Land Rover Discovery - Reliability and safety

Unfortunately, due to the Land Rover Discovery having been out for a while, its 2017 Euro NCAP score of five stars has since expired due to the test getting even tougher. 

That’s not to say the Discovery won’t keep you safe because every version comes with autonomous emergency braking to help prevent or mitigate low-speed collisions with other vehicles and vulnerable road users, a lane keep system to help keep you within your lane on the motorway, a driver monitoring system to let you know when you should take a break, a traffic sign recognition system to let you know important information such as speed limits, and adaptive cruise control to maintain a safe distance from the car in front when cruising along the motorway.

If you want extra safety kit like blind spot warning to let you know of cars approaching alongside you on the motorway, and a rear cross-traffic alert system to warn you of vehicles crossing your path as you reverse onto a main road, then you’ll need to add the reasonably priced Driver Assist pack to entry-level S or upgrade to Dynamic SE trim (or above) to get all these features. A 360-degree 3D camera is standard across the range, which is quite generous when rivals like the BMW X5 make you pay extra for this.

When it comes to reliability, Land Rover’s reputation isn’t the best. The company has had consistently poor results in our Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, although there are signs of some improvement, with the brand moving up from 22nd place (out of 29 manufacturers) in 2021, to the 14th spot in 2023 (out of 32 manufacturers) – ahead of premium brands such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes.

Warranty

The Discovery’s warranty is just a little bit better than the standard for the class, with three years of unlimited-mileage coverage. There’s also three years of free roadside recovery.

Both of these are very similar to what you’ll find from BMW, but is quite a bit shorter than the up to 10 years or 100,000 miles of cover you can get with a Toyota or Lexus.

Servicing

The Discovery has long service intervals for all petrol and diesel engines. You’ll only need to visit the dealer every two years or 21,000 miles for servicing, while the timing belt on P360 petrol, and D250 and D300 diesel engines needs changing every 10 years or 105,000 miles, whichever comes first.