To begin with, and certainly when its engine is cold, the Captiva can appear crude mechanically. The 2.0-litre common-rail turbodiesel rattles like a washing machine full of coins on start-up, and until it is warmed properly – which takes no more than a few miles, admittedly – the din is prolific enough to make you keep as far away from the lightly weighted throttle as possible.
Once its engine has warmed up, however, the Captiva becomes a pleasant, reasonably refined performer, albeit one that lacks outright punch beside its key rivals. It’s nowhere on paper when compared with the equivalent Freelander 2, the TD4. The Captiva takes 12.2sec to reach 60mph (TD4 10.5sec) and a yawning 43.5sec to reach three figures (TD4 38.6sec). Top speed is an acceptable 112mph, but again this doesn’t match the Land Rover’s maximum of 115mph.
The good news is that on the road the Captiva has enough performance to satisfy the market to which it is intended to appeal. In the low and mid ranges it has good response, is acceptably refined and has a decent slug of torque between 1500 and 3500rpm. And although the common-rail engine is more vocal than some rivals if you rev it, the fact is you don’t need to, because the medium-rev response is more than enough to carry you along. It is probably at its best on the motorway.
So long as you don’t ask too much of it, the five-speed automatic gearbox also works reasonably well on the road, slurring upshifts smoothly on part-throttle. Whether anyone would ever use the manual up/down shift selector on the road is doubtful, but if you go off road it’s a useful facility, allowing you to select and hold on to lower gears going down steep hills. And if you do venture on to the rough stuff proper there’s hill descent control, which, at the press of a button on the dash, tickles the brakes and takes control of the throttle automatically when going down really steep declines.