Range Rover (L405) - experiences?
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 8,500
that looks like it would be scary.. you certainly would not want to get an engine light come on with reduced power half way up!!!.
btw i know JLR have a bad rep for customer services however i can only call it as i have experienced it and i must say Marshalls Jaguar/Land Rover in Cambridge have been great for me (so far, touch wood, cross fingers etc)...... that said i am currently in process of booking in for a service in the next few months so expect a rant from me when it all goes wrong
I know Range Rover have high running costs - too rich for me, my mate told me how much it cost him to sort the cylinder head on his and it was horrible!. BUT they are such nice cars and when inside them they are a step up from any other cars i have been in personally (including my ipace as well as various high end audi/BMW SUVs). There is a reason so many people with ludicrous amounts of money own them.
the only car i could compare it too would be (again not mine) my friends Bentley (in terms of OTT luxury).
Last edited:
I'd love a 7 series (or S Class). I really regret selling my F10 530d, I loved that car. Unfortunately I don't think a saloon is compatible with my requirements. My wife has a Tiguan but she wants a smaller car, we have a dog and child so need something larger. I'd have an estate, but I do a lot of night time driving back from client sites and being honest I do struggle with visibility with many other cars having LED/laser headlights pointing directly at my face. I much prefer driving the Tiguan in these situations over my M3. The sensible thing is I just use her car and she uses mine, but for me the Tiguan isn't exciting enough to keep me from looking at something quicker, it's quite small by the time the dog is in, and she doesn't like driving the M3.
I do really like the idea of taking the family & dog on camping weekends, hence the idea of a caravan. If I got something that can tow, then I could also get a small track/weekend car. I can put bikes on the back of a RR, put the dog in, and still have plenty of space for luggage. They're quick enough to keep me entertained. I guess the lack of driving dynamics compared to an M3 is something I will just have to deal with, or can be met by a weekend car. I've been looking at S2000's etc.
Insurance is an issue, I ran a quote on a P525, the cheapest quote was £600 or so but it was from a company I'd never heard of, and they wanted a telematics type box installed. Quotes from companies I did recognise were around £1000, which is what I currently pay for both cars! I haven't run a quote on a V8 diesel which is probably what I should be considering but the supercharged V8 sounds lovely and I've never owned a petrol V8. Reliability wise, I'd hopefully get one with sub 40k miles and keep a warranty on it. I don't see me doing more than 10k in a year, probably half that but who knows, if Europe trips are on the cards it could be more. I have no idea what the JLR warranty is like for used/older cars, and Marshall wanted to sell me their own warranty which was £1500 for 3 years beyond the first year. No idea if that's any good or not compared to the JLR one. Lots of reading to do and I am open to suggestions for other cars. I've considered an X5M50d, I've looked at the X7, Q7's etc also, but I really do fancy trying a RR.
The car I drove yesterday was shagged. I had no intention of buying it as it's white with oak/walnut interior so I didn't look at the service history, I just wanted to drive one. It had 26k miles on it, it hadn't been through prep but all wheels were curbed, it had scuff marks on the bumper, it had lots of small scratches around the dash etc. It clearly hadn't been nicely looked after.
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 Aug 2016
- Posts
- 4,983
- Location
- Third Earth
Whilst I admit not owning one personally, my family has. One example was my Uncle had a 2016 RR sport diesel (He had it at about 4 years old I think) and it was extremely problematic. EGR’S, Wheel bearings, Turbo, suspension, boot lid, all kinds of electrical issues to do with the handbrakes, headlights, sensors and seemingly going into limp mode more often than not. He spend thousands on it and eventually traded it in with an engine that bricked itself in Sevenoaks high street. £8k for a replacement engine and that’s where he drew the line.
They Look fantastic, when it goes, it was lovely and the cabin was so nice but the overal experience for him was a bad one.
Equally, my old boss had/has a 2013 Full fat diesel one from new and reckons it’s never missed a beat, but then he also reckons has spent a lot of ‘preventative maintenance.’ (He also has a BMW M8, Bentley Continetial GT, and some electric Merc)
I’m not a subscriber of his channel but this popped up in my YT feed. He doesn’t seem to be having much luck, but then he seems a bit of a numpty and had bought a 10 year old overfinch with various issues. TLDR, he’s attempting to hand back the car.
I personally wouldn’t have one based on family experiences.
They Look fantastic, when it goes, it was lovely and the cabin was so nice but the overal experience for him was a bad one.
Equally, my old boss had/has a 2013 Full fat diesel one from new and reckons it’s never missed a beat, but then he also reckons has spent a lot of ‘preventative maintenance.’ (He also has a BMW M8, Bentley Continetial GT, and some electric Merc)
I’m not a subscriber of his channel but this popped up in my YT feed. He doesn’t seem to be having much luck, but then he seems a bit of a numpty and had bought a 10 year old overfinch with various issues. TLDR, he’s attempting to hand back the car.
I personally wouldn’t have one based on family experiences.
Last edited:
sorry, but ‘tuber is a total muppet, I wouldn’t put any stock in anything he says. The fact he keeps referring to it as ‘his £145k RR’ is bad enough to begin with. He didn’t pay that for it
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 Aug 2016
- Posts
- 4,983
- Location
- Third Earth
I don’t. Let’s stick to the facts, in a month or so he’s having various issues as witnessed by the dashboard!sorry, but ‘tuber is a total muppet, I wouldn’t put any stock in anything he says. The fact he keeps referring to it as ‘his £145k RR’ is bad enough to begin with. He didn’t pay that for it
Facts, ok it’s 10+ years old with 115k miles on it. Bought from a dodgy dealer by a total twonk, so he can get more subs on his YT channel.
I think there’s more to learn about what cars not to buy, rather than all RRs are unreliable.
