Land Rover Discovery Sport – long-term review
HELLO TO TOP GEAR’S NEW LAND ROVER DISCOVERY SPORT
At one point during lockdown in the UK, I thought I might never actually see this car. Because this one’s been a little while coming: originally due to appear in August, our Top Gear Discovery Sport has finally managed to escape the clutches of the Covid wobbles, along with possibly the longest model designation on the fleet. Yes, the Land Rover Discovery Sport D240 AWD HSE R-Dynamic has landed. And I specced it, which usually scares press departments, mainly because I’m very fashion-forward and sometimes so much so that the fashion never actually materialises. A moment for my long-departed matte-brown BMW 6 Series GC with a white and saddle-leather interior, please.
Still, this one’s fairly tame, by my own standards: a full-on HSE in ‘Firenze Red’ metallic paint, a contrast black roof and ‘downgraded’ black 18-inch wheels (standard being 20s – but more on the reasoning behind that choice later).
I’ve also dropped in – on top of that already rounded HSE spec – a black exterior pack to keep up the contrast-y theme, red brake calipers that come as part of the Dynamic Handling Pack (adaptive dynamics gear), privacy glass (for when I’m acting like a van) and some other odds and sods. Inside it has the vegan suedecloth seats and titanium mesh trim, a Meridian stereo and every single dog-adapted option available – brace for this, but I’ve got a dog guard which essentially identifies as a bolt-in rollcage, a quilted loadspace liner, a collapsible pet access ramp, a spill resistant water bowl and portable rinse system for muddy… things. Which means my dog and fairly constant companion, Frank. And just over eight grand’s-worth of options wasn’t actually that hard to do, either.
But the trade-off is a really very good-looking car, now based on JLR’s PTA platform (Premium Transverse Architecture), and sporting a 240bhp version of the Ingenium four-pot diesel. There’s a nine-speed autobox – still not sure anything needs nine speeds, but we shall see – four-wheel drive, and the usual promise of mud in your unmentionables via Land Rover’s peerless Terrain Response system. It works, and I’ve taken LR product to extremely surprising places because of it. As for first impressions, the Disco arrived and was immediately put to work on TG’s 2020 Performance Car of the Year shoot. Which meant 1,000 miles in its first week, a trip around Anglesey Circuit, mud, rain and being filled to the gunwhales with kit. It coped beautifully, serenely and perfectly, despite dealing with some serious weather and acting and as a support car for the whole event.
Now, I purposely wanted to try and figure out if the Disco Sport and its ilk really are the kind of do-it-all cars that people need in their daily lives. The basic specs certainly point that way: a five-seater with a pair of occasional foldaways in the boot floor, a big 810-litre bootspace when those chairs are tucked, four-wheel drive for when things get muddy (and they do, with what I get up to). There’s a convenient diesel with a (very) mild 48v hybrid system, wipe-down everything, a raised ride height and big-but-not silly exterior dimensions.
The reason I went with the smaller wheels was really to make the ride as compliant as possible. An SUV doesn’t need big wheels – they pinch tyres off-road, get kerbed and add very little to the naturally-compromised dynamics. And as for the aesthetic, I’m actually partial to a big sidewall. Don’t tell anyone, but I may upgrade to a slightly boofier set of all-terrain tyres at some point. But so far, I’m massively impressed. This generation of Disco Sport is a world away from the last one: it’s quieter, better-riding, smarter and handles more accurately – it’s not a sports car, but it’s definitely confident, and that’s all I really need. It’s those wheels, I tell you.
HERE’S WHY OUR LAND ROVER DISCOVERY SPORT IS A SUPERB ALL-ROUNDER
Nothing too revealing about the LR’s underpinnings, mainly because I think I could probably get a standard two-wheel drive saloon car down the tracks, but the way it dealt with a couple of bits of mud and some light cross-axle work bodes well. The camera that allows you to ‘see’ through the bonnet to what’s going on underneath is really good, too: you can pick your way through rocky sections without a spotter. Plus, it helps if you’re worried about kerbing wheels – not that I am particularly – the downsized 18-inch alloys have a generous bouncy sidewall that should act like the bumper I probably need. I really want to get up to one of Land Rover’s Highland off road courses to give it a proper go, mind. See if it can manage a ten-hour motorway slog, do some seriously silly off-road and then back again, without changing tyres or otherwise modding it. An ‘As it left the showroom’ run, as it were.
