for 2018 Land Rover adds another room to its ladder with the all-new Range Rover
Velar. Now the Land Rover lineup is six suvs deep and that's a little confusing
there are a lot of SUVs some of them are priced near identically including the
same price as the valar but this has a place in the Land Rover lineup and first
you can start just by looking at it it's a stunning SUV to look at but there's a
lot more the Land Rover Discovery sport is kind of a goofy looking SUV and the
Evoque is more like a toy than an actual SUV the Range Rover Velar just has a
commanding presence it's something when you look out the Cars.com office
windows on the 10th floor down at the parking garage this thing just stands
out like am on the parking garage roof surrounded by a bunch of other basic
commuting vehicles I think what helps the valar is this byron blue exterior
and the blackout package it has the blackened grille and inserts on the side
of the car and then on the hood you have these black and inserts that say Range
Rover more black pieces along the side black mirrors and all of that combined
with this very aggressive shape creates a very good-looking SUV the nose is long
the windshield is significantly raked back and the roofline has this
plummeting angle to it the car looks more like a cockpit of a fighter jet
than an SUV and it really stands out on the road one thing that gives us concern
however are these door handles they're pretty cool they're flush and when you
unlock them they pop out but this is a land rover a brand not known for the
greatest reliability and that gives us a little hesitation they also don't pop
out automatically like a Tesla would so you unlock the car with the key fob and
they pop out when you lock the car they pop back in that wow effect on the
floors exterior is also apparent on the inside and
especially on this car with the optional Windsor leather the seats are leather
but that also carries over to the dashboard in the door panels which isn't
very common there's a lot of automakers out there who will cheap out on the
dashboard and the door panels with a leatherette or full leather surface not
the valar though and it's apparent when you open the door and you get this rich
aroma of leather it's kind of like taking the top off of a nice pair of
leather dress shoes you open the top and you just get this very nice aroma of
classiness well maybe in someone else's closet
definitely not mine the valar debuts a new dual screen multimedia and control
system for land rover when I first heard dual screen I instantly think just
failure dual screens have not been executed very well in the past most
notably with Acura but the Land Rover system is done very well surprisingly
well in fact it's responsive the controls are laid out where you want
them and there are also physical controls here so you have a volume knob
and then the dual purpose climate dials in one setting you control the warm and
cool of the climate system you press it in and it gives you the heated or cooled
functions of the seats most notably though it works when you first start up
the car a lot of these touch screens you start the car up and there's a loading
process or it's just slow and it hesitates this is not one of those
systems and it's refreshing especially after just driving the all-new 2018
Volvo xc60 which had a lot of the screen lag and delay problems that we
experienced in our long-term xc90 test car this seems to solve that kind of
annoyance that we've experienced in other cars while still being very usable
I exclusively use the bottom touch screen during my driving it has all the
controls you really need and I found it more responsive and
prettier to look at than the top screen not well driving though what you can do
with this touchscreen is you have climate controls for automatic climate
control or on and off or sinking the dual climate and then you have the seat
functions as well and on this car massaging seats done very nicely the
vehicle controls give you various driving modes and then you have your
vehicle settings in here too the system is very quick and I really like using it
what's most disappointing about the valar is that this one has the diesel
engine I know you may be thinking Oh diesel yes
torque but this 180 horsepower 4-cylinder with 317 pounds of torque is
kind of an unimpressive engine in this car it has non linear power delivery
power comes and goes it feels splotchy and then the transmission is just slow
to shift it doesn't give you that crisp driving experience even in the sport and
dynamic modes it's like here's this wonderful luxury SUV and we're gonna put
an economy car engine in it I just don't like it it doesn't drive luxurious but
it does drive efficiently over my time in the car I got an average 33 miles per
gallon which is above the highway rated 30 miles per gallon and that was a mix
of highway and city driving I averaged about 40 miles an hour the valar is just
a few dollars less expensive than the Land Rover Discovery and the discovery
has a roomier second row at an optional third row which makes it a more
family-friendly SUV the valar however is more about making a statement and it
does exactly that our recommendation though skip the
diesel engine just goes straight to the supercharged v6
you