Land Rover Discovery Sport Review & Prices

The Land Rover Discovery Sport is one of those all-too-rare things - it’s an SUV that puts the Utility into Sport Utility Vehicle, rather than trying to concentrate on the Sport.

With seven seats, plenty of space and genuine off-road prowess it’s ideal for the adventurous family, but it’s also great for anybody who needs practicality and ability in a posh package. Even if you don’t use its capabilities, it’s always nice to know you can - like knowing your flash watch could survive the Mariana Trench, just to reassure you that it’s okay if you drop it in the sink.

The Discovery Sport is an alternative to other compact, practical SUVs - cars like the Mercedes-Benz GLB, Nissan X-Trail or Volvo XC60. For the same money, you could also go for a slightly less posh badge but get a larger car - something like a Kia Sorento, Skoda Kodiaq or the Carwow award-winning Hyundai Santa Fe.

An update in 2023 gave the Discovery Sport a handsome makeover with a slicker nose and tidier rear end. It also brought with it a much more minimalist interior, which isn’t such an improvement - the upgraded infotainment screen is slick and responsive, but the lack of physical switchgear seems like an oversight in a car designed to be practical.

Interior quality also doesn’t feel quite up to snuff any more. The centre console has flimsy-feeling plastic, and the vast expanse of shiny surfaces gather fingerprints like a magnet. Even really comfortable seats swathed in buttery-soft leather don’t quite lift the cabin ambiance enough to compensate.

You don’t need any compensation for the space available, though - considering the Discovery Sport is quite a compact vehicle, it’s great to have seven seats on offer. There’s plenty of space in the middle row with lots of legroom and loads of headroom even with the panoramic glass roof fitted.

While seats six and seven are definitely better suited to children than adults they’re very useful to have. Fold them down and you get a big boot. If you opt for the plug-in hybrid model, you only get five seats, but even more space for luggage - so you can choose what your priorities are.

Engine choices other than the plug-in hybrid are limited - there are just two four-cylinder, mild hybrid diesels on offer. For a car from a posh manufacturer it’s a shame that Land Rover doesn’t offer a wider range, such as a petrol-engined variant or one with a bit of extra pep to go against sporty alternatives.

But whichever you opt for, you get a car that’s incredibly comfortable and refined to drive. A slick automatic gearbox, suspension that soaks up every bump and well-contained wind and road noise mean it’s really relaxing to travel in.

When it comes to more spirited driving, the Discovery Sport doesn’t feel as tied-down or enjoyable as a BMW X3 on a twisty road. On the other hand, it’ll show a clean pair of heels to any alternative on an off-road trail. For one of Land Rover’s ‘entry-level’ models, the Discovery Sport is amazingly capable on the rough stuff.

If smart looks and plenty of room sound like your priorities, check out our best Land Rover Discovery Sport deals, or find a used Land Rover Discovery Sport for sale on Carwow. You can also browse other Land Rover deals or see other used Land Rovers for sale. And remember, Carwow’s the place to be if you’re thinking of selling your old car - our network of trusted dealers bid to make sure you get the best possible price.

The Discovery Sport range starts at just under £45,000 for an S model. This still comes with loads of equipment - 18-inch alloy wheels, electric front seats in ‘Duoleather’, that big infotainment screen and digital driver display, and a wireless phone charger to name but a few highlights.

Stepping up to the Dynamic SE trim, for just over £48,000, brings with it posher LED headlights, a premium Meridian sound system, powered tailgate, panoramic glass roof, keyless entry and 19-inch wheels, plus black exterior trim that makes it look rather more sleek. Both the S and Dynamic SE models are available with all three engine options.

The Dynamic HSE range-topper isn’t available with the entry-level D165 engine, pushing its start price up to nearly £55,000. For that you do get 20-inch alloy wheels, Windsor leather upholstery, Matrix LED lights and heated and cooled front seats, though.

That pricing is pretty comparable to posh alternatives - a Mercedes GLB is a bit cheaper, but smaller, while the BMW X3 starts at £50,000. If you want more space, the Hyundai Santa Fe range is pretty comparable, too.

Comfort is the Discovery Sport’s forte, and it’s easy to manoeuvre around town. The diesel engine is a bit too noisy on long runs, though

In town

The Discovery Sport is very easy to drive in town, thanks to a high seating position that gives you a great view out. There’s a lot of glass around you — unlike some of the competition — although the rear window isn’t quite as big as you might like it to be. The turning circle is good for a roomy SUV, and there are optional all-round parking cameras which are very helpful when you’re trying to slot into a tight space, especially the optional see-through-bonnet camera, which helps you spot nasty kerbs and lumps. The relatively soft suspension means that the Discovery Sport soaks up urban bumps and lumps, and it’s generally a very relaxing car. The gearbox helps, blending easily and smoothly from one gear to the next.

