All Cars, All the Time

Rentin’ till it Hertz


On a recent East Coast trip we rented an LR3 from Hertz to spice up the trip a little. We picked up the car early in the morning during the recent rain storm. Having the all the latest safety goodies was a real plus. Before driving off we were greeted by many different glowing buttons, some with strange symbols. Several hours into the ride it all made sense, but at 5AM it was a bit daunting.

Being a previous Discovery owner, I was very curious to see how much additional scoot the new V8 was brining to the party—the answer is some, but not as much as I would have hoped. The LR3 was constantly downshifting whenever I asked for more “go” and an eye on the trip computer said we were getting 14-15mpg. I found an under-inflated tire on the back of the truck (15lbs instead of 42) so that made a bit of difference with both power and economy, but overall I felt the truck could use a bit more Pepe. Braking was vastly improved over previous Discos. The fact that the tire pressure monitoring system didn’t say anything about the rear tire was a bit disconcerting. How low on pressure does the tire have to be? Speaking of system monitors, I was amazed to see the number of potential errors that the computer could alert you to. There were at least four or five pages of error messages and explanations. From my past experience with Land Rover, chances are you’d see a good number of those messages in four or so years of ownership.

The interior was of the charcoal variety which makes things easier to keep clean, but also a little drab in my opinion. The new fixed rear sunroof over the second and third rows let in a lot of light and I didn’t miss the tilt/slide feature as I can probably count on one had how many times I opened the rear sunroof on the old Disco. There weren’t very many rattles, but several trim pieces were misaligned and in the rear a trim piece had to be pounded back into place. The real star of the interior show was the third row: I could actually sit in it and feel comfortable—a very nice upgrade indeed. Although front a rear seats were heated there was no seat cooling—a feature I’ve become rather attached to. The weather was cold, but when driving for 5 hours straight it is sometimes nice to have a cool breeze on the old bum.

The LR3 is nowhere as easy to drive as an Odyssey, but then again an Odyssey isn’t taking you very far off road (no matter what my sister-in-law tries). I know that during my Land Rover experience I visited the dealer at least 16 times for warranty fixes, suffered long slogs uphill while the motor struggled, visited nearly every gas station on Interstate 5, had to plan ahead for any serious braking, and got taken to the cleaners when I went to sell it. But all I remember is the fun we had taking that truck where no car could travel. The new LR3 may fix some of these flaws, but it will still ask for a bit of understanding and a considerable sum of money from its owner. Are you up to the challenge?