3rd row seats you got right?

Yes, I know that the current Range Rover was designed and developed when BMW owned the Land Rover group and while some parts are the same the Range Rover tailgate is not the same as the E53 tailgate. And, either way, Range Rovers have had two-piece split tailgates since 1970, nearly 30 years before the E53 came out.

Few points that may help. You only get load leveling if you order the 3rd row seat option.

Active steering isn't a option on the diesel, nor is active cruise. You do get use to the heavier steering after a day or so ... now I really like it.

As for the comment about the 2009 v 2010 diesel you drove. There should be no difference. Sounds like the 2009 had some issues that needed addressing.

My 2 Cents
 

APW 2607 is correct in noting that SRS (Self-leveling Rear Suspension) is packaged with the 3rd row seat option. There are two down-sides to 3rd row seat. First, parents of munchkins will want you to haul their brats around. Second, selecting it means you cannot get a factory (donut) spare, so you are pretty much stuck with RFT's for the life of the vehicle.

The fact that your Senior Client Advisor did not know this is troubling - it's been that way since the E70 was introduced in MY 2007.

You note the difference in MSRP between the JGC and the X5, which I guess is relevant if you are paying cash, but even then, only in the short run. I would expect the resale / residual on the Jeep to be pretty abyssmal, and for the leasing deals to be pretty unattractive. No data points on this, but a pretty strong hunch. Similarly, if you are financing, I would think the trade-in value of the two brands would be vastly different 3 years down the road.

Don't forget that 4 years of maintenance is included in the X5's price. We had 3 JGC's and, while the parts prices and labor rates were relatively low, the Jeeps spent a LOT of time in the shop for brakes, wheel bearings and the likes. I'm on my 6th BMW (3rd X5) and I don't think I've ever paid a dime in repair costs. Life is good.

Finally, the thing that drove me away from Jeep (first to an XC-90, then to X5's) was the photos of rollovers and fatalities, the most famous being Seymour Cray, inventor of the Cray Supercomputer. In way too may cases, the A Pillar / windshield support collapsed like spaghetti, all the way back to the B Pillar, with predictably fatal head trauma. (I find it troubling that you can find almost anything on Google, but the photos of Cray's crashed Jeep have all disappeared.....)

Statistically the odds of a fatal rollover are probably pretty low, but I did not want to risk it with my wife or kids. (The engineering may be better now, but those photos left an indelible impression). If you Google "X5 Crash Photos" I think you will be awed by the integrity of the passenger compartment (like this 100 mph crash one, where: "Driver walked away without a scratch"):

http://www.wreckedexotics.com/x5/x5_20071003_001.shtml

:nanana: Of course the TAILGATE is not the same sheet metal silly!! I thought by listing the shared parts, you knew what I meant. If you open the tailgate to a 1999-2006 X5 and then to a 2003-2011 Full Size Range Rover...you will see that besides from the shape/design of the glass/metal...the tailgates are basically identical. Hinges, button that opens the bottom part of the tailgate, materials, etc....

Yes, but Range Rover still didn't source their tailgate from BMW, either in the metal or the concept, regardless of the shared tailgate hardware of the current generation Range Rover and E53. And, either way, as I keep on saying, Range Rover had a horizontally-split tailgate 30 years before BMW had an SUV. Remember, BMW owned Range Rover for five years or so (could be six) before the E53 appeared.

This may not apply to this new Grand Cherokee. The 2011 JGC is an all-new generation vehicle and not related to the older JGCs at all. The platform is basically the same as the current ML Mercedes-Benz, I believe.

Interesting what you say about Jeep re-sale value though. Here in Australia they have no re-sale value at all. Cheap as chips. Something that you can't say about second-hand X5s.

Yeah, Rangies have had split tailgates for quite some time. And yes, the E53 came out about 30 years after the RR!

BMW just bought and used Land Rover to educate themselves about building a better SUV than the Mercedes ML (MBZ beat BMW to the luxury SUV race a year earlier). Land Rover and it's employees were and still are mad at BMW for buying them, getting the X5 off the ground and then leaving the company for dead! BMW never tried to make Land Rover profitable...they just used them!

I had a 2008 Range Rover & we now have a 2011 Range Rover. Besides the tailgate parts being the SAME as the E53 :) there are many, many E53 parts still in the Range Rover. Actually some parts in my E70, I can even recognize in our '11 Range Rover!!

Since day one actually, not just for some time. The year was 1970.