What’s the deal with Range Rovers?
 

Last night the wife comes across one on Facebook Marketplace.

Looked really clean, reasonable mileage, and from this decade.

They were asking $2,400

I looked and said that’s surely a typo, gotta be a zero missing.

Having my morning coffee and just for ****s and giggles did a search.

I was shocked to see how many were in the $5k or less range.

They sure don’t seem to hold their value.

Are they really that craptastic?

Bad reputation, for sure. But we had a pretty good experience.

My wife owned two Range Rover Sports during a 9 year period. An ‘08 from 2010-2015 and an ‘12 from 2015-2019. She put about 50k miles on both of them.

Bought the ‘08 in 2010 for about $40k. Sold it for $19k in 2015 with 90k miles on it.
Bought the ‘12 in 2015 for about $42k. Sold it for $20.5k in 2019 with 75k miles on it.

During her 100k miles between the two vehicles, we incurred approx $6k of repairs/unscheduled non-wear item maintenance. Not bad but also about 5x more than my Lexus cars which I also put 2x more miles on during the same period or time.

My wife’s SIL had an 09 Range Rover Sport Supercharged version. That was a money pit POS. But my wife’s cars held up pretty good.

They are definitely better than they used to be, but short of someone giving me one, I wouldn't bite. They have a long and well deserved history of high maintenance and repair costs. Also other than the dealer very, very few indie shops work on them. Definitely have to have a OE spec scan tool / software to do anything diagnostic wise.

they are really that craptastic - adding more and more electronics to a British car???

who let the smoke out?

Just get a Macan S. I freaking love that little SUV. Tires set me back 1.8K though.

Drove a Macan for a week, and what a sweet side. They hold their value better than the majority of SUVs and there is a reason for that. Wish I had the coin.

Range Rovers and their brethren have had the worst reliability ratings by the leading product evaluators (including JD Powers) for several decades and there is a reason for that too.

Wasn't their slogan, "Not the worst car in the world," for a while? :)

British metal sucks, and so do most of their motors (and electronics)

Thanks, pretty much confirmed my impression of them.

Interesting how they manage to stay in business.

It was, until they lost that false advertising lawsuit.

It seems like they stay in business by continually being sold to companies that have deep pockets and think they can make a go of it.

(They were owned by BMW in the 90s, who unloaded them to Ford in the 2000’s, who unloaded them to India’s largest car company, Tata, in the 2010s).

I believe even Tata finally had enough and unloaded them to a Chinese company. Both Land Rover and Jaguar are, I believe, teetering on bankruptcy at the moment, in spite of the influx of Chinese money.

Range rovers = Just Awful... Worse than 80s era Jags IMO.

On the early Disco's the rear windows are know to pop out for no reason. They fixed that on the later ones by using a better glue.
A common upgrade for the Disco was to replace the alternator with a Bosch from a VW VR6.

The Range Rovers? Brand new they look great but I've never liked the way the drive. (Top heavy feel, sluggish performance and awful braking) The Ford explorer is a much better vehicle.

I rented one in Miami (Range Rover Sport) and couldn't believe how bad it was. A moronic nav system, no room inside and the turning circle of a freighter- just for starters.

It wouldn't go, it wouldn't stop and it damn sure wouldn't turn.

I could not wait to give it back, absolute POS IMO.

If I remember correctly is BMW wanted the Mini name / rights to production. So that they could revive the Mini on their new platform and capitalize on the history. Problem was they had to take all the crap including Range Rover brand. BMW threw 10's of millions of $$$ at that SUV and never made any ROI. As a matter of fact, lost a fair chunk of dough and sold at a loss to Ford. Mini of course was successful but not sure if those gains were offset by the RR losses

A firm resting on the laurels of its past.

We were in South Africa on safari about 10 years ago. We were taken through the bush in these huge extended wheelbase Range Rovers. The driver said that they were switching over to an Indian company, Mahindra, because they were far cheaper and lasted longer than the RR. Tough, off road capability is part of the entire RR ethos. If you are losing in that space....they why do you exist? There are already a bazillion other luxury brands, with much better reputations.

In laws had an lr that was totaled out because the po drove it through a car wash and one of the sunroofs cracked. Seemed like a ticking time bomb.

Crap vehicles, but the soccer moms that drive them are hot

I see it time and time again. A friend buys one and says it's such a fantastic vehicle, loves everything about it... Six months later it's gone.

On Safari last February..... nothing but Toyota’s. Never saw a Range Rover.