Which 7 seater?

[Murph7355]

hilly10 said:

If you do decide to go for a new Landmark D4 Murph you had better get a move on as there are very few around, Stafford (Swansway) have one

Even stripping out the colours that I would want to avoid (black and white) there are over 60 advertised on Autotrader. Some will no doubt be the same car, but I'm not too worried at the moment.

And it doesn't have to be that spec particularly, but that would be the target (and would mean I'm closer to comparing apples with apples with the other cars still in the running).

I was surprised how busy the dealer was tbh. So much for the hardened times we find ourselves in...prices of used 4x4s certainly seem to be firmer than they once were, but I'm still confident there are deals to be done

[hilly10]

A low mileage nearly new D4 is still in big demand as prices are reflecting, will they drop when the D5 takes to the road, tough call. Over on the Disco forum every buyer of late says discounts hard to come but freebies are well in order

[chappj]

Thanks for writing up your feedback Murph. It sounds very similar to ours. We really couldn't split hairs between the D4 Landmark and a DS HSE Lux. They both have pro's / con's.

Following our dealership visit we changed our minds back and forth a few times. What swayed us towards the DS in the end was the middle row of seats. In 5 seat mode for us it felt more comfortable than the D4. I'm sure the D5 will have a similar configuration, however it just wasn't affordable for us.

Good luck!

[The Leaper]

hilly10 is correct.

After having a succession of 3 Jaguars over about 16-17 years, the wife was finding the XF increasingly uncomfortable. When it was being serviced I had a D4 as a loan car for 4 days and the wife thought is was very comfortable indeed, since when I became under intense pressure to change vehicles and get something with armchair seating compared to the XF. I really like the LR/RR range. Our son has had a RR for many years accumulating 190,000 miles or so and I really enjoyed travelling in it to such places as Le Mans.

I dismissed the Evoque because I just do not like the looks, although as there's just the two of us it is probably the most suitable car in the lR/RR range. I really liked the D4 but I could not find a reasonably new low mileage one inside our maximum price range of £34,000. Getting the right spec was also a bit of a problem: dark exterior, light interior. The D4 would have also been rather large for the two of us.

So I bought a DS which happens to have 7 seats. It's a SD4 HSE LUX model, auto, black exterior, cream interior.

I did find it quite a surprise at the time how impossible it was to find the D4, especially as the D5 is on its way. However, now I've seen several reviews of the D5 and comments from D3/4 owners, there's no doubt there are concerns about the price and the interior capacity of the D5 compared to the D3/4, so much so that D4 owners are going to be hanging on to their vehicle for some while, hence the high prices for nearly new ones.

As for the DS, it's early days as far as I'm concerned. Jumping from 390BHP to 190BHP was always going to be an issue but at least they are very different cars and with their own driving styles. I do like the way the DS plants itself on the road and the steering is probably the best of any car I've had. Despite it being a bit more utilitarian than a typical saloon, the extras are great and seem most appropriate for the vehicle. The satnav is c**p though. As for the 7 seats, I've had all 7 of our family (4 adults, 3 kids) for a short journey. The two in the back said it was OK but I doubt if they would say that after a long journey. A bigger issue with 7 seats is access: it really is a squeeze between the second row seats and the C pillar.

I think I'm getting something around 35mpg with the DS which is a lot better than the XF!

R.

[AstonZagato]

The Leaper said:

As for the 7 seats, I've had all 7 of our family (4 adults, 3 kids) for a short journey. The two in the back said it was OK but I doubt if they would say that after a long journey. A bigger issue with 7 seats is access: it really is a squeeze between the second row seats and the C pillar.

We counted out the RRS and the DS for this reason - too difficult to access.

[hilly10]

I have found on the D3/4 forum guys are selling their D3 and early D4s for low mileage one or two year old D4s this I think is what is keeping prices high. The D4 will always be in high demand now that LR have bought out the D5 which looks just like all the other models. But when the new Defender comes it may well change.

[Murph7355]

chappj said:

murph7355, how is the search going? I'm intrigued to see what car you ended up choosing.

And the verdict...a little earlier than expected (more in a sec)...

In reverse order:

- BMW X5 : third row of seats are hopeless. Never really in the running.

- Merc GLS : biggest problem here was finding one. There were two more or less within a reasonable trip to see if we liked them, but one was older than we wanted and one too much money (and was white). So there were none we would really consider buying, and who knows when one might turn up. If used carsare anything to go by, they don't sell many of them. And looking at the price of them I'm not surprised - they are significantly more than the others.

