We officially have a Range Rover in the family! Dad and I went out yesterday to pick up the replacement for his totaled GMC and we drove it a bit to get a feel for the car, so far I am very impressed with it and he loves it as well. This car is by far and away the best in class for many reasons I'll get into but suffice to say it's the S-class of SUVs, not the best at anything but such an impressive overall package that It can't be overlooked.


They did a great job cleaning her up!

I don't have all that much work to do other than a polishing pass for the most part

Right in front of that tail light there are some fine scratches but that's the worst of the items requiring correction

Looks great from all angles

Thank you to Mark at The Motor Collection, very pleasant to work with and manages a very curated lineup of cars. I had a great time just talking about his fleet!

Some seriously large (expensive) tires, they are a good matched set though so we have some time

Setting off

Stopped by my house after the drive


Because it just HAS to have these....oddly enough it is only for the front doors and very much designed to show off

Factory all weather mats


Digital dash, meh quality and is not instantly responsive but it's still nice I guess

Main screen

Lots of bleed/color shift. TFT no doubt....

Main beams are quite good

Highs are okay

The ONLY way to park a RR lol! We went to annoy my wife at her store

 

Congrats! The Range Rover in my view makes a great case for the best "if I could only have one vehicle, what should it be" option out there. Mine were excellent. The ride on the air suspension is stellar, supremely comfortable, great utility, unbelievably capable on and off pavement, great at towing and more. All of my JLR products (various Jaguars, Range Rovers and most recently my Land Rover) have all been reliable.

The Range Rover might just be the single best real-world all-round vehicle on the market.

 

Congrats to your dad, glad you brought it home. The Germans still have a massive advantage over the LR when it comes to electronic system integration but it just doesn't stop the Range Rover from being a must-have.

 

Congrats. The RR looks nice with the understated less is more styling. No crazy lines, creases or cladding needed.

 

for 6 years old that thing looks mint. congrats!

 

Looks really good.

Ok dumb question, if not made in germany where is Land Rover made?
I was pretty sure it is euro but where exactly I don't know.

I would flip out if my dad bought anything super charged at his age.
Most people drive slower as they get older. lol

 

Assembled in United Kingdom, although controlling owner is Tata Motors of India.

 

Congrats! It's really clean. Nice replacement for your family

 

Congrats! The full size Range Rover is still the best all around vehicle I’ve personally driven. And definitely the best suv personally from a combo of noise isolation, cabin, and refinement.

 

Okay so after a day and change with the car I can give a small review on what we think so far, I'll split everything up by section.

EXTERIOR

Well the easiest way to put is that this thing looks amazing, absolutely striking. Paint quality is 7/10 and very consistent, panel gap is very good as is the door weighting and feel. Soft close works easily and quietly, normal closing/opening is decent but there is a slightly hollow/tinny feeling if you close it with some force. Headlights look amazingly nice both at night and during the day, light pattern is very good on the absolute scale but the worst of our cars if I am comparing them head to head. Rims are the 21s, combined with the factory recommended tires the car rides very well but replacement costs are very high and I am not looking forward to picking a replacement set. The design of the rims and finish is very nice and appears to be quality....the lug nuts however are the idiotic capped style that always swell over time/cause me annoyance.

Trim and decorative bits look fantastic and have near no gaps/appear seamlessly fit into the next bit/panel, however that is where they stop impressing me. The hood/cowl trim, small "metal" trim near the lights, and A/B/C pillar trim are all cheap feeling and hollow to a taping motion, they are also not well secured and just in general gives off a feel of weakness and leaves you wondering when they are going to break off. They also have fading issues already at this age/miles and I will be replacing all of them, the last point of concern/lack of quality relative to the rest of the car is the door handles. I like very solid door handles with very strong "thunks" at both ends of travel even if I am normally very easy handed with them, these feel weak and light IMO. All these observations were shared between myself/dad/wife/two friends and we had cars next to each other to try out the same things one after the other. The last thing I'll complain about is the puddle/accent/mood lighting, there just isn't much and it doesn't fade in/out and the hue doesn't match, not a big deal but I honestly expected better.

