2018 Land Rover Discovery Sport Review
2018 Land Rover Discovery Sport Review





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Edmunds' Expert Review

byWill Kaufman
Senior Editor and Content Strategist, CarMax
Will Kaufman has worked in the automotive industry since 2017. He has written hundreds of car-related articles and reviews over the course of his career. Will is a senior editor and content strategist for CarMax at Edmunds. Will has been featured in the Associated Press and a number of major outlets on the topics of infotainment and vehicle data, vehicle subscription services and autonomous vehicles. Will started his career in online publishing by writing and editing standardized test guides, but he has a lot more fun writing about cars.
Pros
- Above-average off-road and all-weather capabilities
- Available third-row seating
- Plenty of passenger and cargo space
Cons
- Below-average fuel economy
- Cabin is well-made but less luxurious than those of rivals
- Active safety features and driver aids are pricey extras
What’s new
The 2018 Discovery Sport gains a few updates. Most notably, the turbocharged four-cylinder engine is now more powerful and efficient and is available with two different output levels. Changes have also been made to front-seat adjustments and comfort. Some changes have been made to trim-level equipment and options.
Vehicle overview
The cumulative changes to the Discovery Sport over the last two years are significant. This year brings a new engine that comes in two different power-output levels, along with revisions to the front seats. Add those updates to last year's changes to the infotainment system and the addition of an optional adaptive suspension, and the Discovery Sport has changed quite a bit.
Cost to DriveCost to drive estimates for the 2018 Land Rover Discovery Sport SE 4dr SUV AWD (2.0L 4cyl Turbo 9A) and comparison vehicles are based on 15,000 miles per year (with a mix of 55% city and 45% highway driving) and energy estimates of $4.32 per gallon for premium unleaded in Virginia.
Monthly estimates based on costs in Virginia
$237/mo for Discovery Sport SE
Discovery Sport SE
vs
$208/mo
Avg. Midsize SUV
In the past we knocked the Discovery Sport for its relatively slow acceleration, below-average fuel economy, brittle ride, overly firm seats and high cost, especially considering how much more luxurious competitors can be. The new, optional 286-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder adds a turn of speed but is a pricey extra, and fuel economy remains the same. The optional adaptive suspension, which should improve ride quality, is a stand-alone option. As far as cost goes, the market seems to have caught up — while the Discovery Sport gets pricey quickly when you start checking options boxes, so do its European competitors. At least the revisions to the seats come standard.
Still, if the Disco Sport's optional third-row seat or trick traction control that allows for more off-road and inclement-weather capability isn't at the top of your list of priorities, there are a lot of great compact luxury SUVs to choose from. The redesigned 2018 Volvo XC60 is luxurious, modern and capable. The Audi Q5 has lots of excellent available technology and outstanding road manners. Top-tier Discovery Sports also compete with more entry-level trims of the Porsche Macan, which is a bit tight on the inside but is also one of the best-driving SUVs on the road. And that's not to mention offerings from Acura, BMW, Jaguar, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and even Alfa Romeo. This is a crowded segment, and Land Rover has pinned its appeal on a few very specific strengths.
Edmunds' Expert Rating
The 2018 Discovery Sport sets itself apart with its off-road capability and impressive passenger and cargo space. The new engine choices and optional adaptive suspension should make it more competitive, but some rivals offer more luxury and efficiency.
Driving
We were impressed with the Discovery Sport's handling and braking performance. Our biggest issue was the lackluster engine, which should be remedied by this year's changes. While the Sport is not as rugged an off-roader as other Land Rovers, its traction system makes it competent in the dirt.
Comfort
The new seats and optional adaptive suspension for 2018 should address some of our biggest concerns. The ride on the standard suspension was sharp, brittle and out of place in this class. There's also more road noise than in some competitors.
Interior
With lots of room for passengers and easy entry and exit, the Discovery Sport is a good people mover. It also gets high points for visibility and materials quality. Unfortunately, the interior design doesn't feel especially luxurious, and the infotainment system can be laggy and too complicated.
