Test drive Land Rover Discovery LR3 2004 - 2009 SUV

The choice between Land Rover Discovery IV and Lexus GX460

Land Rover Discovery IV and Lexus GX. Both with prestige claims and gasoline V8. There will be a lot of blood ... What kind of car do you take? Suppose they offer a beautiful, unusually stylish, wonderful SUV, wonderful in its patency, feeling well on the asphalt.


There is only one drawback: on the exit from the sink, his rear view camera refuses. To be completely accurate, after water procedures the camera comes to life for a moment and immediately refuses. That is, you understand that it does not initially work, but by the end of the washing for a second it turns on. Perhaps this is not alarming you. Maybe you even think about it as a slight glitch that does not stand and a pair of lines. But at the site of the rear view camera, sometimes the rear janitor, and sometimes the air suspension compressor. Or some other not very important detail.


Planting in Discovery is higher and more vertical both in front and behind


Lexus has a central tunnel with climate control for passengers more interfere


However, there is a completely different option. A car capable of surviving the owner. Ugly outside, stupid inside. Dubious off -road and no on the asphalt. At the same time, it is very expensive, but having a rather mediated attitude to the premium class.

I can easily imagine a person who has decided on this choice. He does not distinguish a car from a mobile phone. The phrase release from the crowd means for him the purchase of hours at a price exceeding the cost of the crowd. Such a character wants to be the most. Dostoevsky noticed this. He has this type called a seven -puddy merchant.

A drum with foam rubber
The first time I sat in Discovery wary. Although it is the fourth, but in general, it turned out as with the last generation of Range Rover. All fears were in vain. Sounds surprisingly, but the British learned to make cars. Now the owner does not have a naked TCP with the inscription legend, but everything that he wants.


A more competent front panel, but the screen is asked higher for the speedometer level, and the climate control is also low


During the first year of operation, the owner learns to exhibit a climate, then takes for a radio

It remains only to etch the taste of the past. What am I talking about? Do you go in a kind of embroidered SUV, but the thought is constantly in your head: suddenly it pretends, and the charms of past models will return in the form of nauseous swing, and then it will fall to one side, because you turned the steering wheel strongly? Imagine you talk with a guy who has served a deadline for drugs, murder and arson. He says: yes, it was before. I will not hide. I even had to soak someone and burn his house. Now I'm clean. Make sure for yourself. Do you want me to look after your children? If you tell him yes, then your choice of discovery.

I could not. On the first day of the test I did not believe. Discovery gave to Ivan Evdokimov, and he moved to Lexus GX460. This is an honest car. He will never deceive. It is not pretended to a passenger car. Does not convince the omnipotence of the brakes. Does not make tricks with a suspension. We know how comfortable SUV behave. When accelerating, they squat on the rear axle, so much so that then they are difficult to get up. When braking, they are piled on the front with the same inertia. Passengers at this time are in complete ecstasy, approximately like inside the washing machine, in which the drum was lined with foam rubber. Very comfortable.


Both cars can be equipped with a third number of seats, but there was a five -seater on the Discovery test


Lexus trunk is larger, and its door opens more conveniently to the side, not up

For especially subtiles, Lexus has three shock absorber operating modes. Sports, simple and soft. Absolutely without affecting the suspension, they control the buildup of the body. If you want, he will walk sweepingly, like on the ocean waves, or more modestly, as if he swam into the basin. And on the lying policemen, the ass will be thrown invariably.

Problems of the prenatal period
The front panel GX460 is without complaints. There are a lot of things there, but the designers facilitated the work of the driver, stretching the learning process. You can’t figure it out right away. In the first year, you will master the climate, then the radio at Land Rover to control the functions of the machine is a completely different approach. Style and charm are an order of magnitude higher. This will be appreciated by pregnant women who are prescribed more to look at the beautiful (for the birth of more pretty children). This does not threaten me, so I would prefer algorithms more comfortable.


At the exit from such obstacles, Lexus constantly drew the ground with an exhaust pipe, but Discovery

But in the Land Rover Discovery they were very confused by the prenatal period. For the conception, a whole off-road electronic system Terran Response is made. By the way, everyone likes her. Very beautiful switch. If you catch any pilot after a test drive, he will invariably say the following (I checked): the highest class! When you go, put snow instead of stones, and instead of a track of grass.

Today it happened once again. I stand in the field and see how Ivan Evdokimov is approaching from the hills on the horizon. He comes out and says: he goes well in stones. At the same time, we are talking, standing on the sandy loam. This is such clay sand, and besides it a few kilometers back and forth there are no rocky rocks or boulders of the glacier.


The Japanese groans, bursts with blocks and eventually takes a height. The Englishman is just going silently

In general, if instead of a men's toilet you often go into a female one, wake up at night, and fall asleep in the morning, look with your ears, and speak with a navel and if you are also pregnant, then Terran Response is perfect. But personally, I prefer not to touch this beautiful circle with off -road modes. I put low and food in the most common way.

Lies with a belly
Lexus experts knew that it was impossible to create something good in the electronic ranking of soils. Sand in the suburbs is not the same on the azure bank. But still the Japanese did it. Fashion is fashion, to lag indarkly. Without advertising, we hid a list of off -road modes to the computer. He is, but not knowing where to look, you will not find. Yes, and nothing. Off-road cruise control, the proprietary Toyota system for maintaining a given speed at an off-road works much more efficiently, and its toggle switch is in sight.


Discovery's eyelets will have to look for them tightly closed with plastic plugs

Search for differences in electronic-in-road systems of competitors is empty. Sherlock Holmes called such tasks a matter of one pipe. You smoke it and understand that you were not looking for there and the main difference in the cross -country ability of this couple lies in the geometry. Where Land Rover Discovery, Lexus GX460 easily passes on the belly. A larger road clearance and short base provide the Englishman with an advantage. Everything else is less important: the moment, power, and electronic assistants

On the second day of the test, I not only got used to the new image of Discovery and stopped waiting for a catch from him, I no longer wanted to ride on anything else. His behavior on the asphalt is ideal and comparable to crossovers with a supporting body, and off-rock for him is generally his native element. I am skeptical in relation to English SUVs, but I have to admit: they have established completely new standards for SUV. And all other world car manufacturers are now forced to pull themselves up.

P. S. But Lexus GX460 has a pleasant one to the touch. Interestingly, do they sell it separately or only with the car?


Author: Dmitry Leontyev, photo of Alexander Ortnova-Baranov

 

Source: Magazine 4x4 [June /2010]