Long term reviews

Kia’s EV rollout has been a lot more rapid than most of its mainstream, non-Chinese rivals. It now sells the Kia EV3, EV4, EV5, EV6 and EV9 and only recently discontinued the electric version of the underrated Niro small SUV. In short, there’s plenty of choice if you’re a Kia fan that wants an electric car.Fresh off its win for the Best Small Car Under $50,000 category in the 2026 CarsGuide Car of the Year awards, I will be living with a top-of-the-range EV3 GT-Line for three months. We are very confident in our award protocols, but a long-term review like this is a great way to see what it’s like to live with the EV3 day to day and to find any chinks in the armour.This review will cover how much the EV3 costs, standard features, driving range and more. Subsequent reviews will highlight how it drives and how practical the interior is.With the oil crisis hitting petrol prices across the country, many buyers are looking for an alternative to a petrol car. Is the Kia EV3 the right first for you?Read on to find out.The Kia EV3 fills the slot left by the Niro EV in Kia’s line-up and it does it with a bit more of an edge.Design is a huge part of the EV3’s appeal and I will cover my thoughts on that in the next instalment of this long-term review. But it’s fair to say it's caught the attention of a lot of my neighbours.The EV3 line-up consists of the Air, Earth and GT-Line grades, with the Air offered in Standard and Long Range. The Earth and GT-Line - my test vehicle - are exclusively Long Range.Pricing ranges from $47,600 before on-road costs for the Air Standard Range and tops out with the GT-Line I am testing at $63,950.There’s a growing list of EVs with similar dimensions and pricing. From the Hyundai Group stable there’s the Hyundai Kona Electric (from $54,000-$71,000), from Europe there’s the Renault Megane E-Tech ($54,990 drive-away) and the rest are from China.There’s the freshly launched Leapmotor B10 (from $38,990 d/a), Jaecoo J5 ($from $35,990 d/a), Chery E5 (from $36,990) and BYD’s Atto 2 (from $31,990 BOC). All of these are a fair bit cheaper than the EV3. But does that automatically mean they are better value?Sitting at the top of the line-up means the GT-Line gets all of the standard gear you’d expect and want. And it would want to given you’re looking at $65k d/a for a small SUV.Here is just some of the standard kit you’ll get at this level:Flush door handlesPower adjustable, heated and folding door mirrorsSteering paddles for regenerative brakingFour USB-C ports12-volt power outletWireless phone chargerVehicle-to-load charging12.3-inch digital driver display and integrated 12.3-inch multimedia displayWired and Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with voice recognitionSat-navDigital radioOver-the-air updatesDual-zone climate controlRetractable luggage screenKeyless entry and startThese features are exclusive to GT-Line or GT-Line and Earth 2WD Long Range:Grade-specific 19-inch alloy wheel designGT-Line two-tone artificial leather seat trim10-way power adjustable driver and front passenger seatsDriver’s seat memoryHeated and ventilated front seatsHeated steering wheelFull LED tail-lights and indicatorsDynamic welcome lightsRear privacy glassSunroofPower tailgateAmbient lightingAlloy sports pedalsThree spoke sports steering wheelExtendable table top in the front consoleEight-speaker Harman Kardon sound systemHead-up displayAuto-dimming rear-view mirrorAnd this is the standard safety gear:Auto emergency braking with car, pedestrian, cyclist and junction detectionLane keep assistLane follow assistBlind spot collision assistRear cross-traffic assistDriver attention warning and forward attention monitorOver-speed warningAdaptive cruise controlHaptic steering feedback for lane departureRear occupant alertRear view cameraFront and rear parking sensorsSeven airbagsWhat it doesn’t get is a temporary or full-size spare wheel. You have to make do with a very unappealing tyre repair kit. And it could do with a front view camera which is common in top-spec models.But overall, this is a very generous features list and adds to the value of the little Kia. There’s not much difference between this and rivals of an equivalent grade, but aside from those omissions, you wouldn’t be wanting for anything.All Kia EV3 are two-wheel drive but there are two electric powertrain options. Only the base Air grade is available with the Standard Range, which includes a 58.3kWh lithium-ion battery and a 436km driving range.The Air, Earth and my GT-Line Long Range come with a much larger 81.4kWh battery paired with a 150kW/283Nm permanent magnet synchronous