Will be swapping over to my winter tyres soon. Does anyone have a good diagram of the recommended jack points - not for the emergency little spiral jack but for a proper trolley jack? And anything I should do to lock the air suspension or do I just keep on jacking like on the LR4?

 

It's a hard vehicle to jack up.
The jack points are in your owner's manual.
For my D5, I have the factory running boards so the jack points are the support brackets for the running boards.
Yes, I lower the vehicle to access height before jacking because they always tell me to do that at the tire store.
And I think it helps because you don't have to lift it so high to get the wheels off the ground. But you need a pretty high lift floor jack.
I found that you can jack the rear support bracket enough to raise both front and rear tires off the ground, or to put in a jackstand at the front bracket.
That still leaves the back without a jackstand, so I put one under the rear wheel suspension just forward of the wheel.
If you think about it a bit you can lift the 2 tires that need to be in the air at one time, and rotate in that order. If you have 2 high lift floor jacks it would be easier.
Or you can probably get free rotations at Discount Tire.
For just changing tires you might not need to worry about using a jackstand because you don't have to get under the vehicle - that's my thoughts - you have to be your own decision maker.
You may be able to lift both rear wheels at once by lifting from the rear differential but that may not be recommended.
My LR3 had a proper frame and was much easier to deal with.

 

Thanks for the guidance. Yes - just changing the wheels straight over so I don't usually use the jack stands although I do have some. Just swap each tyre in turn so it's only off for a minute and I'm not under it

I have a high lift trolley jack which worked on the LR4 (which had to be lifted a long way!) so I think height should be fine
Just not sure I want to jack right on the edge where the emergency jack indented points are - would prefer a more substantial frame-type element

I'll have a closer look at the weekend and see what works best.

 

I put the D5 in offroad height, to reduce the distance of jacking up. Still has a lot of droop, but at least the other 3 corners are closer in height to the one that has the wheel removed.

Years back I had a flat on a LR3, and in access height it was a PITA to use the factory scissor jack to get it up to swap the spare in. It was my brother's LR3, and later he showed me in that manual that it stated to use offroad height before swapping a tire.

Still sates it in the D5 manual
https://www.ownerinfo.landrover.com/.../proc/G1802489

 

You are absolutely right, for the D5, under Wheel Changing Safety, it states: For vehicles fitted with an electronic air suspension, select off-road height before jacking the vehicle. See OFF-ROAD HEIGHT.

I missed that. The guys at Discount Tire always told me to lock the suspension at the lowest level but there is no lock setting so I'd just drop it to access level. I never thought jacking it up with the air suspension in any position would affect it anyway.

 

Very helpful. Just to be clear, those are opposite things. The manual says off road height which is all the way UP. Access height is all the way DOWN

Funny - I always did access height on the LR4 but I still ended up raising the suspension to full articulation with the jack before the wheel would lift. So actually this makes more sense to put it up first as you don't have to do as much jacking...

 

How about thinking about it logically:

After you shut off the vehicle and before you jack it up theres a set amount of air at a set amount of pressure in the system.
If you don't change that equilibrium by adding or removing air, then the only way to change the pressure is by changing the volume (omitting and small change due to temperature change).

As you jack it up from a raised or lowered condition, the air bag will increase in volume and the pressure in the bag will go down.
Jacking from the lowered condition will allow the air bag to increase in volume more than from a raised condition, thus the pressure will decrease more for the jacking from lowered condition.
But when jacking from the raised condition, you will start with higher pressure and the volume will increase less as it's jacked, so the end pressure will be lower than before jacking but higher than jacking from the lowered condition.

So in either case, the pressure in the air bag decreases as the vehicle is jacked up. Since the mechanical components of the suspension prevent infinite expansion of the air bag, then jacking will never cause a condition worse (at higher pressure) than normal use.

So it really doesn't matter whether you jack from lowered or raised condition.

I would strongly argue that Land Rover put any warning or instruction in the manual for the convenience of the owner (i.e. to make us jack it less distance).
But I don't see any reason to support them stating to jack from a raised position.

I welcome constructive argument/re-analysis of this situation.
I don't thing the vehicle will add air to the bag after shutting off the vehicle, but I do think it would bleed air out.

 

I don't think it matters much if you use a shop lift that lifts the whole vehicle. However if you only raise one corner to change a single wheel, it does make a lot of sense to first raise the vehicle. As you mention the suspension will droop a certain amount, by raising it first, you reduce the difference from the one corner to the others when getting it to a height where you can remove the wheel. This reduces the angle the vehicle tilts and thus the risk for it becoming unstable. When I measured on mine it is a difference of 3.5" from access to offroad height, which is quite bit.

Besides it makes it much easier to raise from offroad height when using the factory scissor jack, especially with a flat. Nearly destroyed the factory one on the LR3 with a flat and a loaded truck.

 

Hi,

Advise from English and Australians is to jack the vehicle 2" on a lower suspension arm. Have the engine running. Or turn it own. Best to have the doors shut. The Disco will then want to level the vehicle. The Disco will then level the vehicle. And the tyre will raise off the ground. Change the tyre or put (in a garage) proper stands underneath the vehicle. Carefully lower the jack; raise the vehicle if you can't ge the jack out.

 

I would not jack the car with engine running. That's not recommended

And the car will not lift a wheel off the ground by itself in an attempt to level. In fact quite the opposite. The air suspension will work to keep the wheels on the ground as far as it can

Land Rover is very clear on the approach they recommend in the owners manual.