Wheels and tires for a Discovery 3 Not

For a couple of months, I’ve been looking for an extra set of wheels and tires. More specifically, I wanted tires that are more suitable for driving on slippery mud.

One of the problems is that my Discovery 3 has 18 inch wheels, and there exist no decent mud tires for these wheels… There are Goodyear Wrangler MT/R tires available for 19 inch wheels on a Discovery 3. However, a new set of wheels would cost a small fortune, so I decided to look for second hand wheels.

And I did find some 19 inch wheels and Goodyear Wrangler MT/R tires, and the seller told me they were Discovery 3 wheels. Here are some pictures he sent me:

So Saturday I went to Holland, to take a closer look, and unfortunately discover a dark detail… At first sight, they looked quite fine. The tires weren’t new, but the price was reasonable. I asked him to put them on my D3 right away, so he started to swap my current 18 inch wheels with Pirelli Scorpion Zero tires for the new 19 inch wheels… But while swapping the first wheel he stopped, because he told me he didn’t have the right nuts.

This did trigger an alarm bell inside my head, and I went looking for some explanation. And I found it. These wheels are not Discovery 3 wheels, but Range Rover wheels (FFRR - Full Fat Range Rover, the original big Range Rover, as opposed to the Range Rover Sport introduced more recently). People one the best Discovery 3 forum advised me not to buy them, and earlier experiences by other people confirm that advice because they would foul the brake calipers (whatever that means)… So on second thought, I’ll quite probably not buy these wheels (unless he can convince me otherwise, you never know).

Too bad, because I wanted to have some better tires drive us safely to the ski vacation we’ll be doing in the near future. I did buy some snowchains, but better tires would be welcome (also for the future ‘offroad mud trips’).