motor.Interestingly, the Standard Rage EV3 is quicker from 0-100km/h than the Long Range, 7.5sec versus 7.9sec in the GT-Line. Might be because the Standard Range is 85kg lighter than the Long Range.The suspension is McPherson Strut up front and a multi-link setup at the rear.There are five selectable drive modes - Sport, Normal, Eco, Snow and My Drive.Kia says the EV3 GT-Line has a WLTP driving range of 563km, but when topped up to 100 per cent, the screen shows 596km. That’s closer to the EV3 Earth Long Range’s figure of 604km.Either way, 560-600km of range is confidence inspiring. My personal preference for an EV is a driving range that starts with at least a five.Around town the multi-mode regenerative braking helps recover some energy, and it never feels too strong, even in the highest setting.Kia says the EV3’s energy consumption is 16.2kWh/100km, but my recorded figure for the month is 16.3kWh, which is pretty spot on. Around town I have seen it drop to 14.I’ve done a bit of regional highway and freeway driving in this first month and those long stretches of road without braking tend to impact efficiency. As a result the range drops faster on the open road.With that in mind, using the battery's usable capacity 78kWh with my average efficiency, I calculated an average driving range this month of 479km. That's a far way off the claim but, again, that included a lot of long motorway driving without stopping.The EV3 has a CCS Type 2 charging port on the driver’s side front fender. AC charging is at 6.9kW for single phase and 10.5kW for 3 phase.Using a common 50kW DC fast charger to boost the EV3 from 10 to 80 per cent capacity will take 79 minutes, according to Kia. But note its charging power maxes out at 127kW.Full disclosure, I have an EV wall charger at home and have not needed to use a public charge station yet. I will do that in the coming months.At seven years/unlimited kilometres, Kia’s had one of the best warranty terms in the business for years now and while it can’t match the 10-year terms of some rivals, many of those are conditional based on servicing at an OEM dealer. I’m looking at you, Nissan and Mitsubishi.The battery warranty is seven years or 150,000km, whichever comes first. You’re more likely to see eight-year terms with rivals.Roadside assistance is offered free for the first year, but that gets extended each year you service at a Kia dealer, for up to eight years.The servicing schedule is every 12 months or 15,000km.Kia offers the EV3 with a choice of three pre-paid servicing plans. Three years for $688, five years for $1308 and seven years for $1929.This service pricing is pretty competitive. In fact, it’s more affordable than the Leapmotor B10 as well as the EV3’s Hyundai Kona Electric cousin.So far, so good. Next month I will go into a lot more detail about the practicality of the EV3 GT-Line, as well as design and a few other key points. But purely based on this first month of living with it, I have to say the EV3 is deeply appealing. More detailed drive impressions will come in part three of this long-term test, but so far it is an absolute pleasure to drive around town and on country roads.Stay tuned for more on the EV3 GT-Line in the coming months. Acquired: FebruaryDistance travelled this month: 810kmOdometer: 5963kmAverage energy consumption this month: 16.3kWh/100km

I’ll tell you, if there was a time to be winning CarsGuide’s long-term lottery, now is that time. I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but the USA appears to have declared war on cheap petrol, or something, which has sent the pump prices soaring across Australia.People are hoarding petrol like its Covid-era toilet paper, and – as I write this – the price for the cheapest E10 fuel is $2.32 per litre. A month ago, it was $1.66. Now is not the time to be running a long-term vehicle with an engine that has any kind of ‘V’ in front of it, and a diesel dual-cab would make you weep, given diesel is even more expensive (and in fact sold out in many places right now).But not I, for my long-term chariot is the humble Leapmotor C10 REEV (in Design trim, currently $47,888, drive-away), which promises to properly sip fuel, given its pocket-sized petrol engine is only used to charge the battery or to provide power to the electric motor, but never to drive the actual wheels.An EV with the backup of a petrol engine should you run out of power. Or that’s the promise, at least. But there is one catch.If you read my first dispatch, you’ll know I treated the C10 REEV's power supply like an afterthought over our first month together, topping it up when I could but