I Bought A 216,000-Mile Range Rover To Be My Sacrificial Car. That Might Have Been Foolish

In all my years of buying and selling shitboxes, I’ve managed to avoid owning an automatic car or any vehicle resembling the shape of an SUV. It’s a streak I’m proud of. Well… a streