For the 5.0 timing issues were an expensive required replacement item. The 5.0 is also sensitive to overheating so stay up on you cooling system maintenance.

The supercharged 6cyl I really haven't seen many complaints on here yet.

Maintenance with land Rovers is king, don't defer it stay on top of issues or you will have failures.

 

Why do you say the LR3 is the most solid? In terms of reliability and life span? Any other specifics?

 

In terms of life span: most will go to 250k with normal maintenance, no earlier (V8) model comes close to this.

In terms of reliability: the car is well thought out, the systems are well designed, faults are diagnosible, it avoids several pitfalls of earlier models, one example is if the thermostat fails, it typically fails OPEN and overcools the motor, instead of overheating it. Its wear items are set up for the easiest possible repair considering how they had to set up a modern car, oil changes, belt changes, alternator changes, thermostat changes, coolant loop servicing, PCV servicing, air filters, various hoses, even spark plugs and coil packs. Some exceptions are the locations of vehicle computers but for the most part even those are protected. The jaguar motor is in my mind the best V8 they ever fitted in a Land Rover. While the car leans towards being on the very complicated side of things, it is simple enough.

It has very good features: It is very safe (google G4 edition Discovery 3 crash South Africa, an Audi car collided with a D3 (LR3) at extremely high speed head on, and the family in the Land Rover survived with non critical injuries while the Audi was literally vaporised along with its occupant), the car has excellent airbags, a ladder frame and essentially a unibody at the same time, so the car is very robust. It's running lights and headlights are excellent, Bi xenon was an option but the quality and throw of the light is superb compared to any earlier model, the auxiliary lights use readily available bulbs, are removable as units for service or replacement, very easy to do with hand tools and some cheap bulbs. Its electronics are very robust, its traction computer is excellent, basically cheating off road in slippery terrain, requires much less driver skill than before (IMO a nice thing to have). It is from a family of cars at LR that were some of the last to have a really nice tactile control arrangement for driver and various buttons, etc. There is a button for everything, no weird menus, endless screens etc. Very easy to use in the dark, by feel, etc. The car seats 7 nicely, has 4 seat heaters, has an excellent (LR standard) driving position, has very good sound and heat insulation, has very good glass quality for windows, has a very nice amount of cup holders among other things, and the HVAC controls for the front and back zones are very good. The seats fold completely flat and you can sleep very nicely there, or store a huge amount of things like a van would. The entire way the car was set up I really never see anymore. Again, what comes to mind is that everything about the car was well thought out.

It is very affordable: (for a Land Rover, anyway) The cost of entry is low because the cost of dealer service is quite high in the USA. People will trade them in or sell them as warranty expires, and despite the cost to fix one, for the most part because it was well designed, they tend to survive some abuse or neglect from the previous owners (better at least than an earlier model would). For someone that wants to learn, it is not hard to service it yourself. Parts are available and while not super cheap, you have options.

It is very capable: As alluded to above, the driving position, the seating positions, the build quality, the power (adequate for its weight), make for an extremely nice general purpose distance driving car. The traction control systems are excellent and overcome a lot of the need for very aggressive tires or extensive modification. In factory (stock) form, they are out of the box just very GOOD at everything. Not as purpose built like a jeep, but like the old marketing advertising used to say, this car could play in mud, sand, snow all day and still pull up to a nice restaurant with comfortable people inside (that haven't been blasted by the sun, wind, cold, noise, mud etc.).


There are significant downsides to the car. It is heavy (almost 3 tons empty), it is not terribly efficient (something like 16/18 mpg), it is expensive to repair when you break it if you do not do DIY. It has some known issues (easy fixes exist for them), and a lot of glass on the car (roof especially) can be expensive to replace. However, as a stand alone car compared to other Land Rover offerings, past and present, for the prices these are available at in varying conditions, you will be hard pressed to find anything as good.

 

Small side note on engine choices:

4.0V6 (2005 LR3) not widely fitted, same efficiency roughly as 4.4V8, less power, supposedly simpler. Hard to judge as good or bad, so few exist, basically a Ford engine that takes Ford V6 parts so that is a plus, learning curve for service is harder since less has been written online about these.

4.4V8 (2005-2009 LR3) simplest one, very easy to service. Widely discussed on forums, DIY tips etc.

5.0V8 (2011-2013 LR4) basically more powerful 4.4, only issues are the twin intakes (boo from a service/complexity standpoint), and there is a known oil sludge issue around the timing case

3.0SCV6 (2014-2016 LR4) roughly the same power as the V8's, roughly same efficiency, my gripe with this motor is a few things are more expensive. an $80 PCV part for an LR3 is a $1200 service on this motor because they put the PCV down in the 'V' of the motor. Have heard about a few other various expensive service bills, but reliability seems to be OK.

I had a 4.4 so I am biased, full disclosure