Having driven the SDV6 i have for a couple of weeks the Lag or inability for the car to know which gear to be when coming to a roundabout which is widely reported i dont know if i can live with it or on my new build pay the extra £6.5k for one of the other engines.

Can i see some real world pros and cons for each engine from owners who have them.

Pros for the SDV6 from me

Nice quiet engine for a desiel at startup.
powerful enough when it has the right gear.
almost silent from inside which is great for long trips.
nice sound when you want to push it that bit harder.

Cons

Lag - when trying to pull away from roundabouts and having no power for that fraction of a second. The only slight way around this is in sport dynamic in either one or the other it doesnt help. In sure the car sits in 3rd when it should be in second hence no pull.

If this can be sorted with one of the other engines or even all the other options im considering the change.

My car is used for work, holidays and school runs so i dont need a bigger engine unless the issue is solved then i would consider the extra money.

Over to the next person.

Ok,

I have driven the SDV6 for 10 days straight and own the SC.

No lag on the S/C V8

The SCV8 wins hands down if you can live with 20MPG real life, 25 on the motorway and 18 on rural b-roads, 12-15 if pushing it.

The lag on the SDV6 annoyed me, but having had a diesel XF I was ready for it.

Having said that, they were both AB's but my wife was ADAMANT that the 5.0 S/CV8 had softer leather and more comfy seats, I was too busy cursing the engine  2014.5 Mariana Black 5.0 Supercharged V8 Autobiography

The Hybrid has no lag, in dynamic mode and start-stop in off position, it pushes away like hell.
The electric torque of 170nm is available from 0, combined with the SDV6 torque of 700nm it is the quickest diesel in the Land Rover line.

The SDV8 is the greater sound, but for me a bit yesterday in balance as the heavy engine above the front arch kills the sporty feel of the RRS with the lighter engines.

Drive both a weekend and then you know whats yours...

If I plan to drive (say), 12000 miles in my SVR, average MPG for the driving I do about 20, certainly no less and on a longer run, more. 600 gallons a year, 2725 litres, £3500 pa if you put super unleaded in it.

For diesel, assume 30 mpg, 400 gallons, 1820 litres, £2100 pa.

There's no comparison in the performance and refinement (not to mention absence of lag) you will get from the SC. To my mind, the SC is more than worth that extra cost.

The spoiler (for the SC) is that the residual value is marked down by a market which hasn't done the maths and is paranoid about the SC running costs. Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue

Renaco wrote:

The Hybrid has no lag, in dynamic mode and start-stop in off position, it pushes away like hell.
The electric torque of 170nm is available from 0, combined with the SDV6 torque of 700nm it is the quickest diesel in the Land Rover line.

I'm afraid you are mixing up torque and power. It's not torque which gets you up to speed, it's power. Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue

Its you who is wrong Mark. Torque 'AT THE WHEELS' gets you up to speed. Horsepower is only a made up figure derived from multiplying the torque figure with the RPM and dividing that by 5252. On arolling road, the HP is worked out from the torque being produced.
The torque produced by the engine alone, and the resultant horsepower, wouldn't do too much to pin you back in your seat as your car takes off at a ridiculously fast 0-60 time. What does this is gearing and drive train. How the torque is multiplied via the transmission is what does the business.
Think of it this way; a big ocean going cruise liner may have a listed 10,000 horsepower, but I wouldn't fancy its chances against me in a pedal powered wheelbarrow. If there was a transmission that could be fitted to it that multiplied the torque accordingly, well I wouldn't mind a white knuckle ride on it. You might say 'yes but look at the size and weight of one of those'
The power to weight ratio would be immense, so that isn't an argument lol.
So torque and horsepower are infinitely linked, as the HP figure is derived from the torque figure in the aforementioned formula.
Torque wins races!

I have test driven both the SDV8 and SDV6. The only evidence of lag - if that's what is was - was on the V8 where I went to pull out of a junction and the car hardly moved. Luckily it was a quiet junction otherwise I would have been in the doodoo.. The salesman actually suggested it was my driving as I did not push the peddle hard enough he said...tosser. I think it was in the wrong gear personally as I had not come to a complete stop before trying to pull away. To be honest didn't notice any problems on the SDV6.

I am no an engineer but I believe lag is a feature of turbochargers only that most modern Diesel engines use. The SC uses a supercharger (get away I hear you say) which is why there is no lag. Every diesel car I have owned has suffered from lag to some extent, even the Macan I just sold (it was surprisingly bad actually). The least laggy was a BMW 640D. I think this is all to do with how the engine is tuned and mapped but no doubt there are more knowledgable people out there than me who could confirm this.