The dealers were also the most disinterested in selling a car. All this combined ruled it out without me actually seeing one. If the dealers had been more flexible, that may have been different.

- Audi Q7 : best dealer in that they were keen to sell a car and prepared to push the boat out on a test drive. ie let me have one for half a day (hardly pushing the boat out - but the best on offer). I've sat in one before and they feel (and are) very spacious cars. And I like Audi interiors...they're designed very well generally, though their system does take some getting used to and as it develops it seems to be getting more complicated than it needs to.

Two things did for it...ignoring the Merc (which is daft money), it's the most expensive when you compare like for like specs, and the plus points about them for what we will use the car for are not sufficient. The second isn't Audi's fault - the winning brand were running a good deal for our circumstances...

- Discovery 4. 2nd best dealer. And there's something incredibly endearing about the Disco. Classic British design and product. Drove nicely, but less car like than the others. Commanding driving position. If the amount of space and ease of access to the third row of seats was the top priority, it would have won. If off roading capability had been the top priority it would have won. If engine smoothness had been a top priority it would have trumped the winner. But for us the down sides were too big for it to win...

Despite being a big car, space in the boot with the third row of seats up is not sufficient. When we use the car in that mode we're often off to the beach, or somewhere else that we need kid "stuff". And it wouldn't fit. If we could have moved the third row seats forward an inch or two it would have made the world of difference.

The car also felt "previous generation" (not really surprising). This shows up mostly in the tech on the car, which is OK but blitzed by the winner and for our use that ended up being telling. Land Rover have done a good job making it feel lovely to sit in (we were looking at higher end specs), but it did also have a bit too much of the "utility" feel about it.

I worry for the Disco 5 a little as from what the dealer said it does away with some of the Disco 4's strongest points without necessarily kicking the bad stuff into touch. Time will tell. I'm sure it will sell like hot cakes.

When our boys are a lot bigger maybe an old Disco 4 will work for us, but for now it was a no.

- And the winner is...the new XC90. The deck was probably stacked in its favour as we've loved our original car. Especially my OH. Volvo then went and opened a Selekt used car event offering 0% finance and a cheap service deal, combined with some extremely well specified cars (that I am pretty sure must be their demo fleet or possibly ex-rentals) and dealers who were up for negotiating. This meant real prices were sustantially less than the Audi (10%-20%) and even edging the Discovery. (The event runs until Monday should anyone be interested..but the top spec cars are nearly all gone - there may be one left).

The new car is a league above the old one in terms of the luxury feel. It feels like it's competing with a Range Rover IMO. Yes the engine's a bit gruff (the Range Rover should breath a sigh of relief), but we've just had 5.5 happy years in the old one and whilst that had a bit of character being 5cyls, it's hardly the epitome of engines. If only they'd put a 6cyl in it. There is also some road noise, but it's no worse than the Disco and again a huge improvement on the old car.

The boot is massive - as big as the Disco IMO in 5 seat mode, and in 7 seat mode a *lot* bigger. It's also bigger than the Audi using my pram test.

The tech is top end - short of a Tesla I can't think of any car that is likely to be better. And it all feels really, really useful and thought through.

And the safety cannot be beat - this is a family car so this is a really important facet. The car I'm buying has Intellisafe Pro which adds to this in spades.

There have been reports of some unreliability, but they seem mostly software oriented. The car I'm buying is only 6mths old so has plenty of warranty to lean on if needed, but if my old car was anything to go by it'll be fine.

These are really lovely cars. If anyone's in the market for a 7 seater it *has* to be on the list. Go and sit in one in a showroom for an hour and explore the space, practicality and spec in depth. You'll then forgive it the engine (more or less ). A T8 would probably cure that, but they're too much money IMO. My wife absolutely loves it, and I fell for it enough that I've even bought a black one after saying "never again" on black cars!! (This one's hers so she can clean it ).

So we're sticking with Volvo


An honourable mention must go to the Discovery Sport. For a much smaller car than the others the cabin space is pretty incredible. The middle row of seats are awesome and the third row usable. Even the boot's a great size, though with row 3 up is nigh on non-existent. If our kids were a couple of years older, it might have been a contender. It's probably also worth noting the quality feel of it wasn't as good as the Disco (or other cars). Yes, it's quite a bit cheaper than the others. And can be spec'd up (at a price). But if you want something that feels totally solid, it's probably not quite there. But I was very surprised and very nearly got my OH down to take a look.

[Not Ideal]

Cool good choice on the XC90. I don't need 7 seats and was close to pulling the trigger on an XC90 but plumped for a BMW X5 40e instead. Very happy with it.