from a dealer. I am sure you're all shocked.

I am also getting bad wind noise from the top of both door frames on the front doors. When you squeeze the door frame to the body of the car just a little bit, the noise completely disappears. Very frustrating for an $80k car.

 

Considerations some of you forum members are foaming at the fingertips to bring up:

Here we go, so when you want to wheel, obviously the bigger the tire the better time you're going to have; it's a free lift it, provides better angles, more grip, more flotation, more protection, and usually a tougher tire. Other upsides include reducing the mileage on your odometer, looks and straight line comfort.

The downsides are you're increasing your final drive ratio, so acceleration will be slower, moment of inertia increases , as well as weight - further slowing you down and therefore braking distances also increase, fuel consumption increases, road noise almost always increases, they can become harder to balance, you have to increase tire rotations typically. But at the end of the day it looks badass, and goes even more badasser and that's what's important in life.

I believe 33x11" is the ultimate size for most land rovers that will see a majority of their duty on road, and still want to go off road. Now, on certain models like the L320 and it's D3/4 sisters, 33" is very annoying and actually involves shaving some hard frame members (heh) as well as carefully avoiding the upper control arms, making it not an issue of lift, but more so clearance. 33 really is kind of a paint on L320s and D3/4s for the casual enthusiast.

However, 33s bolt right up to L322s with a 1 inch lift, and also as I can show you on the D5. I do not know where the whole 275/55R20 iS tHe LaRgEsT yOu CaN gO came from that is so prevalent on instagram and the forums. I did this crazy thing and walked outside to my car with a ruler and spent 5 minutes to figure out 33s would fit.

I ended up going with Coopers new Discoverer Rugged Trek in 275/60R20, 4 ply, 115 load rating. I'll cover this tire a little more later

33x12.5 - this is considered the classic off-roading size, the problem here is there are no 4ply versions of these tires (I don't think, at least in AT or MT, but maybe for pickuptrucks) and thus they become very heavy, the same size tire gains 20 lbs per corner when you go from 4ply to 8/10. There are also fitment issues here with the inner control arms and upper hub uprights/carriers and clearance. Because of this they have to be used with wheel spacers or an aftermarket wheel with the correct offset, this can be difficult to judge and measure. Pushing the tire out will also increase the chance of rubbing. There is a very good selection here, but if you're looking at doing these, you are probably not reading forum posts about tire fitment.

Load rating/4ply vs 8/10 ply - I do 90% of my driving on highways, I wheel approximately once a month, enough that I want as aggressive of a tire as possible without going to a MT. The absolute fastest way to kill the performance of a car is to double the weight of the wheels. 33x11 (275/60r20) is a SUPER interesting size, because many manufactures make two of them, one in 4 ply for real people who have to use ther cars, and the same size in LT rating for people who offroad and construction workers who's truck makes them feel secure. Be very careful when you're ordering at this size that you're getting the model you want. Some great examples of this tire in AT are Nitto Ridge and Terra Grapplers, these coopers and a great budget choice, the Milestar Pategonia, which can be had for $580 a set and I run on my L322. The load rating on the coopers are poor, get LTs or a higher rating like 118 if you're going to tow horses, boats, parade floats et al.

Offset - I am currently running these on OEM Range Rover Sport SC wheels, they look badass and are super cheap on ebay. The black wheel I had the snow tires on are OEM RR HSE 20s, they also look super good and are very cheap on ebay. The Sport wheels are 9.5 wide and the RR HSEs are 8.5, they also have different offsets. The sport wheels have a 45mm offset, and are 13 mm per side wider than the HSE wheels, which have a 47 mm offset.This means the Sport wheel is 11mm close to the hub upright, but still clears with no spacer.

Sport

FF HSE



Fuel economy - jury is out as I have been driving my turbo, but initial impressions are that city driving is the same at 24 mpg but highway driving fell off a cliff, like 26 mpg average down to 21. I am going to play with air pressures, but I may be down big time there, I will update that for sure.

These tires - I love these coopers, easily the most aggressive AT on the market. Cannot talk about sound until they are broken in, light hum for now but my experience is that that goes away. I read a review that said they were way to squishy but I don't think that's true at all. Bad load rating, do not use these for 6K+ towing.