There's also the dramatization of it all. Yes you will come back to your car and the windows will be randomly rolled down, yes there will be lights on your dash that magically disappear for no reason. But that's all part of the charm of owning a RR
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 Aug 2016
- Posts
- 4,983
- Location
- Third Earth
Why are you repeating what I’ve already said in my reply? Seems like you’re trying to make a point but I’m unsure what it is. So, rather than keep on going back and forth, I’ll simply say….thanks?
a fine contribution, keep up the good work.
Why are you repeating what I’ve already said in my reply? Seems like you’re trying to make a point but I’m unsure what it is. So, rather than keep on going back and forth, I’ll simply say….thanks?
You should have stopped at your anecdotal refs, linking to that plum got me all worked up… these YouTubers with their biblical attention whoring.
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 Aug 2016
- Posts
- 4,983
- Location
- Third Earth
For your requirements it sounds like a large SUV would be ideal. The X7 is a good shout, they're more of a known quantity (for me) and I suspect it'll be better dynamically and probably more reliable too. There's just something about a Range Rover though, as you say!
The people I know with an L405 generally seem happy. They are not the kind of people who would tolerate a car regularly breaking down or having faults. I've not really spoken to them in detail about it, however. I am not really interested in these sensationalist YouTube videos about them, it's often attention-seeking people buying older cars at the bottom end of the market... it's not exactly a surprise things don't go smoothly.
You'll be doing well to insure any RR for sub £1k, so I don't think that sounds bad. Most big dealer groups are pushing their own extended warranties when you buy a car these days, looking into the smallprint, the vast majority are your typical used car warranties that are a bit hit and miss. 'Car Care Plan' seem to be the underwriter for many of them.
I saw some fairly dodgy examples when looking, many had that unpleasant wet dog smell, or had been used down some rough country roads. One had loads of scratches all over it, like it had been driven through hedges regularly. A serious machine polish would have sorted most of it, but it was quite grim!
You have to remember that of the people that can afford to buy these cars new, many actually use them. They are not pampered and polished, just to be used at weekends for casual jaunts.
As a kid, we had 3x classics over several years. They were used as daily transport and covered the length and breadth of the land during school holidays, packed to the gunnels. They were used on the farm occasionally too, though my folks stopped short of carrying animals in them. I don’t ever remember them breaking down or leaving us stranded.
The downfall with cars that have been well used, is that dealers rarely put the effort in to prep their cars prior to putting them on sale. Certainly no dealer car should smell of wet dog if prepped properly.
Btw you may be aware that Car Care Plan underwrite the official JLR extended warranty, certainly the LR bit anyway. Some JLR dealers offer a non-JLR third party extension, supposedly still underwritten by CCP, at a third of the cost. Whether that is worth the paper it’s written on however, is another matter. CCP quoted me £1600 p.a. for the official JLR warranty, once the manufacturer warranty expires. This includes breakdown assistance. It’s not far off what I’ve paid with Porsche and Mercedes, but it’s still a chunk of change.
As a kid, we had 3x classics over several years. They were used as daily transport and covered the length and breadth of the land during school holidays, packed to the gunnels. They were used on the farm occasionally too, though my folks stopped short of carrying animals in them. I don’t ever remember them breaking down or leaving us stranded.
The downfall with cars that have been well used, is that dealers rarely put the effort in to prep their cars prior to putting them on sale. Certainly no dealer car should smell of wet dog if prepped properly.
Btw you may be aware that Car Care Plan underwrite the official JLR extended warranty, certainly the LR bit anyway. Some JLR dealers offer a non-JLR third party extension, supposedly still underwritten by CCP, at a third of the cost. Whether that is worth the paper it’s written on however, is another matter. CCP quoted me £1600 p.a. for the official JLR warranty, once the manufacturer warranty expires. This includes breakdown assistance. It’s not far off what I’ve paid with Porsche and Mercedes, but it’s still a chunk of change.
At one point in the video he shows the car with its real reg plate, I whacked it into webuyanycar for a laugh and they offered £13k for it
I almost bought a brand new RR (L460 ?) on the basis of it being the most comfortable thing I’ve ever sat in, I could not believe how comfortable it was to sit in and drive around in, it was very impressive.
I may consider one again at some point, but I wouldn’t dare touch one that’s more than a few months old, especially now with everything getting 10x more complicated.
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 8,500
i totally get why you would worry about paying top dollar for such a car... so would i because the seller should have sorted all those things so you would never have seen them.
but think about it for a second... if your issue is that the vehicle was actually used for those things, rather than wasn't prepared properly for sale....... I would say the fault is the mindset of the people buying these for weird status symbols in London..... at their heart, driving down poorly maintained country roads and with a dog and stuff in the back is precisely what these cars should excel all - albeit for the toff farm/land owner who probably organises pheasant and grouse shoots not the farmhand who just works on the farm ........
The sad thing is that the proper working persons capable off roader, the defender has also gone up market meaning that Land Rover no longer do an every persons working vehicle and now all their cars are trying to cater for the 6 figure family income salaried people forcing normal people over to cheaper marques (my dad has a shogun which has been bullet proof and abused, a good alternative for a fraction of the price albeit not as posh).
Last edited:
It's more the fact I'd want one that's had an easy life, meaning it should be a nicer example and easier to own in the long term. Dealer prep is hit and miss, but it's not always a bad thing seeing a car before it's been prepped either...
Thought most of them spent their life cruising around London or on school runs, before being nicked.
Last edited:
Suspended
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 18,184
- Location
- Shakespeare’s County
I thought the royal mail used them to the absolute limits? or was that a story for a different thread?
What has Royal mail got to do with it and why would they buy JLR stuff? The letters would never get delivered lol. They bought Fords and now French ones...
Last edited: