Compare the2025 Land Rover Discovery SportVS 2025 BMW X3

Both the Discovery Sport and X3 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Discovery Sport has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The X3’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.

Both the Discovery Sport and X3 have rear cross-traffic warning, but the Discovery Sport has Rear Traffic Braking (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The X3’s Cross Traffic Warning doesn’t automatically brake.

The Discovery Sport’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The X3 doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.

Both the Discovery Sport and the X3 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras and rear cross-path warning.

A nine-speed automatic is standard on the Land Rover Discovery Sport, for better acceleration and lower engine speed on the highway. Only an eight-speed automatic is available for the X3.

For better stopping power the Discovery Sport’s front brake rotors are larger than those on the X3:

The Discovery Sport has a standard full size spare (not available on 7-Passenger) so a flat doesn’t interrupt your trip. A full size spare isn’t available on the X3; it requires you to depend on a temporary spare, which has mileage and speed limitations, or roadside assistance and a tow-truck.

For better maneuverability, the Discovery Sport’s turning circle is 1.3 feet tighter than the X3’s (38.7 feet vs. 40 feet).

For greater off-road capability the Discovery Sport has a greater minimum ground clearance than the X3 M50 xDrive (8.4 vs. 8.3 inches), allowing the Discovery Sport to travel over rougher terrain without being stopped or damaged.

The Discovery Sport is 6.2 inches shorter than the X3, making the Discovery Sport easier to handle, maneuver and park in tight spaces.

The Discovery Sport offers optional seating for 7 passengers; the X3 can only carry 5.

The Discovery Sport has .5 inches more rear headroom, 1.8 inches more rear legroom and .2 inches more rear shoulder room than the X3.

The Discovery Sport’s cargo area provides more volume than the X3.

To improve rear visibility by keeping the rear window clear, the Discovery Sport has a standard rear fixed intermittent wiper with a full on position. The rear wiper standard on the X3 only has an intermittent setting, so in a hard rain visibility isn’t as good.

In poor weather, headlights can lose their effectiveness as grime builds up on their lenses. This can reduce visibility without the driver realizing. The Discovery Sport offers available headlight washers to keep headlight output high. The X3 doesn’t offer headlight washers.

To better shield the driver and front passenger’s vision, the Discovery Sport has standard dual-element sun visors that can block glare from two directions simultaneously. The X3 doesn’t offer secondary sun visors.

The Discovery Sport has a standard heated steering wheel to take the chill out of steering on extremely cold winter days before the vehicle heater warms up. A heated steering wheel costs extra on the X3.

The Discovery Sport has a standard dual zone air conditioning allows the driver and front passenger to choose two completely different temperatures so people with different temperature preferences won’t have to compromise. This makes both the driver and front passenger as comfortable as possible. Dual zone air conditioning costs extra on the X3.