What rangie to buy???

Hi guys I am looking to buy my first rangie but am unsure which model to get and which fuel to get. I have a budget of about £1500 but could sretch to £1700 for the right machine. I have been thinking about an LPG converted V8 and was considering the 4.2litre vogue LSE with an LPG kit in it, but have been told the diesel ones are good. The reaon I want this car is to commute from Aberdeen to Yorshire and back once a month so I need as good as poss mile per £ as possible from the car and decent performance and reliabilty. I have been put off the diesel as the engine seems to b underpowered for the size and weight of the car plus the mpg doesn't seem to out weigh the cost of diesel. I have been told that the LPG system has a much lower mpg compared to the same engine running on petrol, is this the case for a rangie? I will not really b doing much offroading with this car so am not really to concerned about that side of things, I will however be towing trailors with motorbikes on them and poissibly a boat. Please give this Range Rover beginner some advice. I want a rangie cause they are british are ace and I hate small cars

(also like the V8 engine note)

1,I have a budget
2,I need as good as poss mile per £ as possible from the car and decent performance and reliabilty

thats two points you will seriously have to reconsider!

yes I agree completely, but I also need the best to run per mile on fuel and th emostrelaible car to get. Should i get a classic or a P38?

if your on a buget and concerned about mpg,then a range rover aint a good choice,repair and running costs will be an arm and a leg for a small buget,it will end up being a big buget,i paid £4000 for mine august 08 to date in repairs about £2500,and thats not including fuel road tax etc

i know there are reliable p38's out there but probably not for the money you want to spend!

i have no idea about classics as i personally dont like the shape.

as for reliability and just to go to yorkshire once a month i would consider a large saloon, maybe: VAUXHALL OMEGA 2.5 V6 CDX, LEATHER SEATS, AUTO LPG on eBay, also, Vauxhall Opel, Cars, Cars, Parts Vehicles (end time 20-Mar-09 21:00:00 GMT)

the reason i recomend the omega is because i have one and apart from the rocker gaskets, it is a sound car for everyday stuff, not very exciting as i have a 2.5 estate v6, but the 3.0 or 3.2 elite/mv6 versions are the top spec and to be honest at the prices they fetch are a very good buy with plenty of comfort and gadgets!! they are about at rock bottom prices and i cant see them going much lower other than for condition. dont worry about the milage as i know someone who has clocked up 300,000 miles and the car is still going strong!

all that said, it aint a range rover!! if i had the cash and could choose i would go for a late p38 4.6 hse all the bells and whistles and service history with multipoint lpg. but for the same money i could buy a 3.2 vaux signum elite with a fecking fridge in the back seats and get it lpg'd and still have cash to fill the tank!

if you have a search round the classic seems to suffer less than the p38, there is less to go wrong on a classic, but they are older and obviously dont look as good as a p38.

if you want reliability i dont think the range rover is for you and vauxhall's were built in the uk too!

so does that mean that a range rover is not a very reliable car to get at all then? I quite like the old clissic shape and am really planning to use it as a workhorse to be honest and I want the large storage capabilty of it so i can put motorbikes in the back and parts. It will b used as a work horse so raelly don't care about the cosmetics as long as it is solid. I would like leather seats and cruise control but not essential. The rangie is a good machine for off road stuff as well as the missus is a farm vet so its a good back up car for Yorkshire. Maybe I should get a defender or a disco??
Maybe i should stick with me old XJ6 or get an LPG converted Jag with a tow bar, but no space in them for putting bikes into.

i think the message is, really, there are probably better cars out there that could suit your purpose, but if like me you settle on a car and everything else is irrelevent then go for it but be assured you will be on these pages looking for help and advice on the issues. have a look at a few first and see what you can get for your money. then make a descision as to whether you think its a viable option. i would certainly look at rr's discos and defenders in all of it as each one offers different qualities that may outweigh some of the desires.

i agree with you on the comfort and yes the p38 is a very comfortable car, but then again if its sat on the drive, like mine currently is, you could get a damn good patio set for 1.7k. i regret buying mine, i really wanted one and bought one, i would have loved to have got a better one but i also enjoy fixing cars in general and i have fallen in love with it so i cant really complain!

lets put this into real terms, I have a car and the range rover, now the range rover is a toy.

I mainly drive the range rover as other day time transport is a van. to put this cost per mile £0.28 this is purely fuel cost and does not include insurance/ tax / mot / or repairs and servicing so if you do 12000 miles a year it will cost £3360 in fuel for a 4.0 se

I would recommend looking at a diesel or something both more economical and reliable

mines a 4.0 and i would say its about 16 to 20 pence per mile on the same assumptions as yours there but on lpg, i would say i do around 8000 miles PA max as i mainly travel to work which is only about 5 miles away. which is about £1600. that said i did all this week to and from work on a tenner in the meeega and still have enough to get me over w/end and will put another £10 in monday before work. in the rangie i would be using more as i drive it more cos i love driving it! any excuse and i'm off out in the rangie!!