Interestingly, the one diesel I have driven (but don't own) where there was no noticeable lag is the Volvo XC90 D5. Volvos new generation of engines use a combination of both turbo and super chargers.

Last edited by parish on Sat Oct 24 2015 8:44pm. Edited 1 time in total

So having driven an SDV8 for seven months and now temporarily in an SDV6, I will be very pleased to go back to the SDV8.
I did consider the supercharged, but overall increase in running costs for a car that most of the time is cruising with the flow of the traffic I couldn't justify, along with the comment on residuals already made.

I do think the residuals may be hit further in 2-3 years as the 2nd hand SVR market picks up ( any colour you want so long as it is blue)

My SDV8 had 22" wheels and the SDV6 only has 21, this also has an effect on the ride, I do know the SDV8 didn't struggle with anything, whereas the SDV6 has to work hard, shown by e engine ecometer reading, and is no where near as tight in the corners. Of course perhaps my driving style and having had V8's for some years before influences that decision.

sdv8 MY15 sdv6 MY 15.5 next to arrive MY16...

parish wrote:

I have test driven both the TDV8 and SDV6. The only evidence of lag - if that's what is was - was on the V8 where I went to pull out of a junction and the car hardly moved. Luckily it was a quiet junction otherwise I would have been in the doodoo.. The salesman actually suggested it was my driving as I did not push the peddle hard enough he said...tosser. I think it was in the wrong gear personally as I had not come to a complete stop before trying to pull away. To be honest didn't notice any problems on the SDV6.
.

Or maybe I could explain easier using the Bugatti Veyron as an example. Car has a top speed of about 210mph and a 0-60 time os about 2.5 seconds. It produces 922lb/ft of torque and has 1006BHP or thereabouts (derived from the torque figure)

Now; don't touch the engine whatsoever, so it is still producing the same figures, but now fit a Vauxhall Corsa transmission and running gear. Obviously the torque produced by the engine would destroy the transmission in reality, but the point I am trying to make is ; now what would its top speed be and how quick would it get there?

I've driven the V6, V8 and SC, and the first RRS2 I had was the SC which was great fun, but I switched to the V8 4.4 because when your towing 3 tonnes across a muddy field there really isn't any other option in my opinion.

So, it kinda all depends on what you want out of it, if you like tearing up the road, always go for the SC or SVR, If you drive gently and want a long lived fairly economical drive then the V6, and if like me your towing or off-roading then the V8.

Again, my opinion, but I did swap from the SC to the V8 because it performed better in the environment I drive.

Mark_N wrote:

There's no comparison in the performance and refinement (not to mention absence of lag) you will get from the SC. To my mind, the SC is more than worth that extra cost.

Having driven all three, I would say the petrol engine is thE smoothest,
In terms of cabin noise crushing I would rate the sdv6 least. Of course hard accelerating on the sc, gives a noise, which is part of the fun!

gary3306 wrote:

Its you who is wrong Mark

Yes, I missed the comment that Renaco was referring to diesels only.

The only difference between a car at 60 and a car at rest is the one at 60 has kinetic energy. It follows that the greater the ability of the car to create that kinetic energy, the faster it will be. The kinetic energy comes from the power of the engine (Power in Watts = 2* PI * Engine Speed (revs per second) * Engine Torque (newton metres)) so that it's both the engine speed and engine torque which has a bearing on the performance. Ignoring losses, an SVR accelerating to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds is averaging around 200 kW or about 270 bhp. An SDV8 has higher torque than an SVR but is slower to 60 because its peak engine speed and therefore power developed is lower.

Once up and running, the engine speed can be matched - more or less - to the speed of the wheels through the transmission but at low speeds, there has to be some slip in the transmission - clutch or torque converter - to allow the engine to run at a viable speed while the road wheels are close to stationary.

That's the great advantage of electric motors - their torque is generated even if the motor is stalled and the additional torque contribution contributes to a better take off from standstill. That's why the Tesla electric cars are achieving such spectacular standing start performance figures. Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue

GJW1 wrote:

You say refined is it really ? My dealer doesn't have one in and not one close so I can't test one but another thing on my mind is the noise been intrusive to the almost silence the car has when cruising in my sdv6.

The SC and SVR are more performance orientated cars and are expected to make more noise when being worked hard. My SVR is very quiet and refined on a relaxed motorway cruise on a trailing throttle with the hooligan options turned off.

Diesels run at higher compression ratios so there is a bigger bang at each cylinder detonation. It's that extra cylinder pressure which contributes to the noise and if LR have managed to tame it in normal driving, they've done a good job. The only diesel I've driven was at the Land Rover Experience in Eastnor Castle and it was a clattery old thing but that might have been down to its usage history. Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue