i bid you all a warm welcome. today i'm a few dozens of kilometers away from warsaw for a presentation of the land rover discovery sport. we saw this car in paris last year and we didn't need to look long to affirm that it came to replace the freelander. freelander, which goes away already, because in the land rover's palette there are three pillars: range rover, discovery and... defender. there is no freelander in there.there is no place for the freelander. that's why this segment will be filled up by the discovery with the postscript ''sport''. similarly the range rover with the postscript ''sport'', it's actually the discovery if we consider the technical and dimensional aspects, and so the discovery sport caused, that this car became smaller.
smaller doesn't mean small. but let's take it one by one. if we take a stylistic look at the land rover offer we see this old man sitting in his 100 years-old armchair and down-at-heel slippers and young people crowded around him wearing brand-named clothes and smartphones in their hands. and that's how it looks like: the old defender and a lot of novelty. another newness: discovery sport takes by the handful from the technology and stylistic references. we see here a bit of range rover but mostly the evoque. i would actually say that this is an enlarged evoque and if i had to find some characteristic attributes of this car
i have the impression that the designers fixed their eyes too much on the evoque; which does not surprise me because evoque is selling well and proved oneself. we can see here familiar lights, a well-known led picture and grill; even the rear lights are familiar. but the most characteristic thing about its outlook is the ''c post'' whick makes the roof look like it would hang just on this only post. the engine palette is, for now, quite spare. we can actually choose between 3 engines: one petrol engine (2.0, 240 hp; marked as si4, known from the evoque)
and two diesel engines: td4 - 150 hp and sd4 - 190 hp but there is a hook: they both have cubic capacity above 2 liters - exactly 2.2 thus the according excise and according price. but for the diesel fans there is a goog news: soon the offer will join a new engine with cubic capacity of 2 liters and 150 hp. today for this test i drew out the pertol engine 2.0 240 hp, 340 nm, 8.2 sec to 100 km/h. maximum speed - almost 200 km/h, exactly 199 km/h. fuel consumption, delcared by the manufacturers - 8 l/100 km. acceleration - i won't be able to check it today, i don't have the equipment with me today and probably there are not suitable conditions for that
but i will check the engine consumption (it turned out to be 15 l/100 km). the novelty from land rover has 2,74 m of wheelbase 4,60 m lenght of bodywork - 9 cm longer than in the predecessor freelander. by the way we can see that the word ''dicovery'' in the name of the car is just a word-play because the real discovery has a 23 cm longer bodywork, thus it is a bigger segment. but it doesn't mean that this car is small. on the front you will not miss space. the steering wheel can be regulated in two planes in a quite wide range. the car seat can be adjusted electrically - we can settle its height in only one plane:
i expected the front of the seat to be regulated separately; unfortunately we cannot do that. despite of having a ring to regulate the lumbar section we can only move it back and forward. the regulation of the headrest is quite reasonable. eventually the car seat is big and comfortable - just right for long routes. now the space on the rear seat and here we really don't have any problems. i'm sitting and don't even touching with my knees the seat back in front of me. i mind you that if i'd really like to spread out, a hard crust is awaiting me but actually i don't have to because i fit in. i fit in not only in lenght but also in height. also here i have 2-3 fingers space above my head.
the central tunnel is not the biggest, so it will not disturb the 5th person but if she shouldn't be there we can open a little armrest, but very comfortable, soft and pleasurable here we can find two cup holders. they are quite shallow - a bit of fear, but they are there. except that we have here a lock-up, which also is quite shallow and i don't really know what we could put in it. but it's there. if we'd like to transport skis we have to collapse the whole part of the seat back and then we get space for longer items. except of that we can find here another pocket with nets behind the front seats. very capacious pockets in the doors, led light above our heads and a titbit: 3 power-supply outputs for the rear seat.
on the left and right side an 5v output with usb, so especcialy for charging our phones. apart of that we have an standard output 12v and above it two buttons for rear seat heating - 3-staged. it's worth to add that if we don't have a 2 meters-man on the reat seat we can get more space in the rear compartment by shifting the reat seat. look in what a range. let's go! so much! now we come to a conclusion why discovery sport doesn't want to be associated as a follower of freelander. because freelander was designed for 5 persons. although the size of the discovery sport is similar to the freelander's, it gives much more. it gives, optionally, 2 more seats in the rear compartment.
admittedly even the producer doesn't call the car as 7-seated, but rather 5 + 2 which means that these 2 seats are more for smaller people than usual but anyway it advantageously differentiates the discovery sport from the opposition. the english approached really creatively the rear compartment size giving 981 liters probably counting until the ceiling lining. after collapsing the rear seats we should become 1698 liters, so a bit overstimated as for this segment of cars. probably they have their own method of counting. anyway let's take a look and assess by yourself if the capacity of this rear compartment is enough for you. in my opinion is quite good.