£1700 buys you a cheap usually very high mileage P38 which probably needs the same amount again if not more spending on it. I have just bought a 2.5DSE and it's not as badly underpowered as some people suggest but it can be noticably sluggish in certain situations especially with the auto box but you can have them chipped quite cheaply which is said to really transform the performance however dont expect the MPG to be good just because its a diesel. Im still getting used to mine but with a mix of probably 70% Town and 30% motorway driving its only giving 23mpg. Just from spending the last couple of months looking at loads of P38's I would say you would have to spend £4000 - £8000 to get a good sensible mileage P38 with service history that is going to be reliable. Anything sub £4000 either has rocket ship mileage, poor history, lots of faults or all the above. If you can do your own work on it then buying a cheap one could be a good option but if you need a garage for repairs then buying a cheap P38 will just be a huge moneypit.


I bought my 1998 2.5DSE with 162,000miles for £2700 and so far have given it a full service, replaced both front suspension airbags, ignition lock, diesel spill pipes and oil cooler pipes. I still need to replace the n/s blend motor, both front door solenoids, o/s/f window regulator and front windscreen. In total to get it to the postion where everything works as it should it will have probably cost me an extra £500 but if you had to pay a garage to do all that work it would cost at least 3 times as much.

I looked at 5 P38's before buying this one and contrary to the sellers adds they all had issues that needed rectifying.

Not looking to put people off, yes there are bargain RR, but unless you can accommodate them as a hobby or afford the daily running cost-these V8's are not cheap. A nice Mercedes may be a better every day drive or maybe a disco tdi? which is going to give you 28-30mpg V 14-18mpg on a V8

As long as it's not a gaylander

millermilla said:

I bought my 1998 2.5DSE with 162,000miles for £2700 and so far have given it a full service, replaced both front suspension airbags, ignition lock, diesel spill pipes and oil cooler pipes. I still need to replace the n/s blend motor, both front door solenoids, o/s/f window regulator and front windscreen. In total to get it to the postion where everything works as it should it will have probably cost me an extra £500 but if you had to pay a garage to do all that work it would cost at least 3 times as much.

I looked at 5 P38's before buying this one and contrary to the sellers adds they all had issues that needed rectifying.

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on the doors things, try stripping em downd and twiddle the motor inside, i managed to resurect my passenger one when the C/L was playing up, if your on about the window regs then you'll need new ones!

in short, all rangeys are toys!!! and they break all the time, you will either spend all your weekends fixing it or, all your weeks wages paying a garage to fix it!!!
and all your night time on here boo hooing about it. sounds like you need to buy my transit minibus diesel of me for what you want to do.

mmm thanks for all the advice guys, I am slowly going off teh idea of a range rover now not teh kinda car I thought it was gonna be. How about a discovery then? I really need something that has some decent boot space and towing power and can go offroad as me and the missus are thinking about getting a small boat later this yr so need to b able to launch it. Or should I look at other manufactueres like Isuzu tropper or jeep or something? I spose I don't really need th luxerty of a RR as what ever I get will b used to go up and down the country and chuck engines, car bits and motorbikes into. Like playing with all old broken machines, have enough cars n bikes to work with without having my every day runner being one of them..

Thanks again for all the advice guys

Lee

or will happily have a classic range rover not to bothered about it being a P38 as I like the shape of the older ones as well. LPG or diesel for either disco or classic? can the diesel ones b run on biodiesel/veg oil??

Dive_gimp said:

or will happily have a classic range rover not to bothered about it being a P38 as I like the shape of the older ones as well. LPG or diesel for either disco or classic? can the diesel ones b run on biodiesel/veg oil??

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you can run em on bio and a mixture of bio and regular diesel. do a search for diesel landrovers and there are loads of projects, if your handy with the spanners then this would probably be the way to go, diesel range rover p38 with a bio conversion!!

gavbriggs said:

but they are older and obviously dont look as good as a p38.

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Errr..... in your (totally wrong) opinion mate! Omegas are properly good cars though, I'm borrowing my dads V6 while I'm doing up me rangie


I've had 2 P38's, 2 classics and a 3dr D1... the disco was the best all round car- a few less hassles than the classics (tailgates) & none of the P38 electricery. dead simple to look after. Shouldn't have sold it but saw my rangie & fell in love with it

Rust on the classics, electrics on the P38's... the world is your lobster

3.5 is the best RV8- no slipped liners

so guys is the general opinion to get a diesel disco and run it on bio fuel or cooking oil for the least hassle car and best value for money on fuel or is it on a par with a classic diesel RR
what about a classic with a good LPG conversion?

My classic gets 25 mpg on a run.It also is great to sit in all day, comfy and smooth crusing.Will tow me house if i had a long enough chain.However mine was a 650 motor bought for being a toy.One thing another lead to me regularly using it to go from derby to london and bacjk in a day once a week.Several things have let got on my motor but every thing has given me a bit of notice first and ive never not got to where i was going.Get a goodun and you could be onto a winner-get a wrongun and you regret it.I*f you dont keep on top of maintainance youll also regret that.And they are good off road even tho you dont want that, nice to know its there.

the classic vm diesel was and is a piece of ****, I personally think that a discovery 200 or 300tdi will give the best of both worlds. your looking for economy and reliability.
just watch out for rust