New Land Rover Discovery Sport vs used Audi Q7: interiors
Shopping for an upmarket seven-seat SUV for around £45,000? A new Discovery Sport may be tempting – but so is a used Q7. Time to see which is the better buy...
Behind the wheel
Driving position, visibility, build quality
Both cars offer commanding driving positions complete with electric seats (including lumbar support adjustment) and steering wheels that grant you plenty of scope to alter their height and reach. You won’t find seat comfort a problem in either car.
The Discovery Sport comes with a digital instrument panel; this was an option on the Q7. It’s worth looking out for because, as with the Discovery Sport’s, it displays plenty of information where it can easily be seen by the driver.
The Discovery Sport has touch-sensitive dashboard buttons for many of its day-to-day functions; these force you to look away from the road to hit them with confidence. However, you do get a couple of physical knobs to adjust the temperature easily. The current Q7 (launched in mid-2019) shoves its air-con controls into a touchscreen, but this 2019 car has simple physical knobs and buttons and is all the better for it; they’re dead easy to use on the move.
You can see out the front of both easily enough, and they have bright LED headlights. However, reversing can be tricky due to their thick rear pillars. True, front and rear parking sensors are standard in both cases, but only the Discovery Sport guarantees you a rear-view camera; that was another option on the Q7.
If you like a bit of luxury, the plushness of the Discovery Sport’s upper surfaces and its glossy black trims will leave you in no doubt that it’s a premium SUV. It isn’t perfect, though; the plastics switch to hard and scratchy lower down, and build quality is patchy.
That isn’t the case in the Q7. From top to bottom, its interior radiates class, with brushed metal inlays and high-grade plastics, and all the switches click with the precision of a Swiss watch. It’s screwed together impeccably, too.
Infotainment systems
New Land Rover Discovery Sport
The 10.0in screen is bigger and of a higher resolution than the Q7’s, but, being touchscreen only with some small icons and occasionally sluggish responses to inputs, it isn’t as easy to use while driving. Both cars come with sat-nav, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone mirroring and a 10-speaker stereo as standard. Wireless phone charging is a £100 option, whereas it was part of a pricey pack on the Q7.
Used Audi Q7
This Q7’s system, with its 8.3in screen, may not seem all that impressive next to the Discovery Sport’s, but it’s still packed with modern features and is much less distracting to use than a touchscreen, thanks to its rotary controller and shortcut buttons located between the front seats. It responds swiftly to commands and the menus are easy to understand. A 19-speaker Bose sound system was part of an expensive Comfort and Sound Pack.