Having had only a couple of hundred miles on it when it arrived, I’ve been pretty gentle to make sure things have all bedded-in properly. It’s not really necessary on modern cars these days, but a touch of mechanical sympathy never hurt anyone, and it’s nice that all the fluids and bits and bobs seem to be holding steady. I’ve also been playing with the app, from which you can do all sorts of stuff; from finding the car to logging journeys. The latter being a massive help with doing travel expenses.
Niggles? A couple, nothing serious. A plastic panel in the passenger footwell wasn’t attached properly at some point and dropped off, thirty seconds and some re-tightening of plastic screws seeing to that issue. I’ve also noticed that the 9-spd autobox can be hesitant, especially when coasting/accelerating towards roundabouts and junctions – an issue that seems exacerbated by ‘comfort’ mode – but I’m learning some of the car’s quirks. Mainly that it thinks nine speeds are probably too many to accurately count, and that not coming completely off-throttle helps smooth things out. It’s been hitting 43mpg on a run, 37-38 overall though, so far be it for me to moan too hard – this is still a decently-sized SUV, and that’s not bad at all. Certainly better than an uncharged PHEV smashing around, and makes me think that a clean diesel still has a place – albeit probably not for much longer unless you’re in the HGV squad.
One of the main reasons I wanted to run a Disco Sport though, was because of its sheer utility – probably one of the main reasons most people buy a car like this. And here it scores high – it’s already done sterling service as a shoot and support car for Speed Week, and the seven seat arrangement works surprisingly well and often, even if it is just section-splitting three kids across the two rear rows. And I find that when you’ve had a hard day, whacking on a few tunes or a podcast, sticking it in waft mode and pottering home is actually something to look forward to. Uh oh…. I think that makes me officially old.
WHAT’S THE SMART WAY TO SPEC A LAND ROVER DISCOVERY SPORT?
Recently the Disco faced off against the new Mercedes GLB in the pages of Top Gear magazine, and it acquitted itself well in the face of stiff competition – in 2020 the Sport has a weirdly calming USP that derives from its off-roadability. Strange to say it, but the very fact that it is so capable off-road means that it’s less focussed on being psuedo-sporty on it, and that’s actually a welcome thing when you’re talking about naturally compromised SUVs.
Every time I get into it after a long day and fire up the excellent Meridian stereo (a £630 option), journeys just seem a little less stressful. But there’s a few things that can’t be ignored. One, the nine-speed auto ‘box sometimes suffers from downchange dementia and forgets which ratio it wants to be in, especially when on/off throttle approaching, say, a roundabout and you’re feathering the throttle. It also has a habit of shunting through the driveline if it decides that it needs to drop a gear coming to a slow stop.
Neither of which scream either premium or optimised. I also think it may be a software issue more than a physical one, seeing as though the fuzzy logic sometimes gets it completely right – there’s no particular rhyme or reason to it. Still, it’s annoying when it just feels like there’s a pair too many ratios in the ‘box for the computer’s comfort – yes, there’s a defined percentage increase in efficiency, but it feels like chasing numbers rather than making it functionally a ‘better’ car. We’ve also dropped from 37.5mpg (ish) to 35.4 average over the course of this month, which is a lot. Blame more short journeys and cross-country stuff. It matters.
There’s also no escaping the fact that in the higher echelons of Disco Sport spending, you have to want one for the outlay. Our D240 HSE R-Dynamic breaches £50k (they start at £31,095 for a D150 manual with FWD, mind), and for that, you can get into a full fat Discovery (starting at £48,340 for an S with a 240bhp diesel and a full 7-seat – rather than 5+2 – configuration), or even a stylish Velar D180 diesel – albeit on little 18-inch alloys that don’t especially suit it. The GLB spec did make the Land Rover seem expensive, although the Land Rover – even in more modest specs – is still just about the better car, especially if you value that comfort over out and out ‘handling’.
It’s been a busy month for it generally, too – we went and traced some lineage by tracking down an original Freelander, chased an extremely powerful vintage Aston and did some light off-roading, at which point I got lightly obsessed with the ‘transparent bonnet’ camera (it really is useful), and the Clearsight rear view mirror, which you can use when the back of the car is so muddy you worry that you’ll scratch the back window if you use the rear wiper… The rear seats have seen plenty of use, even if it comes down to giving three kids some elbow space by splitting them across two rows, and if you just pop up one of the third row chairs, there’s still plenty of room for luggage.
