I Need To Stop You From Buying This Car

[00:01] to talk to you about Range Rovers because every single week somebody slides into my comments asking if they should buy one, and every single week I have to resist the urge to shake them through the screen. So, let me say it

[00:13] loud and clear, out loud, on camera, so we never have to have this conversation ever again. Buying a used Range Rover out of warranty is one of the dumbest financial decisions a car person can make. Only idiots buy them, and I say

[00:27] it are actually car people who absolutely should know better. The car is beautiful. The car feels incredible. The car will also ruin your life just like your ex-girlfriend. And the wild part, none of this is a secret. The data

[00:41] stories. The depreciation curve looks like something fell off a cliff. Everybody knows. Your mom knows, and people still buy them for some reason. exactly why Range Rovers stay unreliable, why the brand gets away with

[00:56] buying instead. Like, subscribe, so we can hit 2 mil, and let's go. Hey guys, real quick, the giveaway for the Shelby and Supra and the $100,000 has ended, and well, the winners are being picked right now. But, we're coming back bigger

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[01:24] have cooking. All right, back to the show. Okay, first let's talk about the data because this is what makes people feel very uncomfortable. I'm not just talking about vibes here, the numbers are genuinely embarrassing. Land Rover

[01:37] every major reliability survey, finishing 27 out of 31 manufacturers in What Car's brand rankings. 27, you guys, out of 31. That is not a bad day. That

[01:49] Consumer Reports predicts a below-average reliability for the 2025 model. That's pretty much brand new. And the 2022 model year alone carries seven NHTSA recalls. And it only gets better from there, brother. The 2025 model year

[02:04] has already been recalled three times covering seatbelt buckle defects, gear shifter indicator failures caused by moisture in the module, and sunroof trim that detaches. On a Range Rover, sunroof trim that

[02:16] detaches on a six-figure SUV, and here is my personal favorite. Consumer Reports could not even rank the Land Rover in their annual brand reliability enough qualifying models to meet the minimum data requirements. They did not

[02:30] rank badly. They did not rank at all. They were in a penalty box with Alfa Romeo, Maserati, and a couple of brands nobody buys on purpose. So, when someone better recently, you can point them directly to this video. Now, I know you

[02:45] guys are all wondering, uh the unreliability actually comes from the engineering level. A Range Rover is trying to be three completely different vehicles simultaneously. It wants to be a rolling luxury lounge with soft

[02:57] leather, a whisper-quiet cabin, and more screens than a Best Buy. It wants to be a genuinely quick capable, confident highway machine. And it wants to be a suspension, terrain response systems,

[03:09] witchcraft. [music] Each one of those goals is hard on its own. Doing all three in the same truck at the same time forever is a mechanical stress test that never ends. Every luxury feature adds motors, modules, wiring, and software

[03:24] that needs to cooperate perfectly. Every off-road system adds moving parts that live [music] in places where dirt, water, and heat go to destroy things. Every performance upgrade adds thermal stress and tighter tolerances, and more

[03:36] ways for something to decide today, "Oh, it's not the day, brother." And when one thing breaks in this system that's so interconnected, it rarely breaks alone. One sensor throws a code, another module panics in sympathy, and suddenly your

[03:48] dashboard looks like a Christmas tree having an existential crisis. You pull tells you the parts on backorder from England, you call an Uber and a tow truck, which is where they like to live. Here's the thing nobody wants to hear.

[04:02] The car is not designed for you. Range Rovers are not engineered for the person who wants to own a one car for 10 years and get every mile out of it. They are the warranty, and hand the keys back before the car had a chance to develop

[04:17] opinions. Think about what that means from an engineering standpoint. If your target buyer keeps the car for two or three years, your reliability target is not 200,000 mi, it's 50,000 mi and 4 years of bumper-to-bumper coverage. You

[04:30] need to be flawless during the window that the consumer actually owns the car. After that, well, it's somebody else's headache. And to be completely fair, Range Rovers are genuinely phenomenal in that window. Brand new, they are

[04:43] magical. Nothing else in the segment feels quite like them. The refinement, the presence, the way the air suspension just floats over everything like a pillow. You sit down and you understand immediately why people spend the money.