That said however don't get me wrong, it is exceptionally nice and it really is well built but I am comparing it to my other $100k plus cars as well as my Lexus products. Against any lesser/normal car it is flat out superior, the sequoia for example feels like a cheap tin can next to this!

INTERIOR

The seating position makes everything else irrelevant. Period. Done. Nothing to discuss. The way you sit in a Land rover is simply the best, you feel higher than anything else but not in a "exposed" way and sightlines are amazing with the Range Rover being the perfect embodiment of this "command seating" concept since it has the ride, power, and handling to back up the feeling of authority you feel when sitting in one. Nothing else feels like this so therefore nothing else matters and any issues this car may have with quality, features, execution, and systems effectiveness for their jobs is eclipsed by how good it feels to captain this car. Anyway....overall materials quality is high but there are some trim fit issues and plastic areas, nothing bad enough to stand out and crazy nice for the class but against flagship cars I would say it is 80-90% of the way there for the most part if we leave the W12 out of it. My main complaint is that I am used to seeing higher attention to detail and SOLID fit of parts/trim ala Lexus LS/Audi A8 since those are my standard of how an interior should be put together, even with me being particular though this thing has a very nice selection and application of materials not just for the class but period.

The seats themselves are PERFECTLY padded and have an excellent contour to them, leather quality and piping/binding quality are both top tier. Adjustment wise the switchgear feels cheap and not placed in the best location, there also aren't as many adjustments as I have become used to but the side bolsters are air adjusted and again the feel of the seats is superb and comfort level is zero issues at all. Rear seats are firmer but still very nice, I have no idea if they would still be nice over 6 hours but I think they will be okay. They are only heated in the back and have no real adjustments but that is perfectly okay since this is not an AB trim level or SV so that's our fault for being cheap/not caring. Interior lighting is "eh" there is no drama or effect and a very sparse amount of light sources overall with nothing like an LS with it's seemingly endless araay of small lights everywhere to light everything you would want to interact with. I found myself using my phone light a few times to find stuff I wasn't sure of location, the overhead/dome lights are also a strange electrocapacitive system that doesn't have a well marked zone to activate. Footwell lighting was good, I am uncertain if the lighting is adjustable since I have not yet read the manual but then again that leads to my real problem with this interior space. Oh the headrests are manually adjusted......took us over 10 min to realize that we weren't missing a menu setting or control somewhere and to try just moving them by hand, peak 1st world problems I know....

The tech sucks. Seriously. It's slow, confusing, had bad input methods and absolutely stupid menu setup for the central screen. Did I mention it is slow? You can EASILY tap 3-5 times on something before it actually does what you want and since it's a damn touch screen you have to hover your hand there when driving and look at wtf the system is doing. This is compounded by the fact you NEED TO USE THE SCREEN FOR CERTAIN FUNCTIONS. IMO this is moronic. I have become very very used to my A8s where you can do anything blind/near zero arm movement due to how well laid out the controls are and how many direct action buttons you have, this thing is the opposite and most certainly not a driver/drive centric car. It's a big blingy screen that I'm sure was the new hotness in 2016 but it's just dated junk now that I hate using with no added value to the driving experience so carplay mode it is. Disappointing. I actually like the system in the Audis since it is very fast and has no BS useless features and was very clearly designed to be used without needing to look at the controls, this system I do not like at all due to the waste of time interacting with it is. Screen quality was also worse than the A8s somehow, lots of TFT light bleed and overall didn't present nearly as "physical" as the screens in the Audis. I think it's a combo of UI and screen element sizing etc but the end result is that no one liked it much and we would have rather just had an iPad or something quality.

