New Car Reviews / Land Rover / Land Rover Discovery Review
Land Rover Discovery Review & Road TestReview by www.new-car-reviews.co.uk
Drivers
Discovery drivers occupy a very commanding position and visibility is excellent all-round making this car more manageable than you would think. The addition of rear parking sensors and large mirrors also help in the manoeuvrability stakes. The V8 engine strikes a wonderful note when pressed and propels the Discovery along at a respectable pace. As you would expect of a 4x4 of this lineage, the Discovery takes bumpy and uneven road surfaces in its stride. Body roll in corners is now reasonably well damped through the introduction of Active Cornering Enhancement (ACE). The cabin is now well assembled, although controls are not particularly well laid out (the electric seat adjustment switches are on the side of the centre console and the speedo is partially obscured by the steering wheel).
Passengers
The Discovery comes in either five or seven seat form and all occupants get plenty of headroom. Legroom is little narrow in the front and adult passengers in the rearmost seats of the seven-seater variant will feel cramped. Wind and road noise are above the levels one would expect of a car in this class but don't quite rise to levels that become overly intrusive.
Practicality
Storage space in the Land Rover Discovery is limited with the rear seats down on the seven seater, but these fold out of the way to reveal very generous luggage space.
Equipment
The Discovery's standard stereo is pretty good and can be upgraded to a 320-watt multi-CD system (standard on the SE), all the sound systems can be operated from the steering wheel mounted controls. Climate control has dual zone automatic controls
Safety & Security
The Land Rover Discovery comes with twin airbags for front passengers (side airbags are not available). As you would expect there is remote central locking, alarms and immobilisers on all models. The Discovery also comes equipped with, hill descent control, traction control and Anti-lock braking systems.
Quality & Reliability
Many of the quality issues associated with the Land Rover Discovery date from the pre-1998 model. Since then the company has passed through the ownership of BMW and build quality and finish have improved dramatically. This trend appears to be continuing under Fords ownership with the majority of changes to the most recent models being under the skin and aimed at addressing these issues.
Owning
In automatic V8 form the Discovery's economy figures are not very impressive (to put it mildly), however, the turbo-diesel in manual form does return reasonable figures. The Discovery also falls into the highest band for CO2 emissions so company car drivers will face the maximum car tax bills.
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