not overly stressing when it was running low on power or fuel, and trusting the universe (or Leapmotor’s engineers) to get me to where I was going. My fuel use was predictably higher than you might expect, averaging a pretty ordinary 7.3L/100km of fuel. But this month I tried, really I did, to make amends.I charged the C10 more frequently, either via my home wallbox or using Australia’s surprisingly expensive DC charging infrastructure. And my fuel use… got worse. Over the past 480 kilometres, my fuel use has been 8.9L/100km. Now to be fair, I haven’t been fiddling with the drive modes, though I will this month. I've just been letting the hybrid brain do its thing, but still, that's not great.But I think I have identified the issue. See, the C10 REEV’s 28.4kWh battery is way smaller than the EV version’s 69.9kWh, and so its all-electric driving range is somewhere between 100kms and 150kms. Now that’s pretty good for a plug-in hybrid, but if you do a lot of driving – and I do – you find that the battery can be depleted pretty quickly.And then it gets weirder still. Because this is designed to drive as an EV, when the battery is depleted you find you have almost no power underfoot while the petrol engine does double duties in charging the battery and providing power to the motors. It's a weird, perhaps even dangerous, feeling, when you pull out onto a busy road and not much of anything happens. Once the battery takes on a little charge things do return to normal.If you have a home charger, and plug in with zeal, then a microscopic fuel bill will be your reward. In fact, CarsGuide reader David tells me that he is averaging 4.2L/100km using higher-octane 98RON fuel, and that a careful charging schedule sees him using even less. But if you're a bit like me, then you can expect to see numbers slightly worse than a good hybrid mid-size SUV. Elsewhere, I’m finding the Leapmotor C10 REEV a little hit and miss in places. You’ve heard my rant about the key before (which you have to tap on the wing mirror to unlock, lock and turn off the vehicle), and it’s true that the Leapmotor app is a massive improvement.But I find the proximity lock and unlock function takes a pretty laissez-faire approach to its job, working sometimes, and then simply deciding not to. And the curse that is the key card continues to haunt my life. Even with the app enabled, you still need to place the credit card-style key on the wireless charging pad to actually start the car, which kind of defeats the purpose of using the app in the first place. The air-conditioning can take ages to chill on the hottest of Sydney days, and I find the lack of buttons infuriating. The wireless charge pad is only slightly less powerful than a sun dial (my phone has gone flat while sitting on it), and it also occasionally mistakes my empty baby seat for an actual baby, and honks the horn when I try to walk away. At least I think that’s the reason, though it’s possible it just doesn’t like me.The flipside, though, is its sharp pricing, clever powertrain, ferociously generous equipment list, oodles of space, and pretty agreeable driving dynamics in town. The cabin is impressively quiet, the ride pretty comfortable, and – with the battery charged – the acceleration is plenty perky, too.It's also amazing how quickly we've gotten used to equipment that was, until recently, reserved for only the most expensive cars. My C10 Design is less than $50k on the road, and arrives with heated and ventilated front seats, a heated steering wheel, an air purifier, an integrated dashcam recorder – the list goes on.There are some quirks to iron out, though. It's onto the next month.Acquired: January 2026Distance travelled this month: 480.1kmOdometer: 8974kmAverage fuel consumption this month: 8.9L/100km

Two months into the long-term test of the Chery Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid now and I know this car so well it could put me down as a referee next time it applies for a job. So here’s the reference so far, and while this large plug-in hybrid SUV is excellent in many ways there are a couple of personality traits you’d want me to tell you about. In the first instalment last month we discovered what the Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid does best - not use much fuel. We travelled 869km on a single 60-litre petrol tank. That was a record for me in all my time testing vehicles and average fuel consumption worked out to be 6.1L/100km.The catch, as with all plug-in hybrids, is you have to charge it regularly. I found if the charge in the battery fell below 40 per cent the fuel consumption started to