Aces of space
Land Rover Discovery Sport 2.0 D180 AWD HSE List price £46,800 Target Price £43,412 Much improved after a 2019 facelift, and generously equipped in top-spec trim. 72 June 2020 Shopping for an upmarket seven-seat SUV for around £40,000? A new Land Ro
TIME WAITS FOR no man. Or, more accurately, time waits for no man, woman, beast nor machine; it isn’t discriminatory. So, in this battle of new versus used, we’re pitting a 2018 Audi Q7, which in its day racked up the most points of any car we’ve ever tested, against a brand new Land Rover Discovery Sport. Has time looked favourably on the Q7? Does it still have what it takes to usurp the heavily updated Discovery Sport that arrived only last year? As they say, time will tell.
What are the specifics? Well, this Discovery Sport is our favourite version: the D180 with a 178bhp 2.0-litre diesel engine. It’s tested here in top-level HSE trim.
Meanwhile, the Q7 comes with a 268bhp 3.0-litre V6 diesel, and it’s in the most popular S line trim. Both cars feature four-wheel drive and an automatic gearbox.
The Discovery Sport hits 60mph from a standstill in a little over 10 seconds. That doesn’t sound especially sprightly, granted, but in the real world it’s no slouch. Whether you’re ambling around town or building speed steadily to join a motorway, it has all the low-rev urge you’ll need.
The Q7 is rather more enthusiastic. Yes, it’s bigger and slightly heavier, but it accelerates with the conviction of a hot hatch. Mind you, that’s more of a Brucie Bonus, because it’s the extra muscle it musters between 30 and 70mph that’s invaluable if, for instance, you find yourself needing to overtake on a country road. The Q7 will dispense with slower-moving traffic with ease, whereas the Discovery Sport needs a bigger gap to execute the same manoeuvre.
That’s amplified somewhat by the Q7’s keener gearbox. It may have only eight gears to the Discovery Sport’s nine, but when you press the Q7’s accelerator, there’s barely any delay before it responds. In both scenarios, the Discovery Sport is more laboured, which can be frustrating.
The fact that you don’t need to work the Q7’s engine as hard to make good progress is one reason why you don’t hear it as much. And when you do stretch its legs, having two extra cylinders adds greatly to its smoothness; it purrs like a tickled tabby all the way to maximum revs. The Discovery Sport’s engine is hushed by fourcylinder standards, but it has a gruffer edge and feeds more vibrations through the controls.
At motorway speeds, the
Discovery Sport is quieter than most cars in its class, but you can tell the Q7 was a more expensive car to begin with by the remarkable way it isolates you from wind and road noise.
The same is true of its ride comfort – provided you can find a used Q7 with air suspension fitted (it was an option when new). On the standard setup, the Q7 feels a bit choppy, although it isn’t bad. But with the air suspension, you’ll be treated to one of the most sumptuous rides of any car. In its softest setting, it copes with pimply motorways just as brilliantly as it does speed bumps and potholes in town. Once again, the Discovery Sport is outclassed, but only because the Q7 is so supreme. The Discovery Sport actually manages most surface imperfections very ably, even without the optional adaptive suspension (£815) fitted.
The Discovery Sport’s steering is good – precise and easy to judge, despite being overly keen to selfcentre – but there’s lots of body lean in corners and the car never feels all that gainly. But then, being a Land Rover, the Discovery Sport is set up to climb mountains too, so it’s the one to choose if you’re planning to do a lot of off-roading. On the road, the Q7, despite its bulk, is more predictable and agile and can be hustled along winding roads at a surprising lick. It can also tow more: up to 3500kg (with air suspension), compared with 2200kg for the Discovery Sport.
BEHIND THE WHEEL Driving position, visibility, build quality
Both cars offer commanding driving positions complete with electric seats (including lumbar support adjustment) and steering wheels that grant you plenty of scope to alter their height and reach. You won’t find seat comfort a problem in either car.
The Discovery Sport comes with a digital instrument panel; this was an option on the Q7. It’s worth looking out for because, as with the Discovery Sport’s, it displays plenty of information where it can easily be seen by the driver.
The Discovery Sport has touchsensitive dashboard buttons for many of its day-to-day functions; these force you to look away from the road to hit them with confidence. However, you do get a couple of physical knobs to adjust the temperature easily. The current Q7 (launched in mid-2019) shoves its air-con controls into a touchscreen, but this 2018 car has
INFOTAINMENT
The 10.0in screen is bigger and of a higher resolution than the Q7’s, but, being touchscreen only with some small icons and occasionally sluggish responses to inputs, it isn’t as easy to use while driving. Both cars come with sat-nav, Android Auto and Apple Carplay smartphone mirroring and a 10-speaker stereo as standard. Wireless phone charging is a £100 option, whereas it was part of a pricey pack on the Q7.
