2011 Lr4

[netstalker]

I have been looking at a LR4 on the east coast. I really like it and as any potential LR buyer I was somewhat scared off by reliability issues as in the gun trade I have made my living off of fixing European guns and modifying them for over 30 years. Currently most of Europe has outsourced to China and not the good China you could find if you looked hard enough and pay a fair price to get quality which really does exist.

Now go to Yahoo auto consumer review section and punch in the Honda Pilot and you would never buy one as Honda is taking a beating and reviews are just that. Most often the reviewer is clueless and does not know good from bad.

My issue with my "local" LR dealer ( 40 miles away -) is they are very evasive. They do not want to come off more than a $1000 on a LR4 and bring in everyone with the Climate package. Even on the LR2. OK, thats the way it is. But I also have a 2009 car with 3800 miles on it and it is as new and they are $3K off the trade in value everyone else offered.

Next- very evasive on prices for service. I simply asked on the pricing for routine service and got the blow off. They do nothing to alleviate any concerns or to make you comfortable with dropping 55-60K.

Mileage? I simply asked the sales guy who drives one daily what he averages and he responded, " People that buy these do not care about the cost of gas." I told him excuse me but I'm well healed myself and my customers tend to be very well healed and many rich folks I know are cheap bastards. Said tongue and cheek but honestly folks, when they come to me for a luxury item, they never pay retail and 90% refuse to pay wholesale- LOL!

You also don't see poor folks driving Hybrids. You see well to do folks driving them because the car cost does not bother them but little things like gas and maintenance do.

I love the LR4 but I also know that it maybe foolish on my part because I will be the one with reliability issues, a bad dealership, and I'll have to beat myself for doing something I know is bad for me. Blame all of those Safari shows I watched as a kid.

Also I'm just explaining my experiences. I'm a no nonsense type of business guy myself. I do not tolerate stupidity and foolishness and growl often but I will explain things in detail and supply info and do the right thing always as it is the easiest thing to do. But my LR dealer blows- for real- LOL

 

[netstalker]

Also the sales guy kept trying to sell me everything that was a 2010 service loaner. Then I started to get this sick feeling. They had maybe 20 cars on the lot- 10 of which were service loaners. Really. Now the LR2 I was offered had 3500 miles on it and they gave me a no haggle $6K off. But it was too tight in the back seat and uninspiring as a car goes. It was tightly built and a nice SUV, but not much room and the Volvo style I6 does make I4 noises but has more smoothness. I did drive it maybe 20 miles and the MPG indicator said 19.6 mpg not bad for much stopping and starting.

But the LR4 for some reason sucks you in and the RR Sport as well. I was also the only customer there in the 2 hours it all took. Reminds me of the 1986 Acura I once purchased at $1K over MSRP- no deals. Well fast forward, this time I better get a fair deal, as age dictates not paying MSRP or over anymore.
Anyone else not feeling the LR dealership love?

 

[Blimms]

As I was shopping for my LR4.............I was offered a $1500.00 discount and that was after being a repeat customer.

 

[netstalker]

Yeah $1500, your guy must know my guy
Thxs for letting me know- appreciate it.
Jim

 

[ougrad1]

LR is just now starting to "ramp up" their production as demand for the LR4 is pretty high. It's also actually been much more reliable at this age than the LR3 per true delta, which I would recommend all of you join to continue to offer everyone real world reliability info.

I ended up buying one of the loaners on a 2010 LUX and through negotiations, got it for $10k off the MSRP, which was about $5K below invoice and had them do the oil change and replace the breaks(they gave me the old breaks too as they still had over half the pad life).

My experience with LR here in Dallas has been fantastic. They have been nothing short of bending over backwards for me. I found a speaker that was humming on certain tracks where heavy midbass was present and they are ordering a new speaker for me and will pick up my car and bring me a loaner for the day.

I don't think it's fair to broadstroke LR dealers and it sounds like yours is a little arrogant about their product. Good luck to you and hopefully you can get your concerns addressed as it's a wonderful vehicle so far for me.

 

[LR4mywife]

I've posted this many times (over the past couple of months), but I guess I'll post it one more time!

I leased a 2010 LR4 LUX HSE back in July. We could not track down the exact color and equipment level vehicle we were looking for, so the dealer offered us a spectacular deal on a 3 week old service loaner that had 700 miles on it, prior to him letting us take it over night. We kept the vehicle two days and put almost 200 miles on it. It had the video DVD system which we didn't want, but it was one of the colors that we were mildly interested in. The dealer offered us $3500 off any LUX he had on the lot (two) which were not the colors we wanted, and or he offered to trade another dealer and give us the same discount, minus the shipping costs to transfer the vehicles back and forth (about $600). Still he could not find the exact one we wanted, so he simply made us on offer ($4900 off) the very new service loaner. He only had two service loaners (LR4's) and this one was pretty loaded. We were ecstatic with the deal, and jumped all over it. We now have almost 7000 miles on the vehicle and no troubles to speak of. Very happy, and so far, very content with the local AD. I'm even considering the LR2 as a replacement for my leased CTS this coming February. I say, find another dealer, or strike a deal with this one.