Utility
The Discovery Sport offers a lot of cargo space for the segment, and it also has an impressively high towing capacity. But there's not a lot of storage space for small items in the cabin.
Technology
There's a lot of available technology if you're willing to spend the money to add it. Active safety features and driver aids are available but pricey. The infotainment system is a weakness; while it's customizable, it's also sluggish to start up and can be slow to respond and complicated to use.
Which Discovery Sport does Edmunds recommend?
The Discovery Sport HSE includes some extras that most luxury shoppers will be looking for, such as a power tailgate, leather seats, proximity entry, and front parking sensors. We also think a few important packages are worth considering: The Vision Assist package bundles blind-spot monitoring with a surround-view camera and upgraded headlights; the Cold Climate package adds heated and cooled front seats, heated rear seats, and a heated windscreen; and the Intelligent Dynamics package adds an adaptive suspension and a fuel-saving driveline.
2018 Land Rover Discovery Sport models
The 2018 Land Rover Discovery Sport is a compact luxury SUV that comes standard with five seats, though an optional two-person third row raises capacity to seven. There are three trim levels: SE, HSE and HSE Luxury. A more powerful engine is available for the HSE and HSE Luxury trims.
The Discovery Sport's powertrain also includes Land Rover's All-Terrain Progress Control (a low-speed off-road cruise control), hill descent control and the driver-adjustable Terrain Response system. The latter technology has four settings (General, Grass/Gravel/Snow, Mud/Ruts and Sand) that adapt accelerator and steering response, gear selection, center differential engagement, and braking and stability control systems to optimize performance in a variety of difficult driving scenarios. Unlike with other Land Rovers, there are no locking differentials, low-range gearing or adjustable suspension height.
The base engine is a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder that makes 237 horsepower and 251 pound-feet of torque. A more powerful version of this engine is available for the HSE and HSE Luxury trims and makes 286 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque. A nine-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive are standard.
Standard equipment on the SE includes automatic headlamps and wipers, power-folding and heated mirrors, a rearview camera, cruise control, dual-zone automatic climate control, rear parking sensors, rear privacy glass, 18-inch wheels, and the Land Rover Terrain Response system, which changes vehicle settings to match various surfaces. Also standard are 10-way power front seats, partial leather upholstery, a 60/40-split rear seat (folding, reclining, sliding), an 8-inch touchscreen interface, four USB charging ports (two front, two rear) and a 10-speaker sound system with a CD player, an auxiliary audio jack and a USB media player interface.
Some options are unique to the SE: The Convenience package adds proximity entry, a hands-free liftgate and an auto-dimming rearview mirror. The SE Vision Assist package adds foglights and xenon headlights with LED daytime running lights. Twelve-way power-adjustable front seats and navigation are available as stand-alone options.
The HSE includes the contents of the Convenience and SE Vision packages and adds a fixed panoramic roof, front parking sensors, full leather upholstery, and 12-way power front seats with memory functions.
Both the SE and HSE can be upgraded with the Audio Upgrade package, which adds an 11-speaker Meridian stereo and satellite radio. Smartphone-connection apps and satellite radio are available for both as stand-alone options.
The HSE Luxury adds the Audio Upgrade package, 19-inch wheels, fancier exterior trim, multicolor interior ambient lighting, upgraded leather upholstery and navigation functionality.
The HSE trims are available with a number of option packages. The Vision Assist package includes blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert systems, adaptive headlights, automatic high beams and a surround-view camera system. The Driver Assist Plus package adds the navigation functionality, lane departure warning and automatic emergency braking. The HUD & Park Assist package brings a head-up display and an automatic parking system that can handle perpendicular and parallel parking duties. The Intelligent Dynamics Pack adds an active all-wheel-drive system, which switches between front- and all-wheel drive based on conditions to save fuel, and an adaptive magnetic suspension. The Entertainment Pack adds a 17-speaker Meridian sound system and the upgraded 10-inch InControl Touch Pro touchscreen interface that includes onboard Wi-Fi and its own upgraded navigation system. Finally, the Dynamic Design package adds a variety of special exterior and trim pieces, including gloss-black 20-inch wheels.
