Range Rover Sport Road Test | Conclusion

Range Rover Sport

What We Liked

• The four wheel drive system with Terrain Response, in our opinion it is peerless
• The overall performance and handling, very highly rated
• The exterior and interior styling
• Kudos (Land Rover badge)

What We Disliked

• Being picky Land Rover could improve the quality of the interior fittings and materials.
  

What We'd Like To See

• Some of the detailing and sound deadening could be improved

Build Quality

Overall there were no problems and the Range Rover Sport was well screwed together, although we would have preferred to have seen slightly better plastics.

Value For Money

The Range Rover Sport HSE TDV8 we tested has a list price of £53,550 which is £5,850 more than a HSE TDV6, which isn’t to be sneezed at. For the extra money you get the superb V8 diesel engine, plus Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) which is excellent, Brembo front brakes which again are fantastic, Adaptive Front Lighting which works very well and a few other bits and pieces, we feel that for the extra money it is worth the jump.

Land Rover supplies the Range Rover Sport with a three year unlimited mileage warranty which is very welcome, especially if you are a high mileage driver - for example Audi’s Q7 comes with a two year/unlimited mileage warranty, topped up to three years, if the car doesn't exceed 60,000 in the last year. We have just priced up a similar specification Audi Q7 and that was around £5,000 more then Sport HSE, although that isn’t necessarily a fair comparison.

So on the face of it the Range Rover Sport HSE TDV8 seems relatively good value for money, just watch some of the extras - the Premium ICE Pack priced at £1000 is an option we would choose, plus a few more!

Overall Opinion

We have always thought of the Range Rover Sport as the young pretender. Targeted at ‘new money’ rather than the ‘real’ Range Rover which was more of an with all the breeding of a Duke. We were proven wrong, the Range Rover Sport can stand on its own and wears the Range Rover badge with honour.

We enjoyed our time with the Range Rover Sport it was fun to drive eating up motorway miles with consummate ease, yet quite capable of tackling the most arduous touring with great enthusiasm even on ‘B’ roads. Plus should the need arise it will track across the most changeling off-road routes whilst remaining composed at all times.

Undoubtedly both BMW’s X5 and Porsche’s Cayenne would give the Range Rover Sport a good run for its money on-road but as an all round package the Range Rover Sport is very hard to beat - we liked it - in fact we liked it a lot and a test drive is highly recommended.