If you’ve gone for the plug-in hybrid P300e version, then the Discovery Sport is even quieter and smoother, although running on electric power does tend to mean you notice more cabin squeaks and rattles than if you had the noise of a diesel engine to cover them up. There’s also an odd noise from the hybrid’s cooling system at times, which sounds as if someone is flushing a toilet under the bonnet…

On the motorway

That smooth gearbox is a little less good when you get the Discovery Sport up onto the motorway, as it can be a bit hesitant to kick-down, so it’s rather slow-witted when you need a quick burst of acceleration, such as when merging with fast-flowing traffic. It’s better than it used to be, but still a bit dim.

The Discovery Sport’s long-range economy isn’t all that great either, but we’ll discuss that in more detail further down.

Overall refinement on a long journey is good, but the diesel engine can get too noisy at times and there’s a bit too much tyre noise. The soft suspension continues its good work here, making a lengthy run up the road pretty painless. The excellent front seats help, too.

On a twisty road

How would you sum-up the Discovery Sport’s twisty road performance? ‘Pretty decent’ seems to be about right. Surprisingly, given that soft suspension, there’s not too much body lean in corners, and there’s loads of grip thanks to the standard four-wheel drive setup. The steering is really nicely weighted and feels good, too. The only thing lacking, really, is the sense of sportiness that you’d get from the BMW X3.

Of course, the X3 can’t go off-road in the same manner as the Discovery Sport. The Land Rover may be based on a front-wheel drive platform, but the four-wheel drive versions are seriously capable if you want to head off into the wilderness. While it’s not as outright capable as the bigger Defender (how could it be?) we reckon you’ll run out of bravery before the Discovery Sport runs out of ability. If it’s been raining heavily, the Discovery Sport will, as standard, wade through standing water that’s around two-foot (60cm) deep.

The Discovery Sport has lots of storage space and plenty of room in the back seats. The boot is huge, too, but the optional third row seats are tiny

It’s a Land Rover, so you’ll be expecting the Discovery Sport to be practical and useful, and it doesn’t disappoint. Land Rover claims that there is 48 litres of storage space dotted around the cabin. You get two good-sized cupholders, which have different depths so your coffee cup doesn’t disappear. The cupholders even get a little blanking panel which fits on top. You can actually take out the section with the cupholders and that opens up a huge storage area which is partly covered by the front seat armrest.

You get massive door bins up front, big enough to hold a large flask of tea or coffee, and they’re rubberised at the bottom so there won’t be any rattles from keys or loose change. The glovebox is slightly disappointing — it’s okay, but no more than that.

Space in the back seats

The Discovery Sport is very comfy in the back, and it helps that the rear seats can slide back and forth as well as recline. There’s plenty of headroom, knee-room, and foot room for even very tall people. The middle rear seat is just about wide enough to fit an adult passenger, and the transmission tunnel isn’t so massive that it ruins that person’s space for their feet. It’s not the comfiest middle seat ever, but you’ll get away with it.

You get nice, expensive-feeling seat-back pockets for storage, and there’s another set of huge door bins. The rear centre armrest has cupholders and a shallow lidded storage space which is about big enough to keep two credit cards in. There are ISOFIX hooks in the outer rear seats for fitting child car seats, but they come with annoying flip-off plastic covers which always, always hurt your fingers. If you’re putting kids in the back, the big rear windows give them an excellent view out, but they don’t wind all the way down — annoyingly.

If you want a seven-seat Discovery Sport, the sliding and tilting middle row seats mean that it’s easy enough to get in and out of the third row. Rear headroom and legroom (and foot room) means that those extra seats really are just for children, though. If you want a seven-seater with better third-row space, consider a Hyundai Santa Fe.

Boot space

If all seven seats are in use, then the Discovery Sport's boot shrinks to a pretty useless size — only a couple of hundred litres. The extra seats do fold easily enough, but if the rear bench has been reclined, then you’ll have to walk around the sides and straighten it up again, or the boot seats won’t flop forwards.

Once you’ve done that, though, you’ve got loads and loads of room — Land Rover officially quotes 973 litres of luggage space, but that’s if you’re loading to the roof. If you’re loading to the line of the windows and the rear seats, it’s more like 700 litres, which is still a lot. The Audi Q5 and BMW X3 sit at 550 litres.

