E

ex darksider

New Member
well its only been 6 months but without regret i'm gonna sell the rangie(of problems),it has without question been the worst pile of sh@t i've ever had the misfortune of owning,not even really that comfy compared to a cruiser or a patrol for that matter,slow even chipped,so poorly made you have to remake it once you've got one,and i effing hate spending my not spare time working on a pile of sh@t, so 3.0 intercooled toyota surf on the shopping list,yes i can hear some of your laughter,but there so much more practical in the fact it will work 24/7 365,so to summarise the p38 range rover the worst 4x4xfar:(
 
surfs and shoguns a, both suffer from cracked heads. i deal with plenty of them so called good things, jap crap. if the ride was poor on your range rover then there was an obvious problem with it. try not to judge the whole brand from you misfortunes of the poor one you owned, i had a p38 diesel for 7 years and it was faultless and far from slow when i had played with it.
 
You have my sympathy Darksider. There's nothing worse than a bottomless pit of both time and money. Having said that though, some cars are just like that and it doesn't matter what make or model they are. We've had two Jags, both of which were unreliable. My Wife's XJ only had a few K miles on the clock and yet almost without fail, every time she was on her way out for a meeting the restricted performance light came on due to various electrical faults. My 330D was supposedly "bulletproof" and yet I had alarm problems and the fuel pump went whilst trying to get home on the M40 on a Friday afternoon. Oh how I laughed. You're either lucky, or you isn't but Arron is right, no point having a downer on them all just cos yours was a Friday car.

Very best of luck to you with your next one. If the god of mud-pluggers is smiling at you when you buy it you'll be fine. But if he ain't......
 
Last edited:
You win some , you lose some.
If you're on the wrong side of that equation get shot of it, be it a wife or a similar bottomless pit of a car. Personally I've been so far lucky on both counts but you never know the day or the hour!!

Darksider, best of luck in your new venture!! Pleasure sharing some e-time with you!
 
I had 4 years of faultless P38 and now its a drain on my time and pocket. The trouble with a so called reliable car is the bonnet never gets lifted, so oil levels are never checked etc.
The best part of the p38 is that spares are as cheap as chips. You shop for a 4x4 engine on a toyota and gasp how much they want. My brother in law had 2 pick ups. A nissan Nivara , the engine blew up @ 40k and a L200 and the transmission went. Grass is always greener, but in reality all cars, vans over 6 years are a pain and a drain.
 
Hear hear Willos. It's only worth it whilst it's fun. When it starts to be a problem it's probably time to get rid. It's one thing for a weekend runabout to mess you about but quite another when it's your daily ride and your unreasonable boss wants you to come into work that day.
 
i've had this range rover for 2 yrs now,and we're selling ours now.its fantastic when everythings working. but that doesnt last long. the build quality is beyond bad!
we love it, but where did it all go wrong?
thats right! they were built by british leyland.
 
I think people should bear that in mind when they purchase an P38, that they are old and complicated cars. They much more likely to go wrong. I have had my car for over a year and there is always some minor problem with it. It goes very nice, but there is always something wrong with her. And I want all to be just right, so it is a bit of a struggle. But I accept it, because that`s the way they are. Japanese cars will never reach this style....
 
I came to that conclusion myself a while ago, but once I fixed the EAS, MOT'd and serviced it's been running the best ever, and I now have a 'known entity'. I know what I've done, where I've spent my time and money and as a result it makes the ownership of it easier.

You could just as easily get rid today and buy an even bigger turkey tomorrow to replace it, people are ruthless, they'll tell you what you want to hear if it means a sale.

Also, you're selling your car for the reasons stated, fair enough, but the one you're going to replace it, ask yourself why is the owner selling it!

If you do sell come back and let us know what you got as a replacement.
 
ex darksider said:
well its only been 6 months but without regret i'm gonna sell the rangie(of problems),it has without question been the worst pile of sh@t i've ever had the misfortune of owning,not even really that comfy compared to a cruiser or a patrol for that matter,slow even chipped,so poorly made you have to remake it once you've got one,and i effing hate spending my not spare time working on a pile of sh@t, so 3.0 intercooled toyota surf on the shopping list,yes i can hear some of your laughter,but there so much more practical in the fact it will work 24/7 365,so to summarise the p38 range rover the worst 4x4xfar:(
Click to expand...

Getting a decent car in the first place helps...but...

If you can't afford to look after it, or are not competent underneith it, you're better off without one, for sure.
 
The P38 is without a doubt the "costliest" car I've owned. It is true that there's a degree of security comes from knowing where the problems are once you've owned it a while and also the gut-dropping thought of selling it now AFTER all the time and money that's already gone in, but more to the point I've access to an early L322 as well as a brand new X5 and no matter how swish and 'digital' they are, neither can match the driving 'feel' and satisfaction of my ol' P38. And that's why I keep her and why I'm a "Senior Member" on here with all my pleas for help!!
 
Although I should really be selling my Rangey now as she gets so little use anymore now that I use the X5 for my long commutes, I haven't had the heart to do it yet.....mine cost a load over the 6 years I've owned her, but I know the car really well now and how she's been looked after and still enjoy using her on weekends and occasional trips. The X5 is a million times more comfortable and refined, and a real pleasure on long journeys - but there is something quite endearing about the old Rangie - 11 years old now and still roaring around happily at 136K miles. The older a car gets, the more expensive the maintenance is likely to become.......its unrealistic to think you can buy what was a really expensive vehicle when new, with complicated electronics, and then expect to run it on the sniff of an oil rag and pennies......plus p38s are likely to have had numerous owners by now, some of whom would have cut corners on repairs and maintenance and led to horror stories (think wrxfifer!!!) of engine failures and the rest of the sad stories we read here all too often......
 
i think he did. but it was really interesting and a great example of landyzoners coming together to help someone out. pity really that he copped out in the end.
 
Dont do it............I had a Surf recently - worst vehicle I have ever owned - noisy/horrible interior/poor driving position etc, etc, and it cost me a fortune - still don't know where the legendary Toyota reliablity stories come from!

You'll end up buying another Range Rover - simply the best and well worth the cost:rolleyes: and the reliablility worries:eek::eek::eek:.....................
 
I'm always surprised when P38's are knocked for build quality. Mines a 2000 with over
90k on it and still runs very smoothly. My mates always say if you were blindfolded as a passenger you would think you were in a much newer motor. Only last week when mixing with the toffs at ascott, got a ride in me mates 56 plate X5, all the way home everyones asking if we can go in the P38 next year. The ride was bone crunchingly hard and not very pleasant at all, never heard so much whinging, of course that could have been down to the 15 pints of larger and not havin a winner all day!!
 
Darksider

Good luck to you. It is a lottery with cars, the wife's Porsche engine blew up at 40k costing us a shed load with no help from Porsche.

I may be in the same position as you in a year but after 6 weeks of ownership and almost eveything you read about on here being an issue I am still happy having spent £3k on the car v's the £22k on the Jeep that is being returned. Don't get me wrong the Jeep is a fine car but I wanted out of the monthly payment lark and an LPG P38 seemed like a good way to get something to chuck the dogs in and get back to a bit of spanner spinning at the same time.

There is something addictive about the P38 and I suspect I can keep spending cash until the cows come home and never quite have it 100%. If I had an extra £2.5k for example I would probably be able to rationalise going to buy a spare engine "just in case".

I did lust after an X5 (strange man they say) and may one day own one but in the meantime the P38 is a bit of fun ..... until it breaks down that is :rolleyes:
 
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