Overall, it’s still a wildly useful bit of kit – I’m just getting itchy feet to see if it really can do all the mucky stuff that Land Rover says it can. Oh, and I’ve got a tonne of dog-friendly equipment that I’ve been putting to the test, so a bit of an update on that soon.
WHAT ARE THE MUST-HAVE OPTIONS FOR A LAND ROVER DISCO SPORT?
Not a huge amount of miles under the Disco’s wheels this month – which gave me a bit of time to investigate a few of the options that I use the most. Which are mainly dog-related, unsurprisingly. Not all, though – so here’s a quick rundown of what’s worth the cash, and what’s not – though it’s worth remembering that this car is already an HSE Dynamic, which means it’s pretty well-equipped to start with. I’m rolling through the stuff that I added on after standard.
First, the paint – Firenze Red Metallic in this case and £705, with a black contrast roof (£610) and Black Pack (£580). All totally worth it – even after ploughing fields it cleans up a treat, and the combo looks really very swish. I went for the Luxtec and suedecloth seats as a no-cost option, and they are both generously comfy and remarkably stain resistant, though they do like to try and eat crumbs via the little pores in the fabric – stuff doesn’t brush out of these, you need a vacuum to clean up properly. I also added the £630 Meridien Surround Sound, and again, I find it worth the cash. If you’re not an audiophile, the standard system is fine. Mind you, the Meridien isn’t the be-all and end-all of in-car audio, it’s just a nice upgrade for a reasonable cost.
The dynamic handling pack aggregates configurable dynamics and adaptive dynamics and adds red brake calipers as a visual cue, and for £1,155 yes, it does make a difference. Could I live without it? Yep. But it is desirable for the odd time you need to make progress. And yes, I like privacy glass – mainly because for £420, when I’ve got the seats down and stuff in the back, I don’t worry about parking the car up. I know some people also hate black back windows, but honestly I don’t mind the look. It fits with my black’n’red theme anyaway, so… The Driver Assist Pack (360-degree camera, clear exit monitor, adaptive cruise, wade sensing, park assist and rear traffic monitor) sounds toppy at £2,160, and I have to admit, I could live without it. But there’s a driveway I constantly have to reverse out of blind, and it helps. This is very specific though – and another one of those ‘nice to have but not essential’ moments. And a couple of grand is lot.
One thing I wouldn’t do without is the extra USB ports (two in the second row of seats and one in the third), for £100. Three kids – who are often split across three rows for elbow room – appreciate them, and they prevent arguments. And as for the Tracker for £570 – yeah, I’d put that on my own car.
The hound options are more divisive. I got LR to give me a collapsible luggage organiser (£63) for dealing with kit, and I absolutely adore it as a bit of a game changer for in-car storage. It’s exceptionally well-made, but the same kind of thing is available on the internet for twenty quid, so you’ve really got to want that Land Rover branding. The same goes for the spill resistant dog bowl at £55 – you can get a good one for under a tenner without the logo. And again, the Land Rover-specific portable rinse system is brilliant for washing down dogs and boots before they get into the car, but at £262, it’s just too much money. Even a cursory search reveals decent branded versions for around £80 which are pretty much exactly the same. And a proper portable camping shower with a reservoir (the same idea but more powerful) is only around £140. Unless you’re that bothered about being matchy-matchy, don’t bother.
The pet access ramp? I loved the idea, but its use is marginal. One, it’s a bit of a hassle to unbag and fold up just to get the dog in the car, and once you do, it cuts down on space for said dog if you store it in the boot. If your dog’s too small to jump up into the boot you can probably pick it up, if it’s bigger, it can probably manage to get in there itself – a mate’s Labradors manage. In fact, the only way that the ramp makes sense is if you have a larger/older/infirm animal you can’t lift. In which case, fair play – but £302 is still a chunk of change for a fold-up ramp, nicely made as it is.
The full-height luggage partition for £461 is also properly made, but feels a bit like overkill – it screws into the rear section like a bolt-in rollcage and is basically high-security prison spec. Great for safety – no animal is coming through that, even if there was a crash – but my dog is more bijou-sized and is quite happy in the boot, so it doesn’t feel as necessary. Also, it prevents the use of the flip out third row of seats, so it can be a bit of a hassle to get in and out. You have to plan, and that’s not the point of the seven-seat convenience. In fact the only bit of must-have for me is the quilted loadspace liner. I know, £282 is a lot, but it’s perfectly fitted to the back (floor/rear/sides to window height) of the Disco, jetwashes clean and is padded in all the right areas to keep my dog Frank happy.
