I honestly have no idea how LR advertises an 8200lb tow rating on the D5. I wish my towing experience was remotely close to Mr. Williams' experience. In my opinion towing anything near the stated tow limits on this vehicle is difficult to impossible. Here is my experience:
Purchased a '20 Discovery 5 3.0 supercharged with the factory receiver and towing package June 2020, specifically to tow a 25' Grand Design 21BHE with a dry weight of 4,700lbs. We thought the air suspension would be an advantage for towing, and assumed that we could tow safely being well under LR's stated towing limit. Estimating an additional 1,300 lbs for payload and ancillary items in the RV, my assumption is/was we would be towing around 6,000 lbs give or take, still well under the LR tow and tongue weights. I admit that I have not had the travel trailer loaded on a cat scale, but being somewhat cautious about how much weight we carry in there (generally no fresh or grey water, no generator, not packed to the gills, etc.), I strongly believe we were not overloaded or anywhere near the tow limit of the D5. Its just 2 adults and a child also, not a family of 6 with luggage.
I installed a brake controller and we picked up our travel trailer in Amarillo, and set out for Colorado. Pretty much immediately, we realized that the 21BHE travel trailer pushes the rear axle of the LR around, to the point where it is difficult to travel anywhere near safe road and highway speeds. If there are any even mild cross winds, the trailer sway (or trailer steering the D5) is magnified, to *** clenching levels. Semi trucks and the air they displace also caused many *** clenching moments.
We limped it along and stopped in Colorado springs and had a friction sway bar installed, which helped maybe incrementally, but having since put a lot of miles towing the trailer since the friction sway bar was installed, it did not magically cure anything, or instill massive confidence or the ability to tow at what I would deem safe speeds. Now to be clear....I'm not wanting to tow 75mph on the interstate, but being passed by semi's going 15-20mph faster than me because I'm forced to go way too slow because of winds on the highway, or not being able to carry 55mph on TX 2 lane highways with 65-70mph speed limits.... in my opinion is not safe. And in these situations I'm observing other trailers/pick up truck combos while not blasting by me (usually), being able to safely maintain a higher speed, so I know its something unique to the LR. I'm also not entirely "risk adverse" so please don't think I'm just a grandpa that doesn't know how to tow a trailer. We completed our Colorado loop with the hardest stretch being the last Amarillo to Austin leg on the interstate. To be frank, the towing experience absolutely sucked for any roads requiring a speed over 50mph, and during any even minor wind or gust conditions.
Since that initial trip, I've flipped my ball mount to the rise position, and added a 2" rise ball. I measured everything carefully and using a construction level on the floor of the trailer determined that the RV dealer set up the mount at a slight downward angle on the ball mount. With the revised ball mount setup with the trailer now perfectly level, I honestly have not noted much or any improvement. I've tried and checked everything I could possibly check, trailer tire pressure, the discovery tire pressures, loading weight differently in the trailer, etc., and I still haven't found much or any improvement. We tried taking this issue up with the LR dealership and LR direct, and got pretty much nowhere with them. We inquired about why we could not put a distribution hitch on, and never got any clear answer on that.
This is unfortunate because we bought this vehicle specifically for the claimed tow weights and towing this travel trailer occasionally. I'm now not comfortable heading longer distances, because I'm worried I'm just going to have a travel day with 10+ mph cross winds and be stuck somewhere on the side of the road, unable to tow. Try to go West or North from central Texas, and not have a 10-20mph windy/gusty day (good luck). So I more or less have relegated our travel trailer to local use only, which is not what we bought it for.
If it were my choice, I'd already have gotten rid of the Disco for a new diesel Tahoe, but she loves the disco, so i'm stuck with it. I'm at the point where I'd really like to try a WD style hitch on it, as a last ditch effort. My wife is really against it. I called Curt and confirmed that they sell a WD hitch where you could set it up so that it is not actually distributing weight, but it would still provide 4 point sway control. I'm assuming my issue is the sway related, and by reducing sway, I could have a better and safer towing experience. If the hitch is not altering the trailer weight in anyway, what would be the harm to the air suspension, hitch receiver, or vehicle? I'm hesitant to invest the money in the hitch, however, if it does not help anything, and might void the warranty or break the car. The W/D style hitches also appear to really move the tow ball further from the bumper. LR advises a max 6" distance from the hitch pin to the tow ball. Well good luck finding a ball mount with those specs anywhere in the US, the shortest ball mount I could find that I've been using all along is 7.5" from hitch pin to ball. But either way, the w/d style hitches have a much, much longer distance from the receiver to the ball so another reason I'm hesitant to go against the owners manual.
Scott, and/or others who upgraded from the OE pirelli tire......did upgrading to the A/T tires with thicker sidewalls make that big of an improvement for towing? Had you towed your mini-lite before/after installing those tires? I'm wondering if the conditions in TX (open plains + wind) and the limitations of the short wheelbase discovery are just insurmountable, regardless of what gear I throw at the vehicle. It is so flat and windy getting out of central texas, dragging a huge sail (travel trailer) might just be beyond the capability of the disco regardless of the tow capacity stated by LR.
. Good luck!
