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BabyDrive Verdict

I was very excited to be testing the Land Rover Discovery Sport, it was a beautiful blue colour and the enormous sunroof made it a delight to drive in.

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The model I tested was a five-seater, so I couldn't test the third-row seats. However, I enquired with Land Rover and there are no top tether anchorages or ISOFix in the third-row seats. Also, to access the third-row seats you would need to uninstall a child seat in order to bring one of the outer second-row seats forward and have room to climb through in a seven-seater model.

There are ISOFix points in the two outer second-row seats, within plastic guides and easy to connect to. The top tether anchorages on the back of all three second-row seats are not within plastic guides, they are right down the bottom of the seat backs. They are positioned flush with the boot floor so I found them really difficult to access and the fabric on the seatback made them difficult to connect to and I kept connecting on to that rather than the anchorage.

I could fit two child seats into the back of the Discovery Sport, there was just enough room for me to sit between the two child seats when using the ISOFix.

Legroom was really good in the five-seater Discovery Sport, the second-row seats do slide back and forward on a 60:40 split and in the furthest back position, we had plenty of legroom for a 182cm passenger in front of a rear facing child seat.

The interior of the Discovery Sport is very pleasant too, the seats are nicely leather upholstered. Storage is quite good although none of the door bins would hold a large refillable water bottle which is always Disco-pointing! The glove box is a nice size to hold an iPad and wallet with the manual and there is a lined glasses case in the ceiling.

There are a lot of USB points in both rows, there are some in the central console box and in the back of the central console box for rear passengers.

There is also a central seat back fold-down armrest with two cup holders and covered storage for a phone. (Or if you have a toddler empty sultana boxes fit quite nicely too 😉

The boot of the five-seater opens and closes silently which is lovely and it was adequately sized, holding 14 shopping bags and depending on the needs of your family, it would hold all size prams or strollers with shopping bags in there with them. Although I didn't get to test the seven-seater I think given the size of the Discovery Sport that if you had a third row of seats in there the boot space would be very small.

The air conditioning in the Discovery Sport is easy to use and there are pillar vents in the second-row pillars which made a big difference on hot days, they provided a nice subtle airflow without blasting the rear passengers.

The Discovery Sport feels really solid and robust to drive and despite that the steering is light. BUT it does feel a little bit lurchy or reluctant to go when accelerating from still on occasions. Road and engine noise are both good and I found no real beeps or baby waking noises with Discovery Sport. The gear lever is a dial that rises up out of the central console when you turn the car on, it is very slick and smooth in your hand, although I found I couldn't confidently change gear without having to look down at the dial, which I did find frustrating at times.

One of my favourite features in the Discovery Sport is the seatbelt removal visual on the display in front of the steering wheel. It lights the people up green or red depending on whether their seatbelt is fastened and is just a really clear easy visual to know who it is in the back that's taken their belt off!

One of my other favourite features is the child lock button on the driver's door, just pressing the button locks the windows and doors in the rear so little passengers can't meddle with either!

The media system in the Discovery Sport is a bit of a let down for me as the visuals used are very outdated and although it is very clear and clean looking, it doesn't have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. I would expect more from this brand and want that seamless transition from office to car with my technology.

The built-in sat-nav had a lovely big button for muting the navigation voice, which is a definite help plus point!

The cruise control was also a bit of a letdown (not of the milky kind!!!) and was fine for flat motorway driving but at 60km/h on undulating roads, it ran well away with itself downhill up to 10km/h over the set speed.

The reversing camera has excellent image quality, you can view all different camera angles and the parking sensor volume can be minimised with the button on the right of the screen or you can turn the volume up and down using the controls on the steering wheel, which is fabulous!

Visibility was very good and with the large sunroof and big windows, it had that light, airy feel when you got in and was carried inside from the beautiful blue exterior paint colour and reminded me that mummy doesn't have to mean frumpy!!

Overall I found the Land Rover Discovery Sport to be a great BabyDrive for a one or two child family. The car itself is fantastic and definitely feels confident on the road, I felt let down by the media system which I often find in the more expensive cars.

The Land Rover Discovery Sport scored a five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2014 and has seven airbags as standard.

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