X5 and Range Rover pros & cons

[grover432]

Originally Posted by deutsch100

It sounds like your friend's experience with his Range Rover(s) was just like my experience with my '07 X5 3.0si and my '08 X5 4.8i and our 2007 750Li and my 2006 330i! Honestly out of the 25+ cars my spouse and I have had in the last 15 years, my 2 E70s were the most problematic, troublesome cars I have ever had. Nonstop warning lights, failures, electronic freezes/glitches, malfunctioning transmission, multiple repair "attempts" for the same problem again & again. I'm not saying, nor do I believe, my new Range Rover HSE is perfect, nor do I believe it will never see a Service Dept. What I do know, is that so far in the 40+ days I've had the Range Rover, I've had NOT one warning lamp or message, no electronic glitches, no breakdowns, no rattles or anything else that seems "off". With both my E70s, the first month of ownership saw multiple WEEKS of Service Dept. visits (with most problems not being resolved). With my '07 E70, I drove a Dealership X3 3.0si longer than I was able to physically drive my own X5. Serious!! Yeah, Land Rover is not known for their flawless reliability, but since 2006, especially 2008-2009, Land Rover (especially The Range Rover) has had superb reliability. Yes, I agree that The Full Size Range Rover has horrible resale value. Oddly, their LR3 has pretty good retained value, but yeah the retained value on my Range Rover will be absolutely dreadful. Honestly, though, I buy and/or lease because I love the car, and don't worry about 2-4 years down the road. Life's kinda short, and not everything can be practical, and financially perfect

Like I wrote earlier, if you don't mind blowing the dough with no resale, then enjoy. haven't owned a BMW since 2004 (540iA) and that car was close to perfect while the earlier ones were problematic in one way or another. It seems that BMW does a fair bit of R&D at the ownership level, which is too bad. The current HSE has alot of british engineering in it, some BMW dna and a change to Ford and now Tata. With all of that bouncing around and lack of resources to continue to R&D the product and improve it, the Range Rover has little hope of seing major improvement as time goes on. BMW on the other hand is well positioned in the current environment and the E70 of today is much beter than it was a few years ago when it was re introduced. I don't see too many major complaints on this board compared o the Range Rover forums.

It's a great driver though, so if it doesn't spend too much time in the repair shop I'm sure you'll enjoy it!