climb fast as the engine worked to keep the battery charged and drive the wheels.This month we drove 510 kilometres with half a tank left - I refilled to full and put in 27.7 litres. That works out to be 5.4L/100km. So while I didn’t break any long distance personal bests, I probably would have, had I driven it more. The reason I didn’t drive it further is because in the past week I’ve been testing the Toyota GR Yaris which is so fun to drive I chose it over the Tiggo 8 for every trip we did. And that brings me to the first not-so-great thing about the Tiggo 8 - the way it drives.The Tiggo 8 isn’t bad to drive, it’s just not great, if that makes sense. I will say it’s comfortable but to the point where the suspension is so soft and ‘bouncy’ that there are times when the SUV doesn’t feel as planted as it should be. This is especially noticeable in bends with mid-corner bumps where it can become unsettled. Acceleration can overcome traction, too, causing the tyres to squeal just because you didn’t dab the accelerator with the pressure of a feather. This takes some getting used to but it’s not a deal breaker.The driving position might be a deal breaker for you, though. The driver’s seat is too high, even on the lowest setting. I think this might be to do with the battery under the floor eating into the cabin space.But I think the worst characteristic of the Tiggo 8 is the gear shifter which requires so much force to be placed on the brake pedal when shifting from Drive to Reverse otherwise neutral is engaged. The number of times I’ve been half way through a three-point turn and holding up traffic because I keep rolling back in neutral is beyond a joke.It’s not all bad, I promise. Actually it’s mostly all good - especially the way Tiggo 8 unlocks itself, opens the door handles, switches the LED headlights on and turns the climate control on as it detects the key but before you even reach the car. The reverse goes for when you leave the car - it locks itself automatically. No need to get the key out or even touch the door handle. The boot’s hands-free ‘foot-sweep’ gesture control function also works really well. Even today with my hands full of grocery bags I didn’t have to put them down to open the tailgate.This month the Tiggo 8 has been hauling a variety of cargo from large boxes to grocery shopping. I’ve been impressed constantly by its boot capacity and even the space behind the third row is excellent.  The design of the floating centre console is outstanding with storage underneath and wide open area on top to charge your phone. There’s nothing worse than cars which have hidey holes for phones to charge, making them hard to retrieve.People space is also great and having the option to move the front passenger seat forward from the rear row using controls mounted on the seat is so helpful as a parent trying to get small children into their own seats.Well, that’s it for this month - this next instalment you read will be the last and hopefully I’ll be able to drive enough to get my 869km from a single tank. Acquired: December, 2025Distance travelled this month: 510kmOdometer: 8267kmAverage fuel consumption this month: 5.4L/100km (measured at the pump)

The Leapmotor C10 REEV has entered the Chesto family garage, and it’s a model I’m pretty interested in. Well, its powertrain specifically. And that’s because I suspect I’m a lot like most of you; all aboard the EV train, right up until we find ourselves too far from the bright lights of the city.See, an EV mostly makes perfect sense for our little urban family, and when I have one through the garage I generally charge it once a week, if that. The suburbs are an EV’s best friend, and we can take seemingly limitless short hops before needing to top up.I say ‘mostly’, because (and this is just a hard fact of EV ownership, so don’t shoot the messenger in the comments) they are indisputably more annoying than their ICE-powered counterparts on really long trips.We duck off down the NSW South Coast every now and again – about 2.5 hours from our place in Sydney – and it’s on these adventures that I sometimes forget the ease of EV life in the city and begin cursing the lack of regional charging infrastructure, and pondering why my wife doesn’t enjoy spending her holidays sipping bad coffee in a service station forecourt while we wait to top up.The C10 REEV, though, promises to fix that. I’ve got the fancy Design variant (currently $47,990, drive-away, but usually $47,888, before on-road costs). And the REEV bit — or Range Extender Electric Vehicle — refers to the fact its rear-mounted electric motor is supplemented by