Switchgear overall was okay, some felt cheap like the gloveboxes and their buttons or the start/stop button. Paint is already faded off the start button and the upper glovebox has that "hollow" sound when closed, the lower feels flimsy but sounds/feels much nicer and at the end of the day the fact it has dual boxes overshadows the bonus box not being the best. Turn signal stalk was very nice, well damped both on/off and has a good sound and weighting to it, washer stalk was a little cheap feeling for buttons but it was also good. HVAC dials were excellent as was the main gear shifter, I really like the shifter and would gladly take it in my other cars. Super smooth yet frim with an overall elegant interaction when used, the best rotary shifter I have ever used and it imparts a good sense of occasion. Wheel face controls feel not just cheap for the price range but cheap period, comparable to a ford except for the wheel heat button. That one is nice and is how they should all feel IMO and it's not just this car, all 5 we looked at felt consistent. Same goes for window switches, they just aren't on the level of flagship cars and while disappointing I more than accept this due to the similar price yet astounding off-road capability the RR brings to the table. Oh and the seating position.

That makes all forgiven but I'll digress to more important matters such as HVAC performance or lack thereof. My dad actually called me today to ask if something was wrong with the car on his way to my house off work at 5pm since the AC was not able to counteract the 97* sunny day we had, turns out it just doesn't have the outright power to do so in a black RR and lord have mercy the fans on all speeds are loud and you can hear both blend doors and zone doors moving. If I said the A8s have loud fans vs the LSs then this thing has LOUD fans vs the A8s, I will no longer complain that I can actually hear the German cars fans at 1/3 speed after hearing the RR at 1/2 speed yet alone full. Solution in this case is full tint work and a dash/windscreen sun visor, my dad was still surprised since his black A8 never has issues with perfect climate and the other remark was that the cooled seats don't work and just make noise. I'll be checking them for filters etc but I think they are the typical push though type not the pull though we are both used to in German stuff that actually works great.

Storage and interior space is SUPERB, I could never bring my self to use one of these as a work truck but damn do I want to since it would do the job exceptionally well. The air suspension is magic and entry mode is fast, silent, and you never even notice it working. Exceptional execution of the SUV concept in every ergonomics standpoint including rifles/gear etc, this thing just works perfectly as an SUV right down to the door sills not being hit by boots in areas that can mess up paint. As much as it may have sounded like I am picking the car apart I am again comparing it to my other $100K-200K cars and yeah, it doesn't compare to flagships cars for quality and features but that's unreasonable to think it would due to it's off road powers. In every aspect other than the few I have singled out this car stands above as the best in class 100%

DRIVING/PERFORMANCE


So yeah, the above video sums it up well lol! Sucker MOVES for something of its size and weight, the 510hp 5.0 Supercharged engine and ZF8 speed trans work very very well together and there is zero lag, zero fuss, with the resulting feel being like a simply massive V8 engine unlike a turbo engine. 5200lb weight with this much power is very decent, the trans does have protection on a launch and the 1-2 2-3 shifts I have noticed and sometimes doesn't allow a full redline shift but that is to be expected with the weight and all. Brakes are really underpowered vs what I am used to, relative performance is worse than an LS430 but I am not sure how much of this is tires vs brake size etc. The active anti-roll bars are as usual black magic that makes this massive SUV handle nearly perfectly flat, hell it's so flat that it becomes hard to get a read on where you are vs the limit.....not that you really should be pushing that hard but it's shocking for what it is the kind of moves you can pull. I am extremely impressed overall that an SUV can provide this type of driving experience and the engine is the star of the show for sure! The 5.0 makes the car vs the 3.0 and I have no idea why the 3.0 was even offered to be honest, it's junk and shouldn't be considered if you are at all serious about having that top tier car sort of driving experience. The super makes great noises and has a direct sound pipe to the cabin to let whine in, no fake noises for this beast! MPG? Who cares! It's an $105K super SUV, just fill it and stop asking questions. (10.3-14.1 mpg)

Oh there is however one small issue with the driveline....

https://youtube.com/shorts/sPIZHECOcUg?feature=share

He wants it dead so I will be disabling the system at the hardware level so the engine can't be deactivated unless he shuts it off. I totally agree with Dad on this, it is a moronic system that does nothing but instill panic over a failed engine, slows you down at a stop, is jerky, lowers engine lifespan, and ruins the feeling of power. Should have never been included, I have the same thoughts on the system in the 4.0TT A8s we have but quite frankly that system again is more seamless than this one is so we mostly just disabled that in our cars to avoid loss of oil pressure related scuff wear. Let me once again stress how responsive this engine/trans combo is, it is so good that it almost drew a comparison to the W12 as far as immediacy goes. It is short on torque vs a 12 but when revved up and in the right gear it is very very close the the same feeling. Do not ever by the V6, buy the 5.0 and MPG be damned.