as we can see is well-ranged, has a few lock-ups. on the right side we have place for a fire extinguisher, well packed indeed. we also have a place where we can hitch some bags. there are also buttons for collapsing the reat seats, i'm going to test it now, watch out. the right one... almost because it got unlocked but we have to bang it yet. the effect is that we almost got a rear compartment without a brink and practically flat. in my opinion is good. of course we have also an alternative method: we pull up the grip and the reat seat gets collapsed.
under the floorboard, quite solid in any case, we have space for a spare wheel. it's not there right now but we can see that there is enough space. we also have place for the liquid from the repair set we also can find in this styrofoam place for the triangle, hooks and other gadgets so they thought about everything in here. they just didn't think about how comfortably we can roll and roll out the shade because we don't have here any runners but some old-fashioned grapples and so we have to hit the mark and it's not that easy because as you can see i missed it here and i don't do it on purpose but let's try again
ok, i made it. so this could be a bit more modern. except of that when we roll this shade that's how it ends so we have to take care of where is it going to stay eventually its removing is really simple: it will be enough if you move this little lever and then find a space for it somewhere under the floorboard i doubt it... we can close the rear compartment in two ways: through a solid grip or by pressing a button
the inside is beautiful, stylish with many references to other models. i would like to draw your attention to this knob for steering the gearbox. now the engine is switched on so the knob is visible. after switching the engine off it hides. after switching it on again we unfortunately have to wait a bit until we can change to drive, take a look: we are switching on... not yet, not yet... only now. so we have to wait about 1,5 sec since we've turned the engine on until we can switch to d, so that's just a sitter; if somebody will hurry up can get angry
but that's of course just a detail because all the rest in this car is really finely polished. well, maybe there is one more detail and i probably won't be able to show it to you but i noticed it randomly straightaway. namely, opening the handle here from the other side; these handles are beautiful and soft to the touch, smooth but these ''arms'' of these handles are poorly finished off. i mean, there are some sharp edges: 2 on top and 2 down here. there are just crumpy metal elements, which from this side do not have any fender. the effect is that, especially when we have frozen hands, we can feel some discomfort while opening the door. that is not nice, particularly that we can leave our nail in here.
of course i am thinking now about women, who would buy such a car. it's worth to mind you about an interesting, non-standard solution: all the window and wing mirror pilotage is situated here on top of the door if it's about all the textiles used in this car we really cannot complain. we have here a not very interesting pattern but it bows under my fingers, so it's good. everywhere where it isn't soft anymore it's pleasant because it's a matt plastic. here it looks to be brushed metal. here it's really difficult to glom onto something. on the doors we also have a soft material,
here is soft too, here on the elbowrest there are a few millimeters of foam. if it's about a test of pulling the handle, here we go! nothing cracks so it's good. if it's about the practical side: huge pockets, in front of the passenger a huge glove compartment, here we have some place to put some sitter, here we have two cup holders. by the way: zoom on the key, maybe i show it also from the other side.
i would like to draw your attention to how this car is well-equipped in different kinds of power-supply. for mobile phones we have 2 usb spots and a 12v spot on the back, here we have one another usb spot if that's not enough... here another usb and 12v spot. in the rear compartment i saw one another usb spot and probably there is another 12v spot too so we won't drive this car with uncharged mobile phones. i'll show another pocket in front of the passenger, actually i don't know for what but it's there. it's worth to note about the new system with touch-screen. all the most important buttons are around. everything is really comfortable and on hand.
look at the style. we have here windows-similar tiles. we can scroll it and we get another tiles. everything is legible and understandable. we can cut corners and switch on the reversing camera. this camera has also its proper lines: after turning the steering wheel all the lines curve properly so it all works like it should. we can fastly switch to the main menu, we can jump to the navigation. we can also go to the drive settings. we have here a four-wheel drive and a few special programs.
as we see we can get informations through clicking the ''i'' button, but switching these settings is possible only by pressing a button that is situated below (illogical). and here we can switch between: grass, gravel and snow. here we have ''mud-furrow'', and here there is sand. so we choose the proper setting and we drive so that it'll be secure and sure. beside that we also have the downhill drive assistent, the possibility to switch off the esp, eco mode, which we can also see on the screen. influence on the fuel, driving mode.
for example influence on the fuel: now we have 1,5 l/h but if we now turn on the seat heating we see that it has influence but the amount of liters will maybe change with time. this seat heating regulation is in 3 stages. but coming back to our settings we can choose system where we find language, hour and date settings, so principal settings. display, multimedia, bluetooth, navigation, air conditioning. as you see we can choose a lot of things in here. i won't launch each setting. in navigation we can choose a speed warning, gps, mode of map view: let's see what it is. day, night, automatic. i'm intersted if there is a 3d option. it all works not always after the first touch, to be honest. here we go: map view, 2d, 3d, so the map is well-elaborated. if it's about the speed of the map, i can do it right now. that's really great that we have these shortcuts for each element of the map.