All trims can be equipped with the Climate Comfort package, which includes a variety of heated items: windshield, steering wheel, and front and rear seats. Also available as stand-alone options are different wheels (19- or 20-inch), contrasting roof color choices, the head-up display, automatic high beams, a cargo cover and onboard Wi-Fi. For 2018, blind-spot monitoring and adaptive cruise control have both been made available as stand-alone options.
Consumer reviews
Read what other owners think about the Used 2018 Land Rover Discovery Sport.
5 star(48%)
4 star(22%)
3 star(6%)
2 star(13%)
1 star(11%)
46 reviews
Trending topics in reviews
Most helpful consumer reviews
5 out of 5 stars
Discovery Sport 2016
Lindy Friedman, 11/23/2015
2016 Land Rover Discovery Sport HSE 4dr SUV AWD (2.0L 4cyl Turbo 9A)
I never envisioned myself in a Discovery Sport,
until I drove one. Originally I went to Land Rover to
test drive the Evoque. I spotted a white and black
Discovery Sport and basically, it was over for the
Evoque. I had previously read
about all the "issues" with the Discovery and found not one complaint to be true. I had no
trouble with acceleration or rough starts.
All questions … and concerns were answered and
reviewed with the salesperson. One test drive,
in the rain, was over 2 hours long. I wanted to
drive the vehicle in bad weather. Incredible
response to the road in the pouring rain.
I could not be happier with my Discovery Sport.
5 out of 5 stars
After 4.5 years we still love our 2016 Discovery
Fazz Powell, 10/17/2015
2016 Land Rover Discovery Sport SE 4dr SUV AWD (2.0L 4cyl Turbo 9A)
Update 2021: I bought my wife a Jag iPace EV for her 60th. It's an amazing car! But she wouldn't let me drive it. So I sold my Discovery for $27,500 (private) and bought my own iPace. One thing that was interesting is the Discovery buyer wanted to buy a warranty plan but no company would offer them on LR. He did finally find one for $3700 for 3 years, so I had to adjust my sale price … $500. But since I now own 2 Jags, and plan to keep them a long time, this is of concern. I'd never want to go out of warrantee on an EV.
Update 2020: Edmunds wanted me to update my review. Not sure how this works with my old review, but I'll still loving this car. No complaints or issues since my last review. I have seen the new version of the Discovery and I can't say I like the view of the boot. Just not as sexy as before. These 2016s seem to be holding value pretty well. In 2016 I paid $41K off the lot w/tax, it's worth $29.6K today (Private sale).
Update 2018: After 2.5 years, 6K miles had my battery go up, but that's normal for Florida. Even tho I only I have 6K miles at 2.5 yrs I had the 30K mile check-up: $750. Original: We took delivery of a 2016 Discovery Sport this week and have to say we couldn’t be happier with this purchase. While waiting 3 months for delivery I was reading the reviews and frankly had been quite worried by the bad press. We also test drove the full-size Sport before buying the Discovery and found the almost twice as expensive Sport to have clunky breaking, albeit a luxurious interior. I had a Mercedes GL450, which we found too hard to get in and out of and quite a sterile interior, and compared to the Discovery it was not nearly as comfortable and the transmission was more cumbersome/computerized than the Discovery…by far. So I don’t get the bad reviews. The Discovery Sport in sports mode is super smooth in acceleration and I have not experienced any of the down-shifting issues mentioned in the many reviews. Granted I live in a small town and I didn’t buy the car based on its 0-60 rating. When I first test drove the Discovery I was taken a bit back by the sparse interior by Land Rover standards, but all the dealer had was black. One also has to consider this is a low-cost Land Rover product. I ordered an SE with a Glacier Brushed Aluminum interior and it was very nice and the steering wheel is much more comfortable than the $75K GL450 with the premium 2 upgrade package I had. On the SE the two-tone roof option was only $350 which really sets it off from the competition for look and feel. We looked at every car in this price range and would recommend it to anyone in this market. Fingers crossed on maintenance, but my CPO GL450 had to have a leaking shock absorber replaced with only 28,000 miles and it was not covered by the Benz CPO and cost $900, so I don’t think Mercedes offers any better in quality.
