New Land Rover Discovery loses off-road focus

Do you really want to off-road? That’s the question Land Rover is asking Australian buyers of the all-new, fifth-generation Discovery that goes on sale here from July.

Abiding by a new global policy, Jaguar Land Rover Australia has made significant off-road aids — including the much-hyped new multi-mode Terrain Response 2 system — optional for most models in the range.

JLRA managing director Matthew Wiesner told motoring.com.au at this week’s global launch in Utah that the move also recognises the fact that many Discovery buyers won’t be interested in using its substantial off-road capabilities much, if at all.

“It will be interesting to see how many of those more urban users take those (off-road) options up,” Wiesner said.

“It will be another place where Discovery hasn’t been in previously. It’s going to take a while as well once we get through this launch phase, because most cars sold in the pre-launch, launch phase and six months post-launch are generally pretty highly specced.

“It won’t be a good indicator of what the trends will be later on.”

By the time the model roll-out is complete in January 2018, JLRA will be offering 25 new Discovery variants across five different specification grades with the choice of three different turbo-diesel engines – including two four-cylinder engines for the first time since the 1990s -- plus five- or seven-seat layouts.

“Once we start focussing more on the four-cylinder drivetrains … there will be more pragmatic discussions taking place. People are actually using them in the environments they want,” Wiesner added.

Pricing for the new Discovery will stretch from $65,960 to $117,750 before on-road costs.

The current Discovery is offered in five different models with three different V6 engine choices. Off-road hardware apart from the active diff is usually standard, as are seven seats. Pricing stretches from $69,345 to $95,340 before on-road costs.

Terrain Response 2, which monitors the driving conditions and allows automatic or manual adjustment of throttle, suspension, steering and traction control to suit, is unavailable with the new Discovery’s entry-level Td4 engine and a $2060 option on all other variants bar the limited-edition First Edition, in which it is standard.

Low-range gearing is not offered with Td4 engines and is a $920 option for the entry-level S grade. An active locking differential is a $1040 option for all full-time models in the range.

motoring.com.au covered off the technical breakthroughs of the new Discovery here and the release of local equipment and pricing specification here.

We also drove a pre-production V6 turbo-diesel Disocvery in Scotland in January. Our first drive of the new Discovery in Utah will be published later this week.

Wiesner explained the rationale behind the global decision that has resulted in Discovery’s off-road hardware being rolled over on to the options list.

“We have been a bit caught up in a new approach globally in the way we package cars,” he confirmed. “So we are going away from having different markets literally having a different approach to the way the cars were optioned, packaged and presented with standard features.

“So what you will see with Discovery going forward is a far more unified approach across the world to manage that, because the challenge was not only a vast complexity of differences from one market to another, but also a challenge placed on the suppliers as well.

“So it was decided to have a more unified approach following the structure of how we are doing this globally with Terrain Response 2 and the like.”