Range Rover Sport review

If there’s a car that can do everything, it’s the Range Rover Sport. It can drive like a sports hatch, cruise like a luxury saloon and wade through a river like a top 4x4, all while carrying the family and their luggage. It definitely has presence on the road and a commanding driving position.

If a luxurious interior is what you’re after, you won’t be disappointed. There’s also loads of space for keeping comfortable on the school run or for carrying golf bags.

The Range Rover is all about luxury inside. The sweeping centre console is reminiscent of a sports car, while the high driving position gives you excellent visibility of the road up ahead.
The materials are mostly high-quality. New owners will have had a massive choice of trim options, so there will be plenty of used models with lots of extras.

Space for those in the back is excellent and the boot space is huge with 780 litres. You’ll be able to fit in everything from several suitcases to a baby buggy or the family dog. The boot can also be expanded to 1,686 litres if you fold the middle seats down. This is reduced when the third row of seats is up, or in the plug-in hybrid (which doesn’t come with seven seats). If you do need that many seats, just bear in mind the Sport’s rear seats are really for occasional use by children.

The 2018 update included the Touch Pro Duo dual-screen infotainment screens. They’re still not the most intuitive or responsive and the lower screen for climate control and driving modes is a bit too low. However, the rest of the changes make the Sport cabin an even better place to be.

The Range Rover Sport is brilliantly comfortable on a long journey and it’s great fun for out of town driving.

The clever active suspension helps to keep things remarkably level and the engines deliver their power effortlessly.

Even when you go off-road, things are still very comfortable. It tackles tricky terrain, charges through mud and crosses rivers with great style.
Supercharged and SVR models make some serious noise when you want them to, which adds to the engaging drive. Alternatively, you can glide through town in silence in the P400e plug-in hybrid for up to 26 miles, which is perfect if you live in a town or city.

It’s not cheap to run or environmentally friendly. Although the latest generation will have depreciated a fair bit from new, you’re still going to pay a fair amount of money for it.
The P400e claims an average consumption of up to 86 mpg. The diesels might be around 45 mpg, if driven carefully, while the petrols are going to be in the lower 20s. You should also expect to pay a lot for insurance and tax as well.

Like all Land Rover models, there have been issues with reliability, although this one has vastly improved since the previous generation. The Sport has had a few quality and technical recalls, but these can all be checked out independently to put your mind at rest.
The Sport scores well on safety, not only for its five-star Euro NCAP result but also for its vast array of on and off-road active safety systems.