74 June 2020
INFOTAINMENT
This Q7’s system, with its 8.3in screen, may not seem all that impressive next to the Discovery Sport’s, but it’s still packed with modern features and is much less distracting to use than a touchscreen, thanks to its rotary controller and shortcut buttons located between the front seats. It responds swiftly to commands and the menus are easy to understand. A 19-speaker Bose sound system was part of an expensive Comfort and Sound Pack. simple physical knobs and buttons and is all the better for it; they’re dead easy to use on the move.
You can see out the front of both easily enough, and they have bright LED headlights. However, reversing can be tricky due to their thick rear pillars. True, front and rear parking sensors are standard in both cases, but only the Discovery Sport guarantees you a rear-view camera; that was another option on the Q7.
If you like a bit of luxury, the plushness of the Discovery Sport’s upper surfaces and its glossy black trims will leave you in no doubt that it’s a premium SUV. It isn’t perfect, though; the plastics switch to hard and scratchy lower down, and build quality is patchy.
That isn’t the case in the Q7. From top to bottom, its interior radiates class, with brushed metal inlays and high-grade plastics, and all the switches click with ‘Swissmade’ precision. It’s screwed together impeccably, too.
Land Rover Discovery Sport vs Audi Q7
SPACE AND PRACTICALITY Front space, rear space, seating exibility, boot
Now, the Discovery Sport is more than 45cm shorter than the Q7, but it isn’t a slam-dunk win for the latter when it comes to passenger space. Both cars have all the space in the front that six-footers would need, and it’s the same story in their second row of seats.
Tall adults sitting in the outer two of the three chairs have plenty of leg room, even when the front seats are slid well back, plus masses of head room. There’s also space in the middle seat for another adult, and all three second-row seats slide and recline individually in both cars.
It’s only when the two fold-out third-row seats are deployed that any disparity is evident. First, the Q7’s third-row seats can be raised and stowed electrically, whereas you have to do this manually in the Discovery Sport. They’re roomier, too; an average-sized adult will fit with a degree of comfort, although anyone taller will be praying for the journey to be a short one. The Discovery Sport restricts the entry requirements for its third row to smaller adults and children only.
It also loses out to the Q7 on boot space. Eight carry-on suitcases fit below the Discovery Sport’s load cover, while the Q7 can swallow 10, mainly because its boot is longer. Each car has an electric tailgate that opens to reveal a wide aperture and no load lip – so you can slide things in
or out without heaving them over an awkward ridge.
For added flexibility, each comes with 40/20/40-split rear seats, and all the seats in the second and third rows fold flat. That leaves both cars with flat extended load bays right up to their front seats.
BUYING AND OWNING Costs, equipment, reliability, safety and security
The advantage of buying new is that most things are covered by the manufacturer’s warranty – useful with a Land Rover, because it finished bottom of the pile of 31 brands in the 2019 What Car? Reliability Survey. Audi didn’t exactly do brilliantly, though – it was 20th – so it’s well worth paying for an extended warranty if you’re buying a used Q7.
Our Audi Approved Used Q7 is a 2018 car that has covered 20,000 miles and is priced at £40,000, compared with around £57,000 when it was new. It has one year of its three-year manufacturer’s warranty remaining, after which you can buy an extended warranty from Audi for around £1100 per year without any excess, or from a third-party supplier. Just make sure you check on what’s covered and what’s not. The Discovery Sport comes with a three-year manufacturer warranty.
Our Target Price mystery shopping suggests you’ll be able to get a discount of at least £3388 on a new Discovery Sport, dropping its cash price to around £43,400. Using that price as the basis for a three-year PCP finance deal (assuming a £5000 deposit from you and a limit of 8000 miles a year), the Discovery Sport will set you back £503 per month, while our used Q7 will be £593.
The Q7 will be pricier to service and insure, but despite its bigger engine, it shouldn’t cost you any more to fuel; our True MPG figure (carried out in a laboratory test) for the Q7 and Test MPG figure (obtained on a private test track) for the Discovery Sport are both in the region of 34mpg. Each car incurs a £325 ‘luxury’ surcharge on its road tax, bringing the total to £470 if you pay by direct debit, or £475 if not. Overall, because it’s past the steepest part of its depreciation curve, the Q7 should actually be slightly cheaper to run over three years.