Sorry. As long as we have these "aids" we will have f wits on the roads. Anything that takes away the responsibility of the driver is stupidity, writ large.
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The ONLY thing that would increase awareness and the biggest safety thing to go into cars would be to replace the air bag with a big metal spike! How careful would everyone drive with that 1ft from your face lol
So all you blokes dissing on software need to get out of your Discovery 3 and 4 and into some older vehicles which don't have traction control and stability control and ABS and electronic diffs and terrain response and heck, electronic fuel injection and any modern automatic gearbox. Ditch your GPS. Every single one of those things is software at its heart and is diminishing your ability as a non-f-wit competent driver.
[bigwhistle]
Seriously, it is an interesting topic... what do I bring to the process of driving which software doesn't do better? Even if the software could do it better, what would I insist on doing myself anyway because that's the whole point of driving dammit? Because I guarantee you the software is going to keep improving a whole lot quicker than human brains can.
On the D4 market, I don't like my chances of finding a great one with e-diff. All the die-hards are holding on to their proper off road D4's.
I reckon there might actually be a few extra late model Rangie Sports on the market. While my wife was determinedly buying her Evoque (mainly cos it's the smallest LR one can buy) I sat in a Disco Sport HSE and for the same $ (mid 70s) it had the same engine as the baby Rangie, fresher interior and ergonomics, more (evil) driver aids and was way better specced with things such as memory seats blah blah.
The same cross shopping will happen with the D5 v the L494
When it comes to Land Rovers missing out on what has become basic features this is nothing new. I remember having a discussion with a LR mechanic about how useless it was that our secondhand D2a HSE did not have a reostat on the dash lights, only to be told that 'well it is only a Discovery if you want to be able to dim the dash lights then you will need to buy a Range Rover.' I just look at him and thought you complete goose, a Discovery HSE D2a was a over $70k vehicle when new and vehicles half the price had many features way above a HSE including adjustable dash lights.
The reality is even though LR's often have lower spec features compared to other often much more affordable vehicles people usually still que up to buy them. The other thing when discussing the basic entry level Discovery is that few people buy the base model new, they usually buy them with a number of higher spec features.
I have no doubt the D5 will be very popular and they will sell lots of them, but only time will tell if it is a serious D3/4 off road replacement. I for one won't be upset if the D4 price drops, as I have no intention of selling ours and I would be more than happy to buy another V8 D4 if they became much cheaper.
i dont like the D5 based on how it looks.
There seem to be two distinct buyers - Those wanting prestige and those wanting offroad capability. Neither one will particularly care about dimming dash lights I would think? At least, not enough to consider a Toyota. But your point is valid - 'keeping up with the joneses' is not one of LR's strong suits. Good thing too I think - means they are focusing on their own cars, rather than worrying about what Japan is pushing out.
Back to the OT, I don't know if there has ever been an example where the introduction of a new model caused the previous model to significantly decline in value (or increase in availability)?
LR's pitch has always been that the trade off for fewer bells and whistles is offroad capability. Even for Range Rovers
My Disco Sport SE has dimming dash lights. Can't imagine not having that feature... nothing worse than a glaring dash for night time highway driving.
According to the D5 manual, it has dimming dash lights too. Plus something called Stealth Mode!
Land Rover Owner Information
If the D4 doesn't have anything like that I want at least a 5K discount on your hand-me-downs [thumbsupbig]