Luxurious is pretty easy to do and everyone does above a certain price point.
Capable is much more difficult, but not much good if all one sees is luxurious. This is why I think LR does not understand that with capable, the vehicle must also appear capable.
The real Jeeps look capable; the G Wagon looks and is capable; the Land Cruiser/Prado's, I guess so as well, so would at least one Land Rover be so difficult?
Agreed. Will take functionality over luxury anytime if functionality/durablilty was the cost for luxury.
LR3 was less luxurious but had a more solid feel inside the cabin. I started noticing therm being lazy engineering and design wise when I saw a few things in LR4 which were not better than LR3 but certainly were more convenient assembly/service wise.
An example would be the commission of one-piece dashboard top panel in LR3 in favour of the two pieces in LR4. The more pieces, the more attachment mechanisms, more rattles = less solid feel. Germans get it and the top dash panels on their SUVs are one-piece units. Even Hyundai/Kia get it. But now I see every model in LR lineup is using two-piece top dash panels.
And who knows what other parts were "lightened" or were downright removed to make the LR4 lighter in weight vs LR3. I know at least one instance for sure where a missing/lightened version of a part had a pretty bad impact on NVH levels at higher speeds due to transmission torque on my ,13 Lux. After having discussions with the LR engineering and a field engineer, the shop foreman at my local dealership decided to put a previous version of that particular part which was beefier (and heavier) to fix the situation.
