Weekly Drive: Land Rover LR4 impresses and confounds

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The Land Rover LR4 has the best ride quality of any SUV I've tested.

The ride is firm yet supple. The body motion and suspension set-up is just about the perfect balance of controlled comfort and road holding performance.

But most importantly the new Land Rover has the muscle to back-up all of that brawn.

The all-new 5.0L, direct-injection
V-8 is just what the doctor ordered to bring more spring in the LR4's step.

With 375 hp and 375 lb-ft of torque, instead of the old LR3's,  300 and 315, the new Rover bristles with go anywhere power. Of course the down side to all of new found ponies is an unchanged yet still not wallet friendly 12/17 mpg.

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But at least now when I put my foot down the Land Rover sprints, instead of just jogs to terminal velocity.

BTW: This is the same engine you'll find in the Jaguar XF and as you can tell by THIS recent review of the new Jaguar XF Premium that's a very good thing.

This newest LR4 has over 1300 new parts and it shows in a subtle and thoughtful manner. The car's dash center stack has been redesigned so that it more closely matches the Range Rover—which is a very good thing.

In fact, the styling of the new LR4 is now so closely related to the Range Rover you can think of the LR as the Range Rover's bigger younger brother—which is also a very good thing.

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Click HERE to see how the Range Rover does taking on one of Colorado's steepest roads.

What's not so good?

I'm just not sure about the long term quality of the new LR4. The old Discovery had quality issues, in fact the car's reputation was so tainted that Land Rover changed the name to the current LR.

For instance, my tester came with the 7 seat $5,910.00 HSE Plus package which, according to the window sticker, comes with a rear camera.

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Which would be great if indeed my tester had a rear camera…it does not.

This lack of a back-up camera brings up all sort of troubling questions like:

Did somebody at the factory just forget to install the camera in the rear tailgate, and if so where was the quality control to catch the oversight?

I had the same experience with the Range Rover I tested a few weeks ago that was missing a heated steering wheel which was an option listed as being included in the Range Rover on the window sticker, but was AWOL on my tester.

And yes the Range Rover had a steering wheel, it just wasn't heated 😉

Would these issues keep me from buying the new LR4 if I was in the market for a premium SUV?

Probably not as the new LR4 is just such a gem to drive.

Look for my new and complete review of the new Land Rover LR4 soon.

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Roman Roman
Mica is a columnist, journalist, and author, who spent his early
years driving fast on the German autobahn. When he's not reviewing cars
for the active set, you can find him training for triathlons and
writing about endurance sports for, EverymanTri.com.