It’s got straps and ties in all the correct places, and even flaps to access the tie-downs so that you can secure things in the back. Throw in a dog bed on a non-slip base, clip the dog bowl in securely, and your pooch is sorted. There’s even a tidy fold down flap to stop top-of-bumper scratches from wayward claws. And if you don’t need it, you just pull it out and roll it up. And that’s pretty much how the Discovery runs most of the time: Loadspace liner in with dog, car-organiser on the passenger seat, little power pack converter with three-pin plug for powering a laptop. Mobile office and shoot station, with comfortable, safe sidekick in tow. When it needs to convert for family of five duties, just lift out the gear and replace with people. Job done.
IS THE LAND ROVER DISCOVERY SPORT PLUG-IN HYBRID ANY GOOD?
Having just crested 6,000 miles in OV20 UNU since it arrived four-and-a-bit months ago, it’s strange to think that’s probably around two-thirds of what I’d usually expect. Not ridiculously unused, but noticeable. Not to say that the Disco hasn’t been earning its money, mind you – because in-between the usual chores, it’s still the go-to vehicle for shoots. Those big tyres and soft ride being the absolute king for tracking shots.
But that’s a little bit by-the-by – the truth is that the car probably hasn’t had the hard-nosed thrash-test that my longtermers usually get. With social distancing and lack of contact, even the seven-seat option has been relatively undisturbed; where I would ferry multiple kids and their friends to various sporting functions, we just haven’t been doing it. Trust me to have been running the most practical car I’ve had in ages just when I don’t have as much use for it as usual.
I think the frustrating thing is that we’ve been a little bit stop/start with everything – I’ve had ‘proper’ off-roading plans scuppered twice so far – and even though we managed to pull off socially-distanced shoots, it’s not the same as longer, sillier adventures. Messing about hanging three Defenders from a giant crane was fun, mind. And the DiscoBall was lurking around at the back just to make sure everything went smoothly – though I did notice, while traversing the artificial breakover ramps, that the R-Dynamic bodykit does limit approach angle somewhat. And actually, there’s not as much axle articulation as I might have expected.
Obviously that’s not such an issue with electronic diff locks coaxing forward motion even when wheels are in freefall, but I’m used to LRs having a bit more flexibility. Still interesting to note that even when I’d crossaxled the Disco over one of the ramps in an attempt to get both front right and rear left wheels in the air at the same time, all the doors managed to open without a problem. So that superstructure is properly stiff. Point of order: if I did that in my old Series Land Rovers (we’re talking a while back now), you couldn’t open the doors because the car would have shifted a fair bit under torsion.
We also went to have a quick go in the plug-in variant of the Discovery Sport, and found it… actually pretty good. The PHEV runs a 200bhp 1.5-litre turbo petrol triple driving the front axle, plus a 100-ish bhp electric motor for the rear (giving 4×4), and because of savings with regards to transmission components, it’s pretty much the same weight as my diesel. Electric range is 34 miles WLTP, and CO2 in the cycle 44g/km, and fuel consumption in the same cycle 141mpg, with 0-62mph from rest in the sixes – so reasonably quick.
Pigs might fly territory for the real-world figures, I’m guessing, but there’s intent, and the eight-speed auto is instantly better than the nine-speed in my car. Basically the car feels more sprightly, and you get the bonus option of electric-only running which would undoubtedly be useful for shorter trips. Plus tax breaks. Obviously you’d hammer the mpg if you didn’t plug the car in, but used as it should be, I’d definitely consider it. By the way, Land Rover assures me that the plug-in never completely discharges the battery, so you’ll always have all-wheel drive should you need it – that rear axle being only electrically-motivated. Interesting stuff.
The plug-in starts at £47k, and hits those tax margins much harder than a straight diesel, so it would definitely be one to consider if you can hook it onto a business. PHEVs: electric car evangelists hate them – they see them as tax cheats that don’t accomplish much – but there’s a bit of a sweet spot where they make more sense.
IS THE LAND ROVER DISCOVERY AS FAST OR ECONOMICAL AS CLAIMED?
