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Give a homeless person a shave & dress him up in a Suit & he will get preferential service . I went into the local BMW Dealer as a cash buyer to collect a new Renault for my wife dressed as my usual scruffy self, blundstones with hole in one toe , crumpled khaki shirt half hanging out , I had pre arranged with the dealer by email otherwise I would have scampered when they told me to clear out & took my business elsewhere. ****ing psuedo Elitist ******.
Speaking as a "soccer dad" with three rows of kids, we bought a second hand D4 instead of a new D5 because:Quote:
Originally Posted by SPROVER
- it's boxy shape is practical, efficient and spacious;
- the square corners and large glass all round make it easy to manoeuvre, even though it's quite a big car. Even reversing without the camera is possible, in contrast our CR-V is a pig, without a camera you're just guessing where it's going;
- kids in the third row have theatre seating, leg room, and large waist height windows and in our case their own sunroof and air vents, so it's a light and spacious place to be on long trips, they can see out, including forward and the kids don't feel like they've been shoved in the boot. There's also sufficient leg room for adults;
- the second row has width and legroom for adults and three identically sized, separately foldable seats;
- the split tailgate;
- the very tight turning circle - tighter than our much smaller CR-V.
In contrast the D5:
- has prioritised looks and possibly aerodynamics over practicality;
- has blind spots everywhere: you're going to need a camera to reverse - even with the front corners you're guessing where things are;
- the third row is dark, windowless and claustrophobic - the windows are like portholes and are smaller and higher on the inside than they appear to be from the outside. There was a video of the D5 pre-release with the designers' young kids in it and I noticed that the kids were unable to see out of the third row. This is exacerbated by the fact that they've dropped the seat height so that you're closer to the floor: this was necessary because they've also dropped the roof height to make it swoopy;
- the third row has less legroom: sure the seats are the same size but they're closer to the floor, so when I compared them I found that in the D5 my knees were folded up towards my chest which is not the case in the D4;
- the second row has less visibility and no longer folds separately - I cannot understand why they changed this;
- there's no split tailgate and the drop down thing is idiotic;
- haven't heard anything about the turning circle so can't comment.
It's easy to mock people who buy the D4 as a suburban people-mover, which is what we could be accused of, but said people are not stupid. Speaking of the D4 an owner told a Carguide reviewer why they'd bought a D4:
"Joshua," she said in italics, as if I had asked a really dumb question, "it's a seven-seater than can actually fit adults in the back, you can fit three kid seats across the middle row, the windows are massive so you can see out of the bloody thing and it has a tight turning circle."
Exactly. In our case we'd also considered a Carnival but the D4 is actually more compact and there's at least the prospect of going off-road.
Whilst I see plenty of D4s around my kids' schools, I don't see any D5s. At all. I think that LR have lost an entire demographic by dishing up something that has the same name as the previous vehicle but had none of the attributes that made it worth buying.
Edit: said suburbanites were also painfully aware that LR have lots of dodgy products - Evoque is a current case in point - and aren't willing to put money down on a D5 until all the gremlins have been sorted out. And true to LR form there have been issues with the D5 - HVAC and media display and oil dilution for starters.
Doing my due diligence, i once checked out a new Y61 GU3. Unfortunately, i happened to be a tiny bit dressy. Just a tiny bit. The salesman kept looking like he wanted to be somewhere else, and almost scoffed at me, figuring there was no real chance i was going to buy. I didnt fit in it anyway, so the pressure was off, for both!
Dont forget that most salespeople will check out the car you arrive in. Arrive in an aventador looking like a bum, and you will probably be served anywhere.
Land Rover has, I think, lost it's identity.
The up-grade from the D1/D2 to the D3/D4 was radical but you still wouldn't mistake any of them for anything but a Discovery.
They managed to totally modernise the Discovery but kept it a Discovery.
The Discovery 5 & it's variants?? I saw my first D5 in the flesh a few weeks ago fueling up here, went to have a look, nice car, probably very capable, looked very comfortable, but they should have called it something else. Maybe the "Land Rover Blimp"?
As someone who knows absolutely nothing about design I firmly believe some things should be as square as possible, boxes, holes for round pegs & Land Rovers.
Jonesfam
I liked the look of the evoque when it came out, and was indifferent to the look of the disco sport when it arrived. Now i find the evoque a bit boring and dated, and like the look of the disco sport.
I am more often a progressive kind of guy, i predicted some of the features of the L322 years before it arrived, but they managed to outsmart me here, they predicted this bit of future a bit better than me.
Maybe the D5 will be like that, in terms of looks? I dont know. (Can it look a bit like it has heavy hips?).
From the leaks it looks like the Defender will be pretty square. I suspect once it's out the Discovery range will look like good family vehicles. There is a D Sport at my work which is growing on me.
I just saw a Touareg on the road, and it occurred to me that the Touareg and D5 are pretty similar kinds of car. Does that mean LR are finally catching up to VW, or what??
On another topic mentioned earlier in this thread, there has indeed been a shift away from boxy rear ends. The Merc GL, Suzuki Grand Vitara, and the FF Range Rover takes it further each time. Funny thing is that the two door Rangie possibly started the trend in the first place back in 1970.
so I guess you are waiting for the price tag to fully grow on you Mick. [tonguewink]Quote:
Originally Posted by DiscoMick
Father in law saved 30k buying a different brand to do the same job.
Cheers Ean
Hang on, the answer for a sales slide is possibly simple. They have gambled all their chips on the premium SUV market, and recently even more players have entered it. Such as maserati, lamborghini, rolls royce, bentley.
I walked into a Land Rover dealership 3 years ago, and test drove a new Disco Sport. I told the salesman that I wanted to purchase the car, but he had to give me a good trade-in..
To cut a long story short - I ended up with a Skoda Octavia RS wagon that I'm very happy with! [thumbsupbig][tonguewink]
I've dealt with plenty of salesman in my life - he wasn't the worst but he was pretty darn close!
The Skoda salesman on the other hand was great to deal with and obviously wanted the business.
Been very happy with the car - I am hoping to look at the new Defender if it ever arrives, and is affordable (highly unlikely).