seems to me the LR’s are just not built very well AM I WRONG?

[gmoney]

I am a new LR owner and I am getting a little concerned reading some of these comments.
I have owned many luxury cars and accustomed to paying a little higher price for service due to the name.

It seems to me the LR’s are just not built very well, and extremely expensive to maintain. AM I WRONG? I seems the brakes and rotors do not last very long, one post said they had to spend $7500.00 on a repair, it seems to me if this vehicle is able to cross mountains it certainly would be built better than this.

Is situation with the comments on the site more the norm or the exception?

PS I use mine for city driving only, no over the mountain trips for me.

2005 LR3

 

[gtc]

You should keep in mind that as with just about all automotive sites, you'll find people coming here looking for solutions to their problems. It's a bit more rare for someone to come on and say they've been driving for x years with no problems...

That being said, LRs have historically been less reliable then almost all other vehicles available in the US. The LR3 seems to have turned that trend around, and the RRS (same platform) follows suit; I'm not sure about the FFRR, but I suspect it's better then the older Range Rovers as well. For better feel for reliability, I'd check out a site like TrueDelta (search this forum, and you'll find posts from Michael Karesh, who is affiliated with the site).

The other factor (and I hope this isn't an insult to anyone), is that traditionally LRs have been pretty expensive vehicles and not on the shopping list for most of the population - the people that could traditionally afford them tended to be able to more easily afford the repairs (or at least except it as part of the ownership) at the dealership, along with the servicing OR were enthusiasts who made the trade off of reliability for extreme off-road performance. Now that you can cross shop a 2 or 3 year old LR3 with just about any minivan, I've found people purchasing them without being able to easily swallow the potential cost... Note, that I'm not excusing LR for quality issues - merely pointing out the reality of the situation.

One of the major differences with the LR3 is that some of the repairs could be extremely expensive - the technology is fairly specific to LR, and the vehicles aren't common, leading to a bit of a monopoly by the dealerships (ie, most independants can't handle the repairs).

If you are looking for colloquial stories, a neighbour of mine has a 4 year old Saturn Vue (2004) that is just out of warranty; the transmission has decided to implode, and the cheapest quote he has received for repair is $6500. The vehicle isn't even worth $6500, so it's basically just a peice of scrap junk to him after 4 years and 65k miles of driving. He wound up buying a 2008 Kia minivan as he has a few rugrats and his brother-in-law is a salesman at a Kia dealership - he felt he was getting a good deal, until his wife and mine took the kids out in our LR3; she couldn't believe the quality difference (and the features), and our LR3 (2 years old) was 8k cheaper then their new Kia...

That's the end of my ramble....

Cheers,

GTC

 

[gmoney]

thanks

 

[gtc]

thanks

No problem; for brakes and rotors, there are plenty of threads, but the consensus seems to be that the LR3 is simply a heavy vehicle and will chew through them more quickly; of course you also pay for performance; on the BMW boards it's quite common for people to chew through brakes more quickly then the LR3 on vehicles that way half as much, but the performance is nearing super-car territory in distance (though not long-term track-ability!), and most are happy. I also believe I recall seeing someone who had quoted a price for replacement from Costco - which was less then half the price of the dealership. For DIY folks, it's even cheaper...

 

[nwoods]

I answered here: http://forums.landroverworld.org/showpost.php?p=74085&postcount=9