Usually, a longer-term Top Gear Garage resident in my care would end up doing something silly, usually a good few miles away in a completely different country. Given that the Disco Sport has spent only 8k+ miles on the road with me in six months, and the fact that that inter-continental (not to mention global) travel is still a bit wonky, I’ve decided to spend some time really digging deep into what it means when you read a brochure. What you realistically expect from your car, given the sales pitch. This has proven more complicated than it seems. Also, I’m not especially coherent at the best of times, so some of it has been slightly random.
And so it has begun – a month-long investigation into just how the DiscoBall operates in the real world, conceived to see if cars actually do anything near what you expect once released from the pages of a magazine review or website rundown. As I have already mentioned/warned, testing has been lightly unscientific in the most scientific way possible for an employee of Top Gear. This past week has been relatively simple: I’ve done speed and miles-per-gallon tests (urban, cruising, combined), including 50 miles of the A1 at a steady 56mph in Eco mode – cruise control is horrendous for best-mpg by the way – three laps of Peterborough town centre (yeah, it looked dodgy) and the rest of the tank doing ‘normal’ usage.
The trip computer is generally 10-12-per cent generous it seems, so I’ve been doing the old fill-trip-fill measures. It’s supposed to do 38.4mpg combined according to the manufacturer’s website (that’s in 7-seat R-Dynamic trim like this one), but I got a high of 44.1mpg, and a low (town use) of 28.1. Off road it dropped even further (26.4), bizarrely to roughly the same level as a few laps of a racetrack. Figure that one. In reality, mixed usage and my usual tame driving style offers up around 34.5mpg. So not ridiculously far off the quoted figure, and very dependent on how urgently you bomb away from rest, and how fast you cruise. Obviously.
In terms of speed, I haven’t been able to test to the purported 136mph top end, though I did go moderately quickly at the track, and acceleration tails off significantly after about 110mph. All a bit of a moot point really for a car like this, though I suspect it probably would do the official figure if you had a 10-mile straight and enough time at the other end to brake. As for acceleration from rest, the official number is 7.9 seconds, and try as I might, I could only manage 8.8. And yes, that was attempting different ‘launch styles’ and taking into account half a tank of fuel and me.
I am not light. In fact, I suspect the difference is the fact that the Disco is literally heavily specced and that I’m a contributing factor. As previously mentioned, there were track laps at last year’s Performance Car of the Year test, and I’ve tested on sand and snow as locations and weather conditions have allowed over the past few months. There’ll be more shoot-from-the-metaphorical-hip science coming soon, including just a few bits of mud, wading, incline and articulation tests, all to figure out whether this Land Rover actually can rove over land.
A trip to the dyno was called off… but I think I’m covering most bases. All will be revealed soon…
IS THE LAND ROVER DISCOVERY SPORT REALLY SNOW-PROOF?
Remember the cold snap a while ago? Well, I finally got to use the Disco in some seriously slippery weather, and I’m happy to say that it made the whole event gloriously dull. Essentially, Land Rover owners live for these few days when their cars display an obvious advantage, though the abandon with which some 4×4 owners throw their cars down a snowy road means that either they have the skills of Stig (whichever one you wish), or they have very little idea about how physics works. After all, clever four-wheel drive works wonders for getting you going in slippery conditions, but it’s not that clever at making a couple of tonnes of SUV actually stop.
After popping out to help the local farmer with a shunt down our lane, he casually mentioned that most of the cars he pulls out of the ditch at the corner at the bottom of the hill are 4x4s. The curse of over-confidence maturing just as momentum starts throwing its (literal) weight around.
The Land Rover? Like I said, not bothered. Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly Arctic, but having played with the programmes for the Terrain Response, I came to the conclusion that the Disco was just happy in ‘Auto’. The ‘Grass, Gravel, Snow’ programme notably softens off every control surface and mitigates wheelspin, but it wasn’t really necessary. To be honest, the most effective option on the Discovery Sport is the Michelin Latitude tyres. Not the most aggressive but truly ‘All Weather’, they offer less ultimate dry grip and more breadth of ability. But come on, I drive a big, heavy SUV – ten-tenths dry grip is really very low on my priority list. I’d rather have a tyre that generalises enough to cope with the odd bit of snow, mud and motorway. I think the standard-fit Michelins are pretty much spot-on – quiet and capable. Though I have no idea how long they might reasonably last, as there’s barely any tread gone after just over 7,000 miles.
