Is the Land Rover Discovery Sport a good towing vehicle?
QUESTION
Hi John,
I know you'll think I'm mad for considering a Land Rover Discovery Sport, and I'm also considering a Hyundai Santa Fe. What do you think?
I'm curious about something though: there are 9 used Disco Sports listed on carsales.com.au with a 2500kg max. towing capacity. How? Are they typos? Everywhere I've looked, the max. towing capacity for the Disco Sport is 2200kg. I'm wondering if I'm missing something.
I'm looking for a vehicle that can tow a horse float with one horse, occasionally two horses. So I'd much prefer 2500kg capacity if that's possible in a Discovery Sport. What do you suggest?
Many thanks,
Michelle
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ANSWER
Michelle,
I just checked current Disco Sport at Redbook.com.au - petrols appear to have a 2000kg tow rating and diesels have 2200. (I checked historically, too - I think they’ve had these ratings for several years.) 2500kg is almost certainly in error - unless there’s some optional towing enhancement pack available with this vehicle.
Balance of probability, I think Carsales is wrong; their AI might be pulling the data for a different Land Rover.
Michelle, I don’t think you’re mad, exactly, but Land Rover ownership is a mental health issue, and at least you’ve identified that you carry the gene.
If you get a reliable one, (pretty much a fantasy right there), then you’ll probably be happy with it. But in the likely event it goes poopy in its trousers, every second week, Land Rover will do what they do best: Throw you under the bus. They won’t even care - you’ll be in a long queue of people in the same philosophical position. All queued up with your hands wrapped around your ankles.
Google ‘Sally Morphy’ - just for kicks.
Also, this vehicle is not ideal for towing 2500kg. There’s this pesky thing called ‘physics’ which is typically so inconvenient. Disco Sport weighs about 1900kg. It’s generally a bad idea to put a trailer heavier than the tow vehicle out there on the road, with a couple of live animals in it, at 80-100km/h… This is how the cake of disaster gets baked. The heavier the trailer, the more likely it is that it will push the towing vehicle off the road. Especially if you’re a novice or you tow like this for long distances (proportionately increases the exposure to the risk).
In the domain of safety, I’d be choosing a vehicle weighing 2500kg, if you actually want to tow 2500kg - this is much more about safety and practicality than it is about ticking the boxes on specifications. You probably want a nice compact SUV that will also tow two horses safely. Unfortunately, a vehicle like this doesn’t exist.
I do hate letting the facts get in the way of these Land Rover ownership fantasies, but I have this genetic predisposition to prioritise reality over appeasement. If you were a man I would advise visiting an especially stern dominatrix, fortnightly, as a means of experiencing roughly the same pain, roughly as often, but at a far lower cost. I doubt this would assist, in your case, however.
You really need a nice car, and a Landcruiser. If you were to limit yourself to 2000kg (one horse) then there are more options. Including (gag reflex) Disco Sport. If you really want to do that to yourself.
I sincerely hope this helps. There’s still hope. (You haven’t bought it yet.)
John Cadogan
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