Hi - how good is access to the 3rd row seating in the new discovery. In my LR4 it’s pretty good - seat back folds flat then the whole seat tips forward leaving plenty of room for an adult to climb in.
I looked at new disco at my dealer last week and it seemed terrible - either a really slow electric fold or manually pulling a bar to slide fwd the seats then slightly tipping the seat back. It was really hard for me to climb in...
I’m assuming (hoping?) they just didn’t know how to fold it and that there is a better way??

 

The folding seats will never be as good as the Discovery 3 and 4 arrangement. Motors will be slower than doing it by hand for a while.

Though one might assume they could always have done it a strange way that made it slower. The standard time I would compare it to is whatever that video was with bear grylls jumping from a plane while folding the seats down in the car on the ground with his phone

 

Yes - speed for the motors was certainly part of it. But they are a cost option so can just avoid that. My bigger issue was it seemed very clunky to fold and at best I got the middle row slid forward about 5 inches and the seat back tilted forward by 30 degrees. So even after folding with motors and mechanically, access was really hard either way. Were they just not folding it right??

 

Not sure. I have sat in the new ones but not played with the seats. If I had to guess I would imagine they won't be as quick as D3/D4 seats.

 

3rd row access was a big issue for us in our decision process.

The 3rd row access of the D5 is better than Q7, VW Atlas, CX-9, MDX, and most of the 7 seat SUV is the mid-sized space. None of them have a lot of room at the floor btw the seat and door frame. I liked the space at the seat top and door frame seemed a bit wider.

Also, the room in the 3rd row is a lot bigger once you get back there.

My gripe is it is a two step process. First you push the button to get the seat back to power fold forward. Then you have to manually lift the bar below the seat and slide the one seat or two seat section, depending on which side of the car you are on.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I guess it's good to hear that it's better than the competition - even if not ideal! And yes - I sat back there and there is plenty of space for a 6ft adult!