a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine that acts as a mobile power generator for the C10’s 28.4kWh lithium iron phosphate battery.In simple terms, it drives like an EV, but when charge is low the engine kicks in to provide power to the battery. I have driven my C10 with a near-flat battery, and it keeps moving – albeit very gingerly at first as the battery recharges. And I’ve driven it with no fuel, surviving just on battery power. And both work, suggesting it really does offer a pretty comprehensive safety net for those motoring incompetents like myself who insist, against all odds, that we’ll make it to the next fuel station/public charger before we run out of juice.Leapmotor reckons that, with battery and tank topped up, you can expect a combined driving range of 1150km, albeit according to the more lenient NEDC testing protocol. Still, my car has promised a range of about 1000km via its on-board computer.There is a catch, though, and that is that you need to treat it like an EV and keep it topped up, because otherwise you’ll be using a lot of fuel. My test car’s on-board computer says over the last 2613km the REEV has averaged 7.3L/100km of fuel, which is worse than a good conventional hybrid. Get real lazy with the electrons and things are tougher still — I’ve seen 12.3L/100km pop up, which is almost dual-cab ute country.Still, the Leapmotor shouldn’t be punished for its owner’s laziness. It says EV in the title, so plug it in judiciously and you should see those numbers plummet, which is exactly what I’m doing from here out, so stay tuned for the next dispatch.What Leapmotor should be punished for, though, is the worst keyless entry system I have ever encountered. Mostly because it’s not keyless, and you can barely enter.The brand provides a credit-card-style fob which has no buttons. Easy enough, you think, because the proximity lock and unlock must be flawless. Um, nope. It doesn’t have that. Instead, you need to hold the card against a small square on the driver’s mirror to unlock the car as well as lock and switch off the vehicle. I discovered the latter when I got a call from my neighbour at 10pm asking me why my car was lighting up the street like a UFO landing.Now, to fully understand my hatred of this system, you need to know a little more about my life. We have a 14-month-old son, and so my relationship with Woolworths and Chemist Warehouse is at VIP level. And when we get back from the shops, I need to grab my son from his seat, grab the groceries from the boot, then carry both to the driver's door, dig around in my pocket for the card, and then lock the door. And then the same in reverse when we try to leave the house. It would be tricky if I had three arms, and it's near impossible with just the two I've got.Happily, Leapmotor does have an app that you will be downloading immediately, allowing you to lock and unlock the car remotely, as well as pre-cool the cabin.With all of that sorted, the C10 REEV has slipped pretty comfortably into our family life. There’s enough backseat space to comfortably fit my son’s baby seat, and the boot will swallow a pram with space to spare for shopping and all the other stuff we now require.So far on the road the Leapmotor has proven pretty easy living, too, with the power (158kW, down slightly on the all-EV version of the C10) ample for getting up and moving. Comfort over athletic capability is the order of the day, though, with some floatiness to the ride. The brake pedal also takes some getting used to. Presumably there’s some internal tussle over how the regenerative braking should respond to my foot, but the pedal can at times feel worryingly spongy, then overly grabby.But I think I’ve now got the getting-to-know-you stuff in hand, so we push on into month two to see how this relationship develops. And it could be important – if I make my wife sit by a dusty charger somewhere too many more times, it might well be my only relationship.Acquired: January 2026Distance travelled this month: 650kmOdometer: 2613kmAverage fuel consumption this month: 7.3L/100km

