FamilyMan
Member Since: 10 Jan 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 119
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Picked up a our Discovery and ran her in almost immediately with a 300+ mile run. I drove through the night to avoid traffic. Talk about information overload, I didn't have time to get familiar with anything, just jumped in adjusted the seat, lights on, postcode into the Nav and off. The Nav had obviously chosen the most direct route as I was soon driving through gardens and wading rivers . It did a superb job though and all those extra graphics for roundabouts and so on really helped. Once you got used to the fact that it does ignore traffic lights and give ways I got used to it as a navigation helper rather than driving instructor .
The design of the car is stunning. I could wax lyrical about it and probably will for a while yet. My first impressions were...
-I love it's scale and presence. Others road users give you more room and chances to pull out of junctions etc than my previous estate car. However, the car immediately behind you does seem to disappear from view if they're a little close.
-The driving position is perfect, particularly the headrest that actually does the job of resting your head while driving without rolling it back (reminds me of the Porsche seats).
-The headlights and full beam are unbelievable, I couldn't help but smile everytime I had traffic behind me and a countylane came up. Those things turn night into day . humpback bridges and the foggy conditions gave the oncoming traffic a Close Encounters experience .
-I can't fault anything about the drive. The steering, handling, performance and ride were brilliant. Perhaps first gear felt underpowered for pulling away from lights and such, particularly on A Roads where you'd like to move off quicker but once it's gathered a little momentum you just seem to pull forward with the outgoing Range Rover V8 style grunt, amazing.
-Av MPG was 21.4 . However, I didn't reset this before the journey and found the Av speed was only indicated as 24 mph after at least 200 miles of clear motorway so obviously the engine has been running at idle for some time before delivery. I didn't notice any particularly heavy consumption from the trip and still had over a third left. Unfortunately I've yet to find an Esso station locally so I'm making do with Shell's Diesel Extra.
-That wayward air blast you get when passing HGV's on the motorway has gone, you just glide past completely unruffled. That 2.5 tonne has a reason . You no longer hear or feel catseyes when changing lanes....that's either the air suspension or the 2.5 tonne flattening the things .
-Love the turning circle, it makes for practical and easy parking.
-I found the sat-nav voice prompts great but if I had the radio or CD playing when it cut in with a message, the message would have an interference hiss with it. Just using the sat-nav on it's own was fine. Also, after the message the CD or Radio won't continue unless you then press the FM or CD button.
-I've now discovered that the car does indeed have a mind of it own. Over night it raised itself to the high off-road position but then showed no problems running through all it's levels during the day. Has anyone figured out a reason for this yet?
Very very pleased with the car and now looking forward to finding more driving time and excuses to take it out. 2005 TDV6 SE Silver/Black Manual + Alpine
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 9th Feb 2005 8:01 pm |
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Martin
Site Admin and Owner
Member Since: 06 Nov 2004
Location: Hook Norton
Posts: 18448
  
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Sounds good, very very jealous 
I *have* to get a borrow of one  8)
Martin
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| 9th Feb 2005 8:10 pm |
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Outrageous
Member Since: 11 Jan 2005
Location: New Hampshire, USA
Posts: 44
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FamilyMan wrote:. Over night it raised itself to the high off-road position... Has anyone figured out a reason for this yet?
Thanks for your observations. I'm sure your car shouldn't be raising itself overnight. It's normal for it to check itself for level every so often and make adjustments by letting air out, but not pumping up. Better let your dealer know.
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| 10th Feb 2005 8:46 pm |
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FamilyMan
Member Since: 10 Jan 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 119
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Outrageous wrote:FamilyMan wrote:. Over night it raised itself to the high off-road position... Has anyone figured out a reason for this yet?
Thanks for your observations. I'm sure your car shouldn't be raising itself overnight. It's normal for it to check itself for level every so often and make adjustments by letting air out, but not pumping up. Better let your dealer know.
It's only happened the once so I'll just keep an eye on it for now.
What a beast though.....still smilin' everytime I drive it. 2005 TDV6 SE Silver/Black Manual + Alpine
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| 11th Feb 2005 3:37 pm |
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