DISCOVERY SPORT TESTED
Is the Disco Sport a worthy replacement for the Barker family’s Freelander?
Iknow this is Writers Rovers and this Discovery Sport is not my Rover, but it’s important as it could be – or one very similar anyway – one day.
Over the years I’ve driven most models of Land Rover and been to the majority of the Land Rover Experience centres, but I’ve never driven a Discovery Sport, and I’ve never been to the new LRE at Broughton Hall, North Yorkshire. But fortunately my wife got an invitation to take a complimentary drive.
As we’ve been thinking of what we might replace the Freelander with when the time comes, it seemed like a good opportunity. I have to admit I didn’t like the look of it at launch, but its growing on me now and with thoughts drifting from Land Rovers off in the direction of the Skoda Kodiaq or even the Ssangyong Rexton we couldn’t turn down the chance to have a closer look at the Disco Sport and drive it off-road.
Our instructor for the day was Amy Hopwood, who simply got on with the job of explaining to my wife the off-road capabilities of the Discovery Sport, totally unperturbed by the fact I had driven off-road before and wrote for a well known Land Rover magazine.
Now my wife hasn’t driven much further off-road than grass fields and the odd forest gravel track before and was nervous when Amy put her in the driving seat if the Discovery as we headed off to the technical section of the route at Broughton Hall.
However, with Amy’s superb instruction and the capabilities of the Sport she drove each hill and drop with growing confidence – the terrain response, hill descents and traction control systems all doing their job and the instructor explaining what each setting did. As the half day programme went on, her confidence grew, as did her understanding and liking of the vehicle, I was growing to like it, too.
This as always with Land Rover demo cars was a top-of-the-range, all-singing and all-dancing model. The front cameras with their split view of the front wheels were a great asset ensuring you didn’t get in a cross-axle situation, and also for checking you were not to close to rock. I’m not sure the sonar giving you the height of the water to the Discovery’s maximum wading depth was really necessary, but it looked good!
At the end of our two-hour experience, thanks to Amy’s excellent tuition and clear explanations, my wife was much more confident driving off-road and using the Terrain Response modes and understanding just what they all did. I’m expecting her to want to take our Freelander off-road any day soon, so thank you Amy!
And I have to admit the Discovery Sport has grown on me even more, but we don’t need or want a seven-seater, although the 180 bhp model which would be nice is only available with seven seats, and you don’t get a spare wheel, which is something else I would want. Then you start to think... with all the current anti-diesel talk and the Disco Sport doesn’t yet have a petrol option. Luckily we are not ready to change cars just yet and a petrol is in the pipeline, so time is on our side. While it’s a firm favourite however, I will still be looking round at offerings from other manufacturers.