My time with the Forester Hybrid AWD Touring has come to an end, and I have some thoughts for you on what is Subaru’s most important model, should you be considering putting one on your driveway.And I do mean important. Subaru sold a total 39,005 vehicles in Australia last year and a whopping 15,179 of those were the Forester. Only the Crosstrek (10,842 sales) got close, with none of the brand's other models cracking the 10K barrier.Important that this model stays popular, then. To try to ensure it, Subaru has finally taken aim at the Toyota RAV4, introducing a proper hybrid system (it calls it a 'strong hybrid', by the way) so it can go head-to-head with the country's best-selling SUV.The system pairs a 2.5-litre petrol engine that produces 121kW and 212Nm all on its own with an electric motor that kicks in another 90kW and 276Nm. Total system power is 145kW, and the brand reckons you’ll sip 6.2L/100km on the combined cycle, and get around 1000km from every 63-litre tank of fuel.Intrestingly, Toyota owns around 20 per cent of Subaru, and the two companies have collaborated on models like the 86/BRZ and bZ4X/Solterra, but there's no crossover between the RAV4 and the Forester. This one is all Subaru.There are two cheaper hybrid models sitting below my flagship model — the Hybrid Sport and the Forester Hybrid — but my Touring is the most expensive, listing at just under $56K, before on road costs. That’s quite the investment. Mind you, the RAV4 Hybrid tops out above $58K, so it’s all relative, right?Having now spent a little over three months behind the wheel – tackling everything from freeway jaunts to city running, and ferrying my 13-month-old boy and the Ikea's worth of stuff he needs every time we leave the house – I found some things I really liked, and some things I really didn't.Let's start with the good stuff, shall we?It’s boringI know, I know, that doesn’t sound like a compliment. But in this case it really is. I drive a lot of cars, newcomer and legacy brands alike, and the thing I have appreciated most about the Forester is that is has offered up zero surprises.It drives nicely, if a bit firmly in places, it steers well, its safety systems don’t appear tuned to drive people insane, the tech is pretty flawless and it has done exactly what we’ve asked of it with very little fuss. And in the world of new cars, sometimes no surprises is the best surprise of all.The ride can feel a bit harsh at times (weirdly it's more noticeable from the passenger seat) and the driver monitor is easily fooled by sunglasses, but both are liveable quirks.You don’t want for much in terms of equipmentThe Touring tops the Forester tree, and while it’s not cheap, you also don’t want for much. Our car rides on silver 19-inch alloys, gets standard roof rails and there are leather and suede seats that are heated and cooled up front. Elsewhere, there’s a 10-speaker Harman Kardon stereo, a sunroof, an 11.6-inch central touchscreen (with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto) and a 12.3-inch digital dash. There’s also on-board navigation, though most will surely be running Google or Apple Maps instead.It can fit a family (or my family, at least)Not all mid-size SUVs are built equally, especially when it comes to fitting child seats in the back. In some, the seats take up so much room that the front passenger finds themselves sitting too far forward. That’s not the case here. Plus the privacy glass, easy-access ISOFIX anchors and the fact the rear doors open super wide make family life easy. Even the boot, which swallows 484L with the rear seats upright, was big enough for all the gear we had to carry, including prams and the like.But every silver lining has a cloud. And with that, it's onto the negatives.The priceI know we said there are more expensive Toyotas. But in a world where you can drive away in a mid-size plug-in hybrid SUV for less than $40K, putting this on the road for around $60K is a bit of an ask, right? I dedicated the last long-term dispatch to trying to figure out what price tag you can apply to legacy. But I guess the ongoing success of models like this and the RAV4 goes some way to answering that question.The fuel useSubaru reckons you should see about 6.2L per hundred kilometres on the combined cycle, but I have covered A LOT of kilometres, and done a lot of long-distance freeway driving, and I can’t get the number to drop below 7.0 litres. Toyota claims an impressive 4.8 litres per 100 kilometres for its AWD hybrid, and real-world testing suggests a number with a five in front of it is pretty achievable.Some hybrid sacrificesIt’s not all good news on the Hybrid front. You pay more for the car, obviously, but you also get a heavier vehicle with marginally less boot space, and while petrol-powered cars get a full-size spare, hybrid owners will be left fiddling with those horrible repair kits should they ever get a flat tyre.Acquired: September 2025Distance travelled this month: 1184kmOdometer: 4460kmAverage fuel consumption this month: 6.9L/100km

Time's up for the Skoda Kodiaq - well time with the Berry family that is. So, has this Hyundai Santa Fe rival stood up to the test of family duties?