Moving on to dynamics the SUV is well balanced and has a good response to inputs, it is not sharp/wired like a German car would be but more like a Lexus LS. Turn in is just ever so slightly delayed and lazy but very direct and with a strong off center feel I didn't expect from a car of this size/weight, roll is near zero due to the active anti-roll system to an almost disruptive extent since feedback you may be used to is just not there. You just start to slide into understeer while having zero roll with VSC on, VSC off it actually is prone to oversteer under power in a pleasant way but I am not ever going to try a roundabout drift in this like I have done in all my actual cars. Weight shift front/back is good, the air springs do their job and allow squat under power/launch and control dive well for the weight. Brakes are okay, bite is delayed though and modulation is somewhat difficulty but with some more time it would not be an issue. This SUV does NOT drive its size, weight, or class to be very very very clear, it 100% drives like a car in almost every respect and it is wonderful to experience. You can't flick it around like you can an actual car but it's insane how it also does road performance well considering how many "hats" the thing already wears! I really understand why so many people consider this the best single car solution to everything you could possibly need other than MPG since we don't have the 4.4L diesel here in the states. Crazy capable car!

As far as vs same price cars it has zero chance, a 60 roll vs the W12 left the RR standing still and via phone link to the RR Dad only hit 77 were I was at 100 already. Same story from a dead launch, the RR might as well have been standing still.....the 4.0TT cars murder it so badly it is comical and resulted in laughing at how idiotic our cars are for daily driving usage. Oh, the Range Rover though is still fast AF. It does to 95% of traffic what the A8s do to it, so it's totally still able to crush the peasantry into submission and lesser SUVs defer to your authority lol! Thing is intimidating as hell in traffic and people move out of your way when you come up on them, something like this is not supposed to move the way it can and lord do people notice a full size RR when it does. Road presence is nearly unmatched and exceeds the A8s with ease, only my W12 has a similar effect once the badges are noticed. 9/10 performance rating there from me!

Interior NVH is truly car-like, wind noise is higher but that is to be expected due to profile and outright size. Even still it is an amazingly nice ride in all aspect and very much outclasses everything else in its class including the LX and that's not even counting the amazingly superior handling response and outright power. Wind noise is near zero under 90mph, the road imperfections are absorbed EXACTLY like a flagship car with just a hair more "edge" and intrusion but again I am being particular and picking it apart. Road undulations are the only aspect the cars have a distinct advantage in comfort because they are shorter with a lower seating position. This is an ultra quiet and comfortable car.

Every aspect of performance is well above average if not outright excellent and the only things this car can lose against it will defeat in other areas with EASE. I really think the Range Rover is deserving of its title as best in class and in my mind has won the title of best SUV period. I want one.

 

Regarding the infotainment lag, you have a couple of versions back from the current gen infotainment which is significantly improved. I think there was a major upgrade for the 2018 MY before the big one when they switched to PiviPro. If I remember right, your software is upgradeable, and it was still being updated up until around 2022. Reportedly it ended up being pretty usable. You might just need to look into that. The Range Rover forums have details.

 

So much of what you said still applies to my facelift model.

I can safely say PiviPro is an improvement but still sucks.

 

Congrats! Yeah I love Range Rovers, best all around vehicle somebody can buy? I would agree with that...seating position is really like nothing else...

They have LONG struggled with tech and infotainment

 

Nice review. Maybe I will check one out when our X7 lease is up. I like RR but it’s still not pulling me like I want it to but maybe that will change when I test drive one. I may still buy out my lease if I can’t find something I like better and it’s not like I love the X7 either.

My PPF guy had a RR Sport SVR when I was there a couple weeks ago and that thing looked incredible.

 

Try one! I didn't go into this expecting to be impressed but it really is an top tier car, feels much better than an X7 as far as emotion etc...