Land Rover Range Rover Sport Car Review - Car Reviews @ BuyYourCar.co.uk

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Overall rating of the Land Rover range-rover-sport

Car Review

Land Rover Range Rover Sport

The Range Rover Sport is for those who like their SUVs to be huge, well built slabs of four-wheel drive luxury. A recent revamp has improved the car all round.

Land Rover Range Rover Sport Car Review Summary

Practicality Practicality rating of the Land Rover range-rover-sport

Life Style Life Style rating of the Land Rover range-rover-sport

Security and Safety Security And Safety rating of the Land Rover range-rover-sport

The Finishing Touches Finishing Touches rating of the Land Rover range-rover-sport

Overall Rating Overall rating of the Land Rover range-rover-sport

The Range Rover Sport certainly catches the eye while offering enviable comfort and a cave-like amount of space. The ‘Sport’ moniker is more than earned by the engines which include the new LR-TDV6 3.0-litre diesel and LR-V8 5.0-litre supercharged which fully test the excellence of the brakes when it comes to pulling the beast up.

The Range Rover Sport is Land Rover’s reply to more road-based SUVs like the BMW X5 and Mercedes ML. It still has the traditional Land Rover ruggedness but with better driving dynamics for everyday motoring.

The design incorporates a lower roofline and sleeker styling than the full-sized Range Rover, but it still has plenty of presence despite the slightly smaller dimensions.

Practicality

The Range Rover Sport can seat four in comfort and five without too much of a squeeze. The boot is deep and a good size. It has a separately opening rear screen allowing smaller items to be dropped in without having to lift the whole tailgate.

The Sport offers a ‘king-of-the-road’ driving position that ensures excellent visibility while the sloping centre console creates a cocooned feel. There’s a good range of seat and steering wheel adjustment, but the dash is loaded with switches, so understandably it takes a bit of time before the driver gets acquainted with where everything is.

Relatively strong residual values offset some of the high cost of ownership, but poor fuel economy and relatively high servicing costs mean a healthy bank balance is needed to run the Range Rover Sport.

A camera system supports easier parking and towing. There are five digital cameras giving a near 360-degree view to the touch-screen display. The cameras function immediately the vehicle is started and can be used at speeds up to 11 mph, with options for selecting and zooming in to assist with close-quarter parking and towing.

The reverse tow assist and tow hitch assist functions – also selected from the touch-screen menu – help perform accurate towing manoeuvres.

Life Style

A recent upgrade has left the Range Rover Sport with a cleaner more sculpted feel. Striking signature LED headlamps combine with a new two-bar grille, front bumpers and wings to create a more sporting and aerodynamic stance.

At the rear, new light clusters and a revised bumper design mirror the smoother front end.

The interior has been comprehensively redesigned, using higher quality materials and soft-touch finishes to create a premium environment.

The cabin retains its snug, cockpit feel. Leather is used extensively on major surfaces. To enhance the clean look of the interior, the facia now has 50 per cent fewer switches, while the switches themselves are all chrome-plated.

The seats front and rear feature a deep sculpted shape and electrically adjustable side bolsters are available.

New lighting adds subtle halos around the interior door handles and pockets, as well as on the facia and centre console area.

Steering response is improved on the Range Rover Sport with the stiffening of the front suspension enhancing the sense of driver involvement with the vehicle at higher speeds.

The steering is sensitive giving good feedback to the driver while the braking system offers power and feel following a comprehensive update.

Security and Safety

The Range Rover Sport is obviously a highly desirable car as far as thieves are concerned so deadlocks and a state-of- the-art alarm help it fend off thieves.

A new remote key is also available, which offers both keyless entry and push button start.

The Range Rover Sport has great safety features including a Stability Control system that helps automatically slow the vehicle if taking a bend too fast, enhancing driver control. The system operates according to steering inputs from the driver. In extreme cases, automatic braking intervenes to reduce vehicle speed, the braking pressure level applied varies according to the severity of the situation.

This feature is complemented by the new Roll Stability Control system, which is designed to intervene if, in an extreme situation, the possibility of a rollover is detected. In such situations, the system is designed to take over and perform very rapid, wheel-specific braking to help reduce speed and marginally widen the cornering radius.

In more extreme cases, the system is designed to initiate marginal understeer by sharply increasing brake force on the outer wheels, again widening the turning radius.

The Finishing Touches

A new, hard-drive navigation system provides faster route calculation and improved system reliability. The navigation system adopts an easy-to-use structure which now also features ‘towards guidance’. This supplements the junction map and icon-based information with details of the actual road signage viewed by the driver along the route.

Entry-level S cars come with four electric windows, a CD player, electrically adjustable front seats and dual-zone climate control. Upgrade to SE and leather upholstery and a CD changer are thrown in while top-trim HSE and supercharged HST models have satellite-navigation, voice-activated controls and metallic paint.

The standard stereo produces good sound while the upgraded harman/kardon system is excellent.