The appeal of the 2014 Land Rover LR4 is not its cutting-edge design. Place the big box side-by-side with a 1990s-vintage Land Rover and you'll see that the LR4's aesthetic hasn't changed much since the days when it was first known as the Discovery. And although the Land Rover's infotainment isn't truly outdated, our example's tech was more dated than its boxy design.
Finding the appeal of the 2014 Land Rover LR4 is tricky, but it starts beneath the Alpine roof, on the inside of the box, where the spacious SUV boasts room for up to seven souls with all of its seats upright and occupied. The rear jump seats that fold up and out of the cargo floor are a bit awkward to access and take a bit of shoving and grunting to get locked into place, but were not too torturous for my 5-foot, 9-inch frame and offered a decent amount of foot room for short trips.
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Fold the jumpers into the floor and fold the second row's bench flat as well and the LR4 presents its owner with up to 90.3 cubic feet of space for big and bulky cargo. The rear hatch is a two-piece clamshell job that opens by first lifting the rear glass and then lowering a truck-like tailgate. Some will be disappointed by the lack of a power-opening, hands-free rear hatch on what is ostensibly a luxury SUV, but I rather liked that you have to give the hatch a good slam when closing to make sure that everything locks into place. There's an old-school simplicity to it, and at the very least, it's one less motor you'll have to worry about eventually going out.
The style and function of the LR4 may be old school, but it has been updated over the years with a few modern amenities. I particularly liked the keyless entry and push button starter. Our model was also equipped with a $10,200 HSE Luxe package that upgrades the leather trim on the seats and dashboard and adds heating to the first and second row seats as well as the windshield, the washer jets, and the steering wheel. This package also adds a cooler box -- a little refrigerator -- to the center console to keep drinks and snacks chilly on long trips. Meanwhile, the audio system is upgraded to a 17-speaker, 825-watt Meridian Surround Sound setup.
Our model was not equipped with the latest infotainment that Land Rover offers on the LR4, but the standard navigation system gets the job done. It features modes for both on and off-road navigation and responds to a voice command that boasts a long list of available commands. However, it's one of the clunky old systems that puts the driver through a half dozen prompts for city, street name and street number, including individual digits just to input an address.
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Audio sources include Bluetooth hands-free calling and audio streaming, USB connectivity with iPod compatibility, and an optional (and unreasonably expensive) $750 upgrade to add satellite radio and HD Radio tuning. Audio quality from the upgraded Meridian rig was quite good regardless of genre chosen and at moderate to high volumes.
The system's graphics are a bit pixelated, and the 7-inch touchscreen itself seems a bit small for the space reserved for it. That's our first hint that Land Rover does offer a bigger, better infotainment system; one that brings the tech into the 21st century with a new Land Rover InControl Apps integration. That system allows the driver to control a handful of vehicle-optimized smartphone apps from the dashboard touchscreen. Available apps include iHeart Radio, Parkopedia and Sygic GPS, with more on the way.
Charged with piloting such a big box around the crowded streets of San Francisco, I was pleased to find that the standard driver aid loadout included front and rear parking distance sensors. Our example was further augmented with the optional Vision Assist package, a $1,600 checkbox that adds blind-spot monitoring and a rear cross-traffic alert system, adaptive automatic high beams and a surround camera system that features multiple views. The curb view allowed me to peer at the road beside the vehicle when parallel parking, for example, and the T-junction view allowed me to view approaching traffic as I nosed the big SUV out of the blind alleys and driveways surrounding CNET's downtown offices.
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Easing entrance and egress is the LR4's standard air suspension system, which features, in addition to the standard ride height, an Access height that lowers the suspension for easy entry and loading and for clearing low garage ceilings. The Lexus LX 570 offered a similar functionality and could be set to automatically lower to its Easy Access height when parked, but the Land Rover LR4 required that I remember to press a button every time -- which was disappointing but certainly not the end of the world.
The LR4's design is basically that of a big box on wheels. Antuan Goodwin/CNET Fold the jumpers into the floor and fold
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