[04:55] Then, the warranty, well, it expires. Then, the mileage climbs. Then, the car starts having thoughts. The first owner never sees this phase. They are already in a new one. The second owner is where the pain begins. And this is the thing

[05:09] that gets people. This is the most important 30 seconds of this video, really, because this is where the real damage happens. People see a used Range Rover priced at 40 or 50 grand and think they cracked the code. They think they

[05:21] found shortcut into the luxury club. Brand new, these things are pushing six or seven figs. Well, six-point something figs. Used at three or four years old, what, brother? They are not a steal. They are a bill with a sunroof. The

[05:35] price is not generosity. That is the market doing math in real time. The cost priced into the sticker. The depreciation is extreme because the people who know these cars know exactly what is coming. They price that

[05:49] Range Rover out of warranty is not buying a luxury SUV for less money. It is agreeing to become the person who funds all the repairs the first owner was too smart to be around for. You are not getting a deal. You are inheriting a

[06:02] bill. And here is the honest and kind of infuriating truth. Range Rover's reliability scores are public. The recall lists, they're public. The forums are public. The horror stories are everywhere and have been for years and

[06:16] people well, they just keep buying them. That is the real problem here. Not the engineering, not the market. When your customer base keeps showing up there is no financial pressure to fundamentally fix the engineering

[06:29] philosophy. Especially when your competitors are not dramatically better either. I mean, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Jaguar, none of them are reliability champions. Range Rover just gets roasted harder because the gap between how good

[06:42] the car feels and how often it breaks is so enormous and so obvious. Reliability is also expensive to prioritize. It means slow adoption of new technology, proven parts, years of testing, saying no to features until they are

[06:55] bulletproof. Range Rover wants to be cutting edge. They want to feel new. Their mindset trades durability for novelty every single time and novelty continues. The [music] cars stay unreliable, the brand stays desirable,

[07:11] the first owners stay happy, the second owners stay frustrated. Now, luxury brands make real money after the sale. Parts, labor, specialized service appointments that cost more per hour than your dentist. This is not unique to

[07:23] Range Rover, but it is extremely amplified when your vehicles are this complex and this expensive to fix. When your customer base can absorb those brand, the pressure to change the underlying engineering philosophy drops

[07:37] significantly. If every Range Rover owner walked after one bad experience, things would change very fast. But, Range Rover customers are loyal in a way that defies logic. They get the cars fixed. They complain a bunch, and they

[07:50] lease another one. The service department does not need the car to be reliable. It needs the car to be close enough to reliable that people stay in and that is exactly what they have built. Okay, so here's the part where I

[08:03] give you the actual playbook if you are set on owning one of these. Lease it, full stop. Like a Taycan, lease it. Yes, enjoy it at its absolute best. well, and hand it back before it starts developing a personality. That is the

[08:19] optimal Range Rover experience. That is what the car is designed to do. That is the window where it is genuinely one of the best vehicles money can buy, hands down. If you absolutely have to have one, buy new or nearly new with full

[08:32] warranty coverage remaining, and buy the extended warranty on top of that. The safest bet on the used side is the 2018 to 2020 model with the supercharged V6 of proven powertrain with heavy depreciation savings and more

[08:46] predictable maintenance. The [music] powertrain was sorted. The newer complex PHEV and hybrid setups introduce a whole new layer of problems on top of the existing ones. And whatever you do, do not buy [music] one out of warranty

[08:58] because the price looks low. That low price is the car trying to warn you. Now, what should you actually buy? You want a luxury SUV that looks great, feels great, and does not make you cry in a dealership parking lot. Well, the

[09:11] Toyota Land Cruiser, the Lexus LX, the GX 550, vehicles that have been engineered from the ground up to last, built on platforms with decades of those V6s from Toyota aren't doing so hot, are they? But, they're designed for

[09:24] the person who actually wants to own the car rather than survive it. You will not get the same presence. You will not have the same conversation at brunch about your service appointment. But, here's the biggest but, you will also not have

[09:38] the conversation at brunch about your service appointment. That is the trade, and for most people, it is not even a close call. Look, I do not hate Range Rovers. The car is genuinely one of the most impressive and beautiful SUVs ever

[09:51] made. But, when it works, it is special. But, that special and smart are two totally different things. The data confirms what the forums have said for years. The Range Rover is a magnificent vehicle to drive, and an expensive one

[10:05] to absorb that cost, and you lease it new, and you understand exactly what you're getting into, well, go for it. Enjoy every second. That car you're shopping to use one because the price looks like a deal, please close

[10:20] boring thing that will outlive your lease, your mortgage, and probably three different versions of your life. Range Rovers are not for people who want reliability. Range Rovers are for people who want Range Rovers. And, there is

[10:33] nothing wrong with knowing which one you are before signing anything. So, I'm subscribe, turn on that notification bell so we can hit 2 million subs by the end of the year. Check out some of these Ideal vids. Tell me your worst Range

[10:46] Rover stories of your friends, hopefully not you, down in the comments below, and promise me one thing. Keep living the ideal lifestyle.