4 out of 5 stars
Good, could be better
OBX'er, 08/28/2020
2016 Land Rover Discovery Sport HSE 4dr SUV AWD (2.0L 4cyl Turbo 9A)
We bought this 2016 Disco Sport in 2020 with 44,000 MLS. We enjoyed our LR2 so much, we're giving Land Rover another try. The car looks great, very comfortable and roomy. It has a lot of features, handles pretty good and is fairly quiet. Although it's better in almost every way than the LR2, it's no better than our 10 year old Audi Q5. The Audi is quick, quiet and has better interior … quality. I expected more from a newer car. If we had bought the Disco new and paid 50 grand for it, we'd be very disappointed. Of course, we would have taken a much longer test drive, also. But, at half the cost, it fits our purposes well . It has more leg and truck room than a newer Q5, otherwise we would have bought another Audi. The Disco has a smooth and quiet 4 cylinder engine, but don't love the turbo lag and the city mileage is awful. The ZF 9 speed transmission is pretty good, no complaints there. So, the Disco is good, but with a few tweaks, it could be great
Update, Aug, 2021. We've had our 2016 Disco Sport for 13 months now with no trouble. We've put around 20,000 miles on it. Two oil changes and it needs tires. My only complaint is with the transmission. It's the ZF 9 speed that Acura, Jeep and a few others use. At first, I thought it was turbo lag. There is a little, but it's really the transmission. It starts in second gear and quickly gets into high gear. The trick is to leave it in sport ( S ) mode. You can leave it in S mode without using the paddle shifters and it's a whole different.car. I can still recommend the car. It looks great and very comfortable.
August 2022 update. The disco sport now has 82500 miles with no trouble. Just oil changes. I put Falken A/T tires on it. Much more off road than the standard street tires. Still don't like the ZF 9 speed transmission. Again, keep it in "S" mode and it does much better. Would still recommend the Discovery Sport.
Update Jan, 2023. 87,000 miles. Car had a rattle at startup. Diagnosed as a bad timing chain tensioner. After waiting a month for the dealership to see it and 3 more weeks waiting for corporate and the dealership to offer a discount, it got fixed. The dealer stepped up after I complained about the time it took and the fact it needed a tensioner in the first place. Otherwise, still happy with it. Runs and looks like new. FYI, the car has a Ford 2.0 liter Ecoboost and Ford is having some trouble with it
Update, Sept.2023
Car now has 97,000 miles and Is leaking a small amount of antifreeze. My local mechanic says it's the heater core. Of course half or more of the dash has to come out. It's not super expensive but he's waiting on parts. If you have the money for repairs, it's a pretty nice car and I can still recommend it. If you can't afford the repairs I would buy something else. We still take it on trips and it still looks brand new
5 out of 5 stars
Love my Disco Sport
Edward Noble, 02/17/2018
2017 Land Rover Discovery Sport HSE 4dr SUV AWD (2.0L 4cyl Turbo 9A)
It hasn’t been perfect. I have a few electronic gremlins that have popped up—the rear mirror dip feature and the SIM card have each needed service—but otherwise, it’s is a fabulous car. Beautiful but not flashy, it is really an ideal vehicle.
We have a limited number of reviews for the 2018 Land Rover Discovery Sport, so we've included reviews for other years of the Discovery Sport since its last redesign.
2018 Discovery Sport Highlights
SE
Base MSRP | $37,795 |
---|---|
Engine Type | Gas |
Combined MPG | 22 MPG |
Cost to Drive | $237/month |
Seating | 5 seats |
Cargo Capacity All Seats In Place | 34.6 cu.ft. |
Drivetrain | all wheel drive |
Warranty | 4 years / 50,000 miles |
Safety
Our experts like the Discovery Sport models:
- Autonomous Emergency Braking
- Applies the brakes automatically to avoid a front collision.
- Blind-Spot Monitor
- Detects cars in adjacent lanes and warns the driver of their presence during lane-change maneuvers.
- Reverse Traffic Detection
- Alerts the driver to the presence of approaching traffic behind the vehicle when reversing.
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