Other than that, the passenger door has got a bit grumpy and stiff. I think it’s a rubber seal issue – the LR has some quite heavy-duty door seals – but haven’t had time yet to lubricate the offender. Though I did look like a complete nutcase standing in Morrisson’s car park repeatedly opening and shutting the passenger door like it might reveal the secrets of the universe. By the way, I have always used a gentle rub of common-or-garden cornflour to make rubber less grabby. It also works on squeaky or rubbing leather trim in the cabin, and I would assume talcum powder would work just as well. I’ve also topped off the AdBlue tank – the exhaust additive that mitigates some of the emissions.
That’s the little yellow screw top next to the diesel fuel filler, and AdBlue is just a colourless liquid derived from urea… though it doesn’t smell. It’s used twenty litres in 7k miles, and you can pick it up at any garage or services, with the Land Rover handily letting you know when you’ve dropped to 1,000 miles of range left. It might seem like a strange thing to fill this little tank, but it really is no problem at all – takes a couple of minutes.
Oh, and it’s a small thing, but I’m going to say that the cloth seat option in the Discovery has put me off leather seats for life. They’ve been warm in winter, cool in summer and more comfortable than leather. My concern was that they would be less hard wearing, but that hasn’t been the case. Ok, so the open ‘pores’ in the fabric can trap a bit of dirt, but a decent vacuuming soon clears it out, and they’ve happily bounced various stains and spillages without an issue. Having a look at some of the recycled polyester fabrics that are now becoming more common in the automotive market (have a look at a fabric called ‘Seaqual’), and you start to wonder where the obsession with dead cow – or even plastic leather – comes from.
FAREWELL DISCO SPORT: A TRUE LAND ROVER OFF-ROAD GREAT?
A small asterisk is a window into a world of half-truths. A get-out clause that allows a company or advert to stab the best possible features into your mind’s eye, asterisking the minute small print somewhere towards the bottom of whatever page you’re reading, the stuff that says ‘only if you spend twelvety thousand pounds more of your hard-earned money, pauper’. Thus you can have ‘available from’ next to performance figures that you only achieve with the car that’s twice the price. It’s marketing sleight-of-hand, promotional distraction magic.
But at Top Gear, we are not fooled. And so, in a weird month of absolutely unscientific deconstruction, we have subjected our long term Garage Land Rover Discovery Sport to some rigorous real-world testing. To see if it can actually do what it says it can do. Welcome to the lie detector.
I started with the obvious stuff; speed and efficiency, based off LR’s own figures for this model, in pretty much this spec. Half a tank of fuel and me where possible, car more than run-in at 8k miles, nothing else in the car. Acceleration: the official number is 7.9 seconds, and try as I might, I could only manage 8.8. And yes, that was attempting different ‘launch styles’, with good grip and ambient temperatures of about 12-degrees centigrade. I haven’t been able to test to the purported 136mph top end, so I failed pretty early, though I did go moderately quickly at the track (118mph), and acceleration tails off significantly after about 110mph, though I suspect it probably would do 130+ if you had a 10-mile straight and enough geography at the other end to brake. Don’t plan on being able to achieve that top end anywhere but, possibly, Nardo.
Efficiency-wise, I’ve done speed and mpg tests (urban, cruising, combined), including 50 miles of the A1 at a steady 56mph in Eco mode – cruise control is horrendous for best-mpg by the way – three laps of Peterborough town centre (yeah, it looked dodgy) and the rest of the tank doing ‘normal’ usage. The trip computer is generally 10-12-per cent generous it seems, so I’ve been doing the old fill-trip-fill measures. It’s supposed to do 38.4mpg combined according to the manufacturer’s website (that’s in 7-seat R-Dynamic trim like this one), but I got a high of 44.1mpg, and a low (town use) of 28.1. Off road it dropped even further (26.4), bizarrely to roughly the same level as a few laps of a racetrack. Figure that one. In reality, mixed usage and my usual tame driving style offers up around 34.5mpg. So not ridiculously far off the quoted figure, and very dependent on how urgently you bomb away from rest, and how fast you cruise. Obviously.