Three months in with our Geely EX5, is having an electric car at the price of an internal combustion engine car too good to be true?

It's missing its original stereo, but still has a CD stacker.Interior is excellent quality. There is just enough space in the rear cargo area.It handles quite well for its age. It brakes well but it could do with a little more power.At the moment it's a bit expensive and hard to find parts. The insurance costs are great.Not too bad but it needs a little work done on it. 

Cutting edge tech package. Features are a cut above standard Asian offerings in its competitor set.Excellent. More interior space than my Genesis GV70 mid-size SUV.Ride is firm and responsive. Steering is accurate. Noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) is well damped.Nil servicing costs. Three years free servicing negotiated at time of purchase. Fuel costs are minimal.I've had no issues at all.

To be fair by today's standards the multimedia would be considered poor, however it has Bluetooth for my phone and the rest of it is just something I personally don't care about and has too much focus. It is, after all, a car and they're designed for driving which should be your primary focus when using one, not what apps it has.Safety wise it is comparable to vehicles of its era and is, for me, quite good. The biggest safety system is the person attached to the steering wheel, something that seems to be lost with all the focus on auto emergency braking (AEB) and adaptive this and that, which is a reflection on people forgetting their competence, importance, responsibility and accountability.Absolutely awesome! It is voluminous inside and with some tetris-style packing it will swallow an amazing amount of life's detritus and junk.The front seats are amazingly comfortable on long journeys. The flexibility of splitting the three rear seats individually and down to a completely flat loading floor with a huge boot gives you panel van-sized loading space. Additionally, the extra two seats for a seven-seat configuration are actually rated for adults and have excellent foot room, although I personally wouldn't want to be travelling long distances in them as an adult.Quiet, refined and an accumulator of speed on the open road that handles with aplomb for a 2.5 to three-tonne high-riding brick, it carries way more speed than you think was possible.Cruise control is a definite must on the open road or you will find yourself in the crosshairs of the constabulary.This is no sports car when it comes to steering input and feedback, but it has an inordinate amount of grip, it goes well and handles wonderfully, with the air suspension doing a fantastic job of absorbing the horrible road conditions. Cornering is relatively flat and the car is extraordinarily quiet at any speed, regardless of how fast you're going.OMG! You only have one kidney to sell to pay for the hideously expensive genuine Land Rover spares and servicing here in Australia.You might need to find yourself an aftermarket specialist Land Rover mechanic as this could save you literally thousands of dollars. Use OEM or very good quality aftermarket parts unless you have very deep pockets and money is no object. Allow an average of $2-3000 a year just for servicing (I service every 10,000km, not the 20,000km+ that Land Rover specifies) plus tyres and other consumables. I do an average of 20-25,000km a year with my driving so costs will vary depending upon what you do.Fuel economy depends on your driving style, but with my modified-for-off-road and regional travel D4, I regularly get between 9.0-10L/100km on the open road and less than 14L towing a near two-tonne camper trailer. Around town is variable with traffic and how hard I drive but typically it’s under 12L/100km.The big killer is the massive rise in insurance costs over the past two years. The value of the vehicle has decreased by more than 15 per cent but the cost to insure has increased by more than 35 per cent, so expect bills well in excess of $3K a year for quality insurance.The only reliability issues I have had with this car are aftermarket accessories being installed by supposedly reputable companies doing average work. Their dodgy installation and lack of customer service has caused issues and as such I can't hold Land Rover responsible for that.You must understand though that this is a big heavy car and things like brakes and suspension components work hard to keep everything going so they do wear out and need regular replacement, but Land Rover is too expensive price wise.