18s vs 20s - remember how I said I dont get why people do 32s on full sizes rovers and these? Well I REEEEEALLYY dont get dudes who go through all the trouble to fit 18s and then stick with 31s or 32s. if you're going to do 18s you need special wheels, I believe there are only the compos and the terra firmas confirmed to fit 18s, and you have to have a 2017 OR do a caliper swap on the backs if you have a different year. Do not go to 18s unless: you score a super deal o a set of wheels or you're going to go full retard and get 33x12.5s. Or just do you, I'm kinda retarded.

Odomteter, wear and tear etc - BuT yOu'Re ChAnGiNg tHe RolLiNg RaDiUs - thats you, that's how you sound (happens on every thread). No ****. That's literally the point. The difference between 31" stock sized tires and 33s is 6.5%. Congrats, your odometer is now working in your favor. Just mind the speedo change, we're talking a whopping 3mpg at 50mph. I can feel the concern trolls hand wringing from here.

 

Step 1: Start by removing you old wheels, and then putting the new ones on.

Congrats you're done. They fit. Very, very minimal rubbing with no trim, like, in 2000 miles, they wouldn't even rub anymore.

*MY CAR CURRENTLY HAS A 1" ROD LIFT, I DONT SEE ANYTHING SUGGESTING IT MATTERS TO HAVE THE LIFT OTHER THAN FOR LOOKS*

I pulled the below screw just to be sure


The whitness marks are very, very faint, I DID end up triming them just to completely eliminate ay rubbing



Here they are, car at normal height, with my 1" lift, and no wheel spacers



Here they are, car at OFF ROAD height, with my 1" lift, and no wheel spacers



Here is how I trimmed them fender liners with tin snips

 

Pics:

*In all of these picture, I have the car in normal mode, with my 1" lift, the rear wheels have a 20mm spacer just for looks*

I will be buying front mud flaps now so I don't destroy the door paint

 

The Futurrrrrre:

I am going to modify the roof rack so it sits lower and further back.

I will probably throw the 2" lift on there to see how I like it.

I will maybe get sliders and maybe a winch from lucky 8.

If you couldn't tell I am pretty unimpressed with this brand, the final straw for me was them trying to weasel out of the CPO work, which I found out was a common tactic. My warranty is up in September so I bought a TRD Sequoia, I got the second one in all of upstate NY. It's coming in September and will probably go storm trooper, but they are offering some cool colors like blue and greens and grays. I'd kill a man for an LC300. I cant believe japan is getting a diesel factory triple locked one and we are getting nothing. I hated the LX600 at the dealer. I am nervous about the hybrid twin turbo engine. I hate toyotas; people who drive them are boring and stupid. I am worried about the interior sucking. But we will see. What I really want is a 2024 GX550, and Im wondering if I can get this sequoia, drive it for one year, then sell it very near cost and get the GX instead.

I am considering doing the DPF and ERG delete and physical removal and a tune, just because I am super curious how it will be.

Happy to answer any questions I can, but I will be selling this in September when the sequoia comes in. Maybe one of you guys want it, will be looking for $45k at around 50k miles. Everything but Windsor, and for some reason no center cooler.

I do hope this was informative and maybe will help someone out. Have fun out there.

 

Just a question about those tires are they 3pmsf rated I was just wondering couldn't fine info on that

 

EDIT: I’m dumb they are three peak rated see below

Functionally, I don’t believe that means anything at all on ATs, however I do understand there are implications in certain roads out west especially passes and canyons. Edit 2: turns out insurance companies care, see below

the reports from my Cooper guy and the reviews I’ve rear online are that they are very good in the snow. They LOOK just like a snow tire. Lots of siping. I have those nokkians (which I actually don’t love) anyways.

 

Oh ok then I was just wonddering because I can get a discount off insurance if they are 3pmsf rated how do they do in the mud and love the story read the whole thing.

 

thanks brother felt good to get off my chest. Good news: I had an ultimate bonehead moment, they are 3 peak rated. I looked at the M+S right next to the peak and just thought that meant they weren’t. Here’s a pic

 

I also have a FrontRunner rack and hate how high up it sits.

How do you plan to modify it to sit lower?