This ‘lag’ is the delay from the moment the accelerator pedal is pressed, to the time the signal gets to the throttle, and the S-Drive has eliminated it almost completely depending on mode setting. If anything, in fact, fitting the S-Drive highlighted how much ‘lag’ vehicle manufacturers tend to tune-in for smooth throttle responses to minimise strain on the vehicle. After all the manufacturers purposely build in that ‘lag’ to give longevity to the vehicle. Like a kid in the candy store, I kept playing with the throttle feeling the instant response but quickly limited the use of race mode.
In sports mode the throttle was very positive and responded to the slightest touch.
Standing starts at intersections had the tyres chirping, not normally associated with a 2.4 ton permanent 4WD vehicle. I always considered that the V8 had very good acceleration, especially using the tiptronic sports mode in the gearbox but with the S-Drive it was a completely different vehicle. Taking it for the first drive up the road was exhilarating. The five modes are Comfortable, Sport, Racing, Eco Fuel saving, and Normal (factory settings) and – believe me - there is a considerably noticeable difference between Normal and say Sports mode. It was like the engine had suddenly woken from a long period of hibernation. No sooner than I had started the engine I immediately noticed an instant improvement in throttle response while it was still sitting in the garage. Once fitted the first thing to do once turning the key is to set the transmission type (to automatic or manual) by holding the mode button for three seconds (as per the instructions). The display has a sticky pad on the back so once you know the exact location you can stick it to the dash. It took all of a few minutes to plug the unit in and refit the pedal and run the wiring up to the dash for the small S-Drive display controller. However, Warren was the one quick enough to identify the wiring plugs as BMW and considering the Range Rover had the BMW V8 engine and the accelerator pedal actually had the BMW logo and numbering on it, we tried a BMW unit and it fitted.Īll we can think of is that Land Rover fitted the BMW engine for the first couple of years then changed to the Jaguar engine under Ford’s ownership and possibly also changed the wiring plugs at the same time. It was baffling as the unit supplied was the correct unit for that model Range Rover. I went back to North Island importer Warren at 4WDbits, sending him photos of the unit and the wiring plugs. only for the wiring plugs to be different. Initially I had a problem working out how to access the wiring plug on the luxury Range Rovers ‘organ’ type accelerator pedal but once I found out how to remove the pedal it was literally a two-minute job. In the June 2020 issue of NZ4WD I wrote about us acquiring an SAAS S-Drive unit to fit to my 2003 Range Rover V8.
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