Range Rover

Caller ID is a wonderful invention. The gadget allows you to see who is phoning before you pick up the receiver, so you can decide whether you would rather the person at the other end of the line talk to an answer-phone instead.

Auto Express Car Reviews

By Tom Barnard

July 2003

Caller ID is a wonderful invention. The gadget allows you to see who is phoning before you pick up the receiver, so you can decide whether you would rather the person at the other end of the line talk to an answer-phone instead.
Unfortunately for me, the technology has yet to filter through to the Auto Express office. So despite filtering calls, rustling paper in the background to make out the line had gone fuzzy and even pretending I'd emigrated to Bolivia, a man has come and taken away our Range Rover.
I have been sulking at the loss ever since, as nothing else combines BG52 PYX's combination of style, practicality and luxury in one package. During MotorDrive LiVe it was driven around the test track at Bedfordshire's Millbrook Proving Ground at 130mph, and then 10 minutes later was up to its windscreen in water and mud. It has towed boats, carried bikes and even been used as a bar at a party on a camp site.
Staff members who dislike the whole idea of big 4x4s have been forced to admit that our Range Rover was astonishingly competent. The fuel logbook notes tell the story: "Effortless motorway cruiser. Shame the engine is about as efficient as a parish council, but I'll grudgingly agree it's better than I say it is," admitted deputy mo-toring editor and confirmed off-road cynic Dan Strong. Even associate editor Mike Askew, who consummated his love of small cars by paying his own money for a Smart, found it "thoroughly agreeable, very comfortable and exceptionally refined. A real cut above the Japanese stuff".
But while the Range Rover might have the class to outdo rivals from the Far East, the reliability still isn't up there yet. Most of the problems we encountered arose when our RR was taken off-road, and included an electric steering column with a mind of its own, and a horn which began to sound like a toy duck. I booked the Vogue into my local dealer to get it all sorted, but Land Rover was keen to take the car back to its technical centre to see what had gone wrong. The 4x4 was returned working properly, and hopefully the visit will help ensure future models don't have the same problems.
Our other niggles concerned design faults. The door mirrors, for example, are tiny and have no convex area to eliminate blindspots. We had to fit a nasty-looking accessory-shop stick-on mirror to sort the problem. Likewise, the speaker grilles are built into the bottom of the doors and attract muddy footprints like a freshly mopped floor. We found wiping them didn't work, as the dirt got trapped in the holes, meaning it took hours with a cotton bud to get them clean.
But more worrying was that the paint covering the plastic seat trim began to wear away, as it got brushed every time the driver climbed in and out of the car. On the other hand, the big V8 engine wore particularly well. With nearly 12,000 miles on the clock, it was just getting into its stride, and performance had improved noticeably. I also experimented with using super unleaded petrol for a few tankfuls. It wasn't so much the extra horsepower that interested me, but the upgrade in economy. Driving the same roads, consumption improved from 16.1mpg to 17.7mpg. My calculations show the costs are identical when the 97 octane is 5p a litre more to buy - and you get the better performance, too.
Whatever the fuel used, though, bills are huge. Over seven months, our car's V8 drank an astonishing 3,507.77 litres of unleaded, at ΂£2,627.49. Now I'm hoping the phone will ring with an offer of a diesel-engined Vogue instead...