Range Rovers, What's your experience? (Germany, brakes, roadster, valve)

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by mading6

Well I love my 2002 Land Rover Disco. (snip)

Now please refrain from laughing when I tell you my other two cars are vintage Jaguars, I love British cars, and yes one or two are always getting work done esp the old jags. It's just musical chairs at my house, but I love cars esp vintage, antique cars. Now my sister loves high performance European motors. We were raised in a car enthusiast household.

Not laughing here ... you're the customer that all the shops that work on these cars love to see come in the door.

Your "love" for the "British cars" leads to a justification for keeping these on the road despite the expense, even when "one or two are always getting work done" ... out of the three that you own and having to play "musical chairs" with your transportation vehicles.

Keep up the love and support for your mechanic shops ... they need the revenue.

PS: the Disco and the RR Sport are cut from somewhat different cloth in the product range, with significant differences in the resulting handling due to wheelbase length differences, overall size/seating, etc. You'd need to specify which year/model/options were the basis for the comparison to nail down all the differences ... and there are quite a few.

[Fargobound]

What most people don't know about Land Rover is they've passed from one owner to the next. The best part of the Rover group was kept by BMW.

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by Fargobound

What most people don't know about Land Rover is they've passed from one owner to the next. The best part of the Rover group was kept by BMW.

Don't think that's right ...

BMW broke up their LR/RR operations in 2000 with a sale of LR to Ford, then

in 2006, sold the balance of their holdings ... RR ... to Ford, so all the Rover product was again united under one ownership for the first time since the days of B-L ownership.

in 2007, Ford announced they were packaging Jaguar and the Rover Group for sale, which then sold in 2008 to Tata Motors.

IIRC, that sale included the rights to the Daimler and Lanchester brands and their designs. Both were very upscale cars, with Lanchester every bit the equal (IMO) of more famous name Brit marques like Bentley or Rolls-Royce.

At this point, BMW has no ownership of Rover name, rights, designs ....

and Ford lost their butts on this marque. I recall Ford spending $1.6 billion just for one of their buys into the RR marque, and sold their entire holding for a fraction of that price to Tata Motors.

I've posted in prior threads about how Ford had difficulties implementing the changes that their engineering group had envisioned with Jaguar to improve that upline marque name/product, with much meddling from the Brit government and the labor controls in that country. The result was to deny Ford the freedom that it desired to replace known problematic components in the car series with proven reliable stuff sourced through other Ford plants (not just USA, but domestic, USA, and Euro production items); the Brit gov't required Ford to continue to buy domestic products to keep Brit workers employed. By the time that Ford was able to get approval to make the changes to the product line-up, the losses had mounted to unacceptable levels and the decision was made to sell the company ... even when some of the changes came into play and the sales improved, it was still too much financial burden to overcome for the value of the Jaguar cachet for a premium marque to Ford. But Ford's financial advisors also recognized the Ford couldn't unload the losing RR/LR division without tying it to a company with a higher perceived value ... hence, the bundling of Jag and RR/LR as a company sale. I've not tracked the management, procurement, and design issues that Ford had with RR/LR as I have with Jaguar, but looking at the product line-up during the years of Ford ownership, I infer that similar gov't interference was a primary factor in the very rapid divestiture of the company.

From a marketing and manufacturing standpoint, one recognizes that Ford is not simply a USA manufacturer, but a worldwide player with a significant presence established in the European area of the world. They really lost a lot of money on their venture into upline Brit car marques.

[Fargobound]

Previous owners 1948–1967 Rover Company
1967–1968 Leyland Motor Corporation
1968–1986 British Leyland Motor Corporation
1986–1988 Rover Group
1988–1994 British Aerospace
1994–2000 BMW
2000–2008 Ford Motor Company

Current owner Tata

[blacktothefuture]

Originally Posted by crestliner

Years ago while on a trip we came upon a bad accident. A brand new range rover had over heated and the driver was forced to pull over into the emergency lane and stop. A few minutes later an eighteen wheeler drifted off of the road and hit the rover knocking it into a ditch. The woman driving it was hurt and HER SMALL CHILD KILLED. This says allot about why these POS have a bad reputation.....note it was new and still not dependable.

How exactly is that a reason op shouldn't buy a Range Rover. She could have easily flipped a Lincoln Navigator or been caught in the middle of a drug war with both sides shooting from the hip

[SoHoVe]

Originally Posted by blacktothefuture

How exactly is that a reason op shouldn't buy a Range Rover. She could have easily flipped a Lincoln Navigator or been caught in the middle of a drug war with both sides shooting from the hip

I would say the "note, it was brand new and still not dependable" was pretty obviously the point of that comment.

Just sayin'

:-)

I'm not familer with Range Rovers recent realiability...NICE LOOKING vehicles though. If realiability ranks very high on the OP's list of wants in a vehicle ( like use for frequent cross country travel) I would say they probably should consider something else for the money. If the purchase would be more for image than practicality its probabaly fine. I've come across many people who have said they were quite happy with them.

[blacktothefuture]

Originally Posted by SoHoVe

I would say the "note, it was brand new and still not dependable" was pretty obviously the point of that comment.

Just sayin'

:-)

I'm not familer with Range Rovers recent realiability...NICE LOOKING vehicles though. If realiability ranks very high on the OP's list of wants in a vehicle ( like use for frequent cross country travel) I would say they probably should consider something else for the money. If the purchase would be more for image than practicality its probabaly fine. I've come across many people who have said they were quite happy with them.

My point was that being hit by an eighteen wheeler was a freak occurrence. But really when you buy a Range Rover you expect it to spend a long time in the shop

[DELL37]

My buddies 2012 Evok was nothing but problems. In the year he owned it he put less than 3000 miles on it as it was in the shop.

During that time he was given loaners to drive. One of the loaners died at a stop light and refused to start.

After a year of headaches he sold it and bought a Lexus RX.

I personally wouldn't waste my money

[MountainGuy74]

I've only had two experiences with Land Rovers and Range Rovers. My cousin purchased a new Range Rover in 2011 and she spent more time in a loaner car than in her own since it was getting repaired for one thing or another at the dealership. Meanwhile I'm driving around in my 96 Suburban with 200K miles on it and have done nothing more than routine maintenance.

Other experience I had was I pulled a Land Rover out of a ditch with my Suburban. It happens often when city folk who buy these 4x4 vehicles come up to the mountains to try and do a bit of off roading and don't know what they are doing or what their vehicles are capable of doing so they end up getting their expensive toys stuck.

I know some may think negative when it comes to my Suburban but she's proven to be very reliable and even if something needed repair it will only cost a fraction of what a Rover will cost.

[City Guy997S]

Just an FYI the timing belts are snapping on the 2010-12's.....great if under warranty but really expensive if not!