[ed1655]

i've gotten the feeling from many of you that buying a RR sight unseen is not the best idea. let me run this one by you -
it's an '04 with 63k miles at land rover fremont. they were asking 25,999 i told then no 'fing way. we haven't settled on a price yet but here's the thing. these guys are such scumbags - or at least that's how they have come accross imho. i will be buying this car as-is, no warranty. supposedly, the car has gone through their shop - which is obviously a certified land rover mechanic - and been cleared. can i trust that? or should i take it to another lr dealer and have them look at it as well? it just seems that there's a vested interest in having the mechanic from the selling dealer be the one doing the inspection. also - what's the general opinion about getting an extended warranty from one of the provider's suggested on the main rr.net page? thanks!

 

[brad s1]

i've gotten the feeling from many of you that buying a RR sight unseen is not the best idea. let me run this one by you -
it's an '04 with 63k miles at land rover fremont. they were asking 25,999 i told then no 'fing way. we haven't settled on a price yet but here's the thing. these guys are such scumbags - or at least that's how they have come accross imho. i will be buying this car as-is, no warranty. supposedly, the car has gone through their shop - which is obviously a certified land rover mechanic - and been cleared. can i trust that? or should i take it to another lr dealer and have them look at it as well? it just seems that there's a vested interest in having the mechanic from the selling dealer be the one doing the inspection. also - what's the general opinion about getting an extended warranty from one of the provider's suggested on the main rr.net page? thanks!

Some dealers are just scum bags, like any other franchise. I've been personally ass raped by land rover of norwood ma. But treated like gold at land rover of sudbury ma... If they clear it that, "might," be piece of mind, depending on the reputation of dealer.

That being said, if you're buying it from land rover, I'd throw them the offer of 22 with one of their warranty packages included, otherwise you're better off searching for your own if they're not even going to stand behind it. Financially you'd be better off finding a sub $20,000 gem and buying a warranty for it.

It all depends on how much time/effort you want to spend trying to find a good one for short money... I spent 6 months looking.

By the way, when I bought mine, it was marked 28... and I drove it off the lot for 18, I did have connections at the dealer, but deals like that are out there. Always got screaming deals on range rovers, their resale is terrible!

 

[ed1655]

yeah that's kiiiiiinda what i was thinking. how many miles did yours have? the sick thing is, that i've already had 2 rovers that i was eyeing sold out from under me and BOTH of them were '04s with miles in the mid 60ks going for $24!!!!! and they were sold at that! the other thing that's making it rough to find a local "gem" is that i'm pretty specific with which colors i would take and would not take. i'm keeping all my options open. it's good to know that i wouldn't be out of line asking sub 20g.

 

[BuggyChief]

ed1655,

It's nice to see the RR bug has bit you. I agree with the above poster....Negotiate their warranty in on the deal. INMHO, you are taking a huge gamble on a higher mileage RR, that has been known for issues in that year. For example, my local LR dealer quoted $1,500 for a suspension airbag if it needs to be replaced....and you have 4 of them ($6,000 total)

Good luck and hopefully you can get it put together. $26k is way high for that car. That needs to be sub $20K in my opinion. Keep shopping if you don't get what you want and be patient.

It took me 6 months to find mine. I was specific on color being black and 2006 or newer. There is one out there with your name on it.

Good Luck

 

[brad s1]

yeah that's kiiiiiinda what i was thinking. how many miles did yours have? the sick thing is, that i've already had 2 rovers that i was eyeing sold out from under me and BOTH of them were '04s with miles in the mid 60ks going for $24!!!!! and they were sold at that! the other thing that's making it rough to find a local "gem" is that i'm pretty specific with which colors i would take and would not take. i'm keeping all my options open. it's good to know that i wouldn't be out of line asking sub 20g.

Mine had 48000 miles on it, range was completely flawless other than a scrape on the bumper the dealer repaired perfectly for an additional $200. Aside from that one scrape the whole suv was mint. It sat on the lot for a couple of days at 28k, they owned it for 16k, they let me take it for 18k. I wanted a black/black, this one was Giverny Green with all the options, I couldn't help but pull the trigger... I really wish I could have picked up a black one, but it all boils down to how dedicated you are... At 6 month looking for a range I was willing to take a hit on color to pick up this one and get out of my discovery. The color has actually really grown on me.

The week before this one showed up I was looking at a 2002 p38 they wanted 18k for, I told them I could get an 04/05 for around that much... They laughed...

It all depends on who you're dealing with... Used car lots will try to rape you no matter what, since they're always such a small operation. Unless of course you're buying from a used car superstore, those are somtimes ok. I always look for range rovers either private party or sitting at a major franchise location fresh in trade. This one was out of Nissan in norwood ma. Dealers like this will slash rover prices just to move them off the lot, otherwise they go to auction. Everyone at auction bids on rovers with caution because they themselves don't want to get stuck with $8000 in repairs they couldn't see during the bidding. Most of the buyers I know won't even bid on a range rover, too much liability. The buyer has a lot of power in the used range rover market, they're really really difficult to move sellers always want out.

 

[brad s1]

Oh and one final thing I'll mention, if you buy from a reputable franchise you can usually get them to throw in their aftermarket warranty... It doesn't cover specialized range rover type features or electronics, but if your engine blows, trans goes, anything like that... They'll send it to land rover for a $200 deductible and repair it. Although its always a good idea to purchase a legit warranty for your range rover, they're usually around 2500-4k, not bad when you consider the price of some of the parts.

 

[Creemore]

I have an 04 which I bought used with just over 50,000 miles on it about 15 months ago. My advice would be to not focus so much on the price, but DO focus on the warranty. There is no victory in getting the price knocked back a couple grand and being on your own when things start to break. My repair bills in the first year of ownership were in the five figure range. There's just a bunch of stuff that goes on a RR in mid-life, and it costs.

Not sure about your market, but here, a Range Rover on a dealer lot is not necessarily a truck that they sold new. The vehicle is sold in such low volumes that even dealers have to shop auctions to get pre-owned inventory. Especially when SO many Range Rovers are traded in on vehicles of a different make. History can be hard to track down, and a lot of these were leased drive-and-dump status mobiles.

(BTW, the airbag price quoted above isn't quite that bad. They are about that price for the fronts, but the rears are much less)

 

[ed1655]

thanks for all the good info. knowing this i'm definately going to be more adamant about getting the price down even lower. i am also set on getting a warrantee. i'm going to post a couple for everyone to look at - hopefully you all can give me some good direction as far as which warranty sounds the most legit