Oh, the maintenance costs are high......about $110 per oil change, and about $1000 (I've heard of anywhere between $800 and $1200) for a brake job. So far our mileage has been about 16 to 17 MPG, but on longer trips, she'll pull around 19. I'm used to that as our previous vehicles were a Navigator, and a POS BMW X5 3.0 which got only 15 MPG because it was such a DOG that I was always "getting into" the accelerator! The Navi only got about 13 MPG on a good day, so I feel like I'm coming out on top.

Good luck,

Joe

 

[netstalker]

Thanks guys!
Joe- thxs for the info. I use to do all the maintenance on my vehicles in the day when great oil was cheap. Nearing 50 now with some issues and much business responsibility I understand $110 for an oil change is not cheap but then again they give you one free and its about 9 quarts of expensive oil. But $110 is not like $300 some companies charge you for an oil change. Brakes do seem expensive and they seem not too last so long. I'm super easy on brakes. I remember taking my Acura in and they checked the brakes at 65,000 miles and could not believe I had so little wear on them. I mostly coast if you know what I mean and avoid the city. Thanks for all of your insights.

I got to thinking about the LR resale issues. I also have been a member of true delta and maybe I read it wrong but the LR4 looked to be pretty reliable from what I had read.
I wonder if the low resale value may have less to do with the reliability of LR and instead the limited dealer network and high priced maintenance.

Lets face it, if you buy an old LR, you have guts or deep pockets. Maybe that is what the low resale is really about? Thanks all.
Jim

PS- Yes I think my salesman may have had a bad day. I will give him another shot and I'm not looking for a steal, just a fair trade in and some basic answers to a few warranted questions.

 

[netstalker]

Just another thought.
As I had said my dealer kept pushing me into service loaners with 3500-4500 miles on them. Every time I asked to see a color or a model he started his "great deal" loaner spiel.
I wonder if this is because they really want to sell LR's that have been already debugged and they are confident they will be trouble free????????????????

On another note- I find this hard to believe but the dealer said this year that over 80% of the leases were purchased by the owners and not turned back in. I can only think that instead of the obvious it was a bad economy and a new one was $50-$60K and their old one only required $15-$20 to keep???????

 

[LR4mywife]

I can comment on that a bit further! Our (my wife and I's) best friends leased an RRS back in 2006. It had an MSRP of around $65k at the time. They got a terrific deal on their lease, and the buy out at the end was put at $27k. Fast forward for four years (terms of their lease). They've had only one problem (mechanical) with the truck and have 52k miles on it. The problem was a TPM Sensor, covered under warranty. They also put a new set of tires and brakes on the vehicle (actually on their second set of tires), with the brakes being done around 35K. They got a local shop to order the parts and install the brakes for $800.00 (our local dealer, wanted more like $1200). Other then that, no issues at all. Their lease just expired in Sept. They negotiated with LR on the residual pricing and ended up buying with excellent financing for two years for only $24k. He calculated that with all his lease payment, and now finance payment he still will have less then $60K in the truck after 6 years (less then MSRP). He also figures he'll have around 70K miles on it and it will still be worth something, at the end of his finance payments. He debated on "not" buying it, but really....at only $24k for a like new, no issues RRS. Can't beat that. What's more, he has never paid for any maintenance on the vehicle as back in 2006 LR offered complimentary scheduled maintenance for all their vehicles. He feels he got a pretty good deal, and will spend 6 or 7 years in a drop dead gorgeous SUV that performs really well in our northern bad weather conditions. He said, if he had to drop a few thousand dollars in it over the next couple of years, it'd still be worth it.

That's partly why we made the decision to go with LR over other brands. My friend was the second friend I've had that's had LR's and loved them, with no issues or ill will towards the brand. So far, our decision has been the right one. We could not be happier, and have had no issues. I'm looking forward to some "bad weather" and seeing how the beast performs in the snow. I live in WI, and the last couple of years we've had record or near record snow falls. I took our LR4 off-road down a trail this past Sept. and it wasn't even remotely tested for capability. Looking forward to more rigorous off-roading this coming spring and summer.

Good luck with your decision!

Joe

 

[netstalker]

Thanks Joe,
I am now waiting on the dealers response to my very fair offer.
I really have no other LR dealer that is close and I do have a trade in or I would just buy one and get it shipped here. Great lease info-thxs
Jim