You get handy tie-down hooks, and some small netted storage spaces in the sides. There’s no under-floor storage, though, as that’s where your tyre repair kit goes — a full-size spare is a cost option. You can fold down the middle row seats from a switch in the boot, which is handy, and the centre rear seat folds separately so there’s a load-through for long, narrow items. That said, you still have to go around the sides of the car to push the middle row seats fully down, and even then the floor isn’t entirely flat. Annoyingly, there’s also nowhere to stash the luggage cover.

The 2023-updated Discovery Sport’s cabin looks smarter than before, and it now gets an excellent infotainment system, but the lack of physical buttons can be a pain

The Discovery Sport has just had yet another major update – which makes several since the car was originally launched – which gives it a much better infotainment system, and which does away with most of the dashboard buttons.

The new 11.4-inch screen we’re fully in favour of, as it looks terrific and it’s using Land Rover’s latest ‘Pivi Pro’ software, which might have a silly name, but is really easy and slick to use. It’s already in the likes of the big Range Rover models and the Defender, and it works great there.

The Discovery Sport also gets the new fist-shaped automatic gear selector, but it has lost the useful rotary controls and physical buttons that it used to have. Land Rover says that this is made up for by the infotainment system being cleverer than it used to be, and you can get to 90 per cent of all the car’s functions with only two taps of the screen. This is all well and good, but you just can’t beat proper, real buttons for simplicity, so we’re going to miss the Discovery Sport’s handy old rotary dials.

All versions now come with fully digital instruments, which is good and they do look nice, but some of the menus for adjusting what’s on the screen, or the car’s various settings, can be fiddly to use, and not helped by the touch-sensitive steering wheel buttons.

All Discovery Sports now come with two USB connectors up front, and two more for the middle row seats. If you’ve bought a seven-seat model, that will come with extra heating and ventilation controls for the third row.

Overall quality is very good, and we love the optional wool seat upholstery, offered for those who don’t want to have leather in their cars. Even so, there’s a sense that the Discovery Sport’s cabin isn’t quite as well put-together as what you’d get in a BMW or Audi. Or even a Hyundai, for that matter.

Land Rover has simplified the Discovery Sport’s engine lineup. You can now choose a mild-hybrid diesel four-cylinder engine with either 165hp or 200hp. The plug-in hybrid 305hp P300e — which does without the optional seven-seat layout, remember — uses a 1.5-litre turbo three-cylinder engine and a 14.9kWh battery. Fully charged, it can now go for up to 38 miles in electric mode (Land Rover estimates that the ‘real-world’ range is about 30 miles) and you can fast-charge the battery from public charging points, giving you an 80 per cent top up in about 30 minutes.

Do that enough, as well as charging at home, and you might get somewhere near the official fuel economy figure of 180mpg. Of course, if you’re going on a longer journey with a flat battery, then you’ll get nothing like that, but our experience with the Discovery Sport seems to indicate that you should be able to manage around 40-45mpg in mixed conditions on longer journeys. Official CO2 emissions are just 35g/km, which means you’ll pay only 12 per cent in BIK company car tax.

That 40mpg is in line with what you’ll get from the diesel engine, which can struggle to do better than 40mpg unless you’re driving really, really carefully. The P300e turbo petrol engine will struggle to do better than 25mpg, though.

The basic Discovery Sport S comes with traffic sign recognition and an adaptive speed limiter, as well as a rear parking camera, cruise control, and a secure anti-theft tracker with a 12-month subscription included. The Discovery Sport scored an impressive five-star crash test rating from Euro NCAP, including a 71 per cent score for pedestrian and cyclist safety, aided by a pedestrian impact airbag built into the bonnet.

You have to go up to Dynamic SE models to get radar-guided cruise control and lane-keeping steering, which feels a bit cheap when you remember that you get such things as standard on a mid-spec Toyota Corolla. You’ll also get a rear traffic monitor and a rear collision alert.

Top-spec Dynamic HSE versions get a blind spot alert on top of all that. Optionally, you can have a ‘ClearSight’ rear view mirror, which takes a camera feed from the radio aerial pod on the roof, meaning that you can see out the back even if the rear seats are full of tall people or the boot is loaded to the roof.

Generally speaking, Land Rover does not perform well when it comes to reliability, but the Discovery Sport tends to buck that trend. As one of the more long-established cars in the Land Rover line-up, much of the bits under the skin are well-proven and solidly built. That said, there are plenty of horror stories out there of electrical issues and even problems with gearboxes and suspension, so buy carefully.

All Land Rovers come with a standard three-year, unlimited mileage warranty, and you can optionally extend that for up to ten years and 100,000 miles.