It will swallow seven whole people, and the rearmost seats aren’t anywhere near as bad as you imagine, though 6-footers will feel like their knees are too close to their ears. There’s a big rectangular box of a boot that will accommodate bigger dogs – though not with the seven seats in place, obviously – and even fat, giant otter Labs seem to be quite happy with the space. Drop the seats and you can get three-quarters of a single-garage into it, and once you’ve got the psuedo-suede cloth seats muddy, they clean up a treat. That’s science, that is. And it’ll tow as happily as anything bar a full fat Discovery or V8 Diesel LandCruiser. So far, so good.
So, on balance, the Disco Sport will do pretty much what you think it will, in terms of real-world normal stuff – or at least as close as you would reasonably imagine, given that we’re all lightly cynical anyway. Certainly nothing that would stand out. On more subjective assessments, the ride is calm, the handling tidy – though not sporting – and it is a genial-but-rubbish track car. The gearbox can be clunky (LR makes a smoother six-speed), and I’ve popped a couple of items of trim back onto their clips, but generally I’ve been very happy with it. But one of the reasons you buy a Land Rover is because it manages an air of genteel capability and ability. It’s the Bear Grylls of automotive. And even if you don’t need the off-road nouse, you need to know that it can do it – it’s about the aura. After all, precious few supercar owners will ever drive them at 200mph, but the promise is there.
A fortuitous set of weather meant I could test out the low-grip ability in decent snow, including the ‘low-traction launch’ feature (works well), the ABS (works well) and the driftability (scares people, including the driver). I also took it to the beach to play in the sand, and it was more of the same: consideration and helpful electronics make everything seem much easier than it really is. It’s like a starter-pack for learning to drive off-road: select the correct Terrain Response setting and take your time. No, this car isn’t a Defender 90 on big tyres with air-locking differentials, but it also requires very little intellectual investment to get it to do 80 per cent of the same things. But even that wasn’t enough – we needed more challenges.
So it was off to Eastnor and some ‘proper’ off-roading. And by that I mean driving through/over/across features you probably wouldn’t attempt if you were on your own in a field somewhere. If you can do this stuff, then the things you may reasonably attempt should be child’s play. Albeit a child who can reasonably enact a safe winch recovery.
Right. The R-Dynamic bodykit is low enough to decrease the car’s approach angle by a couple of degrees versus a standard model, but you can get around that by being careful. And once you’ve got the car up the face of a surface, it’ll drive up pretty much anything. The Terrain Response system takes up a lot of the skillset slack, variously softening the throttle for more control, or tightening the effects of the electronic diff locks, slowing wheelspeed and maintaining momentum. I crossaxled it – diagonal wheels in the air – and it just muttered under its breath and kept going. I drove it up slippery rocks, muddy rocks, and some slippery muddy rocks, and it span the wheels lightly and continued on.
We tackled hills, and descents and farm tracks gouged out from clay earth with the grip coefficient of oiled ice. I drove it through some water that covered the wheels – and bonnet, at one point – and my feet stayed dry. The engine remained damp-free and refused the bronchial cough of incipient hydrolock. I drove it at a sideslip angle that gave me a slight headache (side angles feel WAY more scary in the car than they look), drove up and down things that were steeper than my stairs at home. I drove it across wet grass, down seriously rutted tracks, scraped it past bushes and then broke something plastic off the bottom. Though the car didn’t stop, and the breakage was caused by enthusiastic attack of a set of ruts with a big rock in the middle, which I’m not sure I can exactly blame the car for. And all this on the tyres it came on from the factory, without the get-out of air suspension.
In fact, I spent the day trying to get the Disco stuck without actually setting it up for a fall, and it foxed me. If you drive with some care, and are aware of the car’s capability, there isn’t much it won’t do. No marketing bull here – when it says it can operate off road, it can.
Which means, when the scores were totted up on the back of a Starbuck’s paper napkin, the Land Rover Discovery Sport 240 R-Dynamic passes the TG test. The marketing isn’t lying as much as simply presenting the best-case scenario, and it’s a seriously impressive bit of kit in several ways 99 per cent of owners probably won’t experience. In fact, for a non-urban family do-it-all, it’s pretty hard to beat. In the spec we have it here, it looks great but ends up being expensive, and there are lots of very enticing options in this size and price bracket.
But there’s still a convincing case for the Land Rover, even in the face of all that. It’s a car with a significant USP, that doesn’t terribly negatively affect it’s day-to-day charm. And that makes it a winner.
Source topgear.com