we don't have a knob though, with which we could steer the map scale, so we have to hit with the finger the ''+'' and ''-'', so we can for example zoom it out completely for now. and that's how it looks like. now we can cut corners like this. and that's how it reacts. and now we zoom in maximally. it went without problems. so it works with a completely reasonable delay: there is no reason for complaining. to sum up. the changes here are definietly positive and generally the inside is very pleasant, distinguished and... elegant. land rover charted a test road in the middle of the forest after the agreement with the ranger. and to be honest i was wondering why because this road isn't actually difficult and i think that i could drive with every single car with front-wheel drive.
but then i understood. the thing is all about this calmness and self-confidence that give cars like this one, which have almost 22 cm of ground clearance. this road wasn't flat, it wasn't neither risky if i can drive it or not. sometimes i had to dive into a bigger hole and in this situation, with this car, i didn't have to worry about anything. i just drove in, drove out, calmness, self-confidence. for sure the bumper won't be damaged and i won't clip anything with the undercarriage. that's nice. generally we also sit quite high in this car, so we see everything; other lanes, other cars. we feel that we have everything under control: around the car and under the car too. the engine, 240 hp, doesn't give any reason for binding, because it has to fight with a car that weighs 1755 kg, so maybe it is not a rocket but it always holds out. under the leg we have enough power, enough dynamic and we can play, drive and enjoy this car. on the other hand i have some remarks about the gearbox, which not always (while full acceleration) handles simply the gear change. it makes some breaks.
sometimes changes until the end without any problem. some other time makes some breaks and isn't self-confident. so it's a bit strange phenomenon. and one more thing: changing driving direction. now for example is drive, i go... let's assume that i want to drive back, i change to ''r'' and gas! oh, it drove. one second passed. "d" and gas! oh, it drove. so this delay is irritating, especcialy if we will compare with the manual gearbox, which nothing can anticipate. but some automatic gearboxes react a bit faster. here this lag is a bit more noticeable.
maybe it's a millisecond, maybe it's a whole second, i will not count it. but i just wanted to mind you that the reaction of this knob is not as fast as we would like to. can we complain about something else? i don't think so... remember just one thing, which is not a weakness but a feature of this car: high suspension, self-confidence costs... costs, that if we goose a little more and somewhere in a hook or we have to miss an obstacle we turn one, two.... it could be heard: esp interacted, the rear axle was set by the electronic on its proper place. the bodywork tilts quite quickly and the rear axle, especially when we counterpunch, begins to put off. and here, immediately, without any delay the electronic switches on, which breaks the proper wheel and makes us drive on securely.
but it's not a weakness: it's a natural feature of this car, which is suspensed so high. as for that highly situated center of gravity and for that mass, almost 1800 kg, with me over 1800 kg i think that this car behaves very well on road. i don't have the possibility to check how the four-wheel drive handles, i can just say that the ground clearance is very solid: 212 mm. but if i already have the car positioned this way, listen at least how the engine sounds. the cheapest discovery sport costs 187.000 zl, and that's, what's very interesting, its strongest version with the automatic gear box (240 hp, 9-automatic gearbox) for 187.000 zl. all the other offers are weaker and... more expensive. we'll pay 3.000 zl more for 2.2 td4 with the manual gearbox and 150 hp. if we want to have the stronger version we'll pay 14.500 zl more, so above 200.000 zl for the sd4 with the 6-manual gearbox and 190 hp. the top version with the automatic gearbox and the 190 hp diesel engine costs 295.000 zl.
it looks like the new diesel engine will be very useful: because of the lower excise will have a much more favourable price. we have a big price spread: from 187.000 zl up until almost 300.000 zl. how does it look like on the background of the oppositon? well, i chose audi q5, x3 and lexus nx, which i have testes recently. audi q5 begins from 142.000 zl, but this is with the front-wheel drive and diesel engine (2.0 tdi, 150 hp). the top version of the q5, with quattro (3.0 tdi 313 hp) costs 284.000 zl, so still cheaper than the top version of the discovery sport, which has only 190 hp. x3 begins from 154.000 zl, so still 30.000 zl cheaper than discovery sport but also only with the front-wheel drive and diesel engine. the most expensive version costs 253.000 zl, xdrive and 3.0 tdi 313 hp. thus the prices look attractively.
at the end lexus nx, begins from 175.000 zl and the top version i chose with four-wheel drive costs 258.900 zl. each of these three examples look like they begin and end cheaper than the discovery sport and although they begin with the front-wheel drive, they end with a lot more power if we compare with the top diesel in the discovery sport. it looks like the discovery sport doesn't convince us with its price, but with something else. design, luxus, accomplishment, equipment, good four-wheel drive, but maybe just... the mark. but before you spend 295.000 zl for the top version of the discovery sport it's worth to compare what can you buy for this money. for 298.500 zl we can get a 3.0 l macan s diesel 258 hp. or a macan s with 3.0 l petrol engine and 340 hp, and will still be cheaper: 262.000 zl. after a closer look at the discovery sport i come to a conclusion that i think i know why land rover doesn't want this car to be called "freelander's follower".
it's not about the segment. it's just a completely another car. much better wrought inside, great and very stilish-looking. and in this size with the additional 2 seats it's much more than a shopping trolley. that's quite expensive? for somebody it can be an advantage.
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