The L494 was the second-generation Range Rover Sport has now become affordable for a wider audience on the used market, but should you buy one?
Land Rover Range Rover Sport L494 2013-2022 buyers guide review for 3.0 TDV6, 3.0 SDV6, 3.0 i6 Ingenium Diesel, 4.4 TDV8, 4.4 SDV8, 3.0 V6 Supercharged, 3.0 i6 Ingenium petrol/gas, 5.0 V8 Supercharged V8, 2.0 Plug-in hybrid, 3.0 SDV6 Hybrid and 5.0 SVR. We show the common faults and what you need to know before buying a Range Rover Sport. We also discuss MPG, BHP, and the dates engines arrived or were discontinued. Owners of Range Rover Sport L494 vehicles may also find our guide helpful for its list of things to look out for including how reliable the car is.
To some the L494 Range Rover Sport is the moment the Range Rover Sport name moves into the upper tier of Land Rover products as it now shared the JLR D7u platform with the full-size L405 Range Rover rather than the body on frame of the Land Rover Discovery 3 and 4 that had gone before it.
Early on the TDV6 and SDV6 were offered separately with the TD model soon dropped. The TDV6 produced 254 bhp while the SDV6 created 271, 288, 301 bhp depending on age. There is a central concern of crankshaft failure with all TDV6 and SDV6 engines due to an issue that has continued from the origins of the LION V6 2.7 diesel engine fitted to the previous Range Rover Sport. The issue is not as bad as it once was and fewer cases of crank failure have been recorded since the inception of the motor, but they haven’t ever fully disappeared.
Next up is the SDV8 creating 334bhp with an average of 32.5mpg (8.7l/100km) on the NEDC test cycle, and 26.7mpg on the newer WLTP cycle. This can make the newer versions of this engine appear less efficient on paper when in fact the test changed during the production life of the L494 Range Rover Sport.
The petrol models are an Ingenium 2.0-litre paired to a plug-in hybrid system, followed by a supercharged V6, that is switched in later models for an inline twin-charged six-cylinder with mild hybrid, and finally, the supercharged V8. Note that later models followed Land Rover's new badging scheme, this is the same for the diesel models.
Our picks are split in two with the budget choice being an early SDV8 model in SE or HSE trim, for our higher budget pick we’d either go for a later inline-six petrol engine in HSE specification or above, or a 2016 onwards supercharged V8 again in HSE or above specification.