A few more thoughts now I have some miles with it under my belt. We had a long trip out in it yesterday, the first time fully loaded (4 kids and paraphernalia!), with a bit of night driving as well. All in all the kids were very impressed, they all commented how smooth and relaxing the drive was, which was good (no "how long before we're home daddy?"!
1. Matrix 'Adaptive Beam'. WOW! I've driven cars with matrix headlights before, but this is a step-up. The progressives cones of beam that change & project automatically are awesome. The beam cameras continually check the light conditions and road type and adjusts/throws light accordingly. You can see it happening in-front of you, and it's not a flick of a switch change, it's a subtle shape throw. These are different level!
2. Sport Mode. I wasn't expecting much here TBH, so I hadn't flicked the lever back to engage. Given the normal drive mode is already punchy, I thought I'd do a bit of a test at a traffic light grand prix. Whilst there's no huge 'shove', it certainly gets the car going a lot quicker, and revs strong! I was quite shocked. A nice little addition.
3. Brakes. Bit a of a disappointment. I'm not sure if it's because the brakes are still bedding in, but they certainly don't 'bite' that hard. You have to press them with some force and quite ahead of time. Is this normal for the D5?!? I don't recall them being this bad on my old RRS, but perhaps that's because they had Brembos and this seemingly doesn't?
4. Child-lock button which is now linked to 2nd row buttons. Dear god what a
inconvenience and security risk this is!
Pull-up, stop the engine, get out, unload kids from 2nd row, go to unload kids from 3rd row and realise you've not pressed the child-lock button. Go back to press child-lock button to deactivate, and realise the ignition has shut down which you need on to use the child-lock button. Reach in and press ignition/start button on dash, but it says key is too far away (even though it's in your pocket!) so you get key out of pocket, press ignition/start button to activate button, press child-lock button, press ignition button again to turn off. Go to back row and unload children.
When you've finished for the day, you return to the car and load all the children into the car, forget that to get kids into third row the child-lock button had to be switched off, start driving away, look round to see eldest son has opened the door!
I am writing a formal email of complaint to LR. It's utter utter madness that I have to press the child lock button each time I need to access the 3rd row. My understanding is the 2nd row have sensors in them to detect if somebody is sat in them which shuts off the switches, so this shouldn't be necessary.
5. Eco. We average 35mpg across the day (mix of A-roads and motorway), and I wasn't hanging around coming home last night.
All-in-all, still very happy (apart from the buttons!).
Last edited by Windy Miller on 7th Apr 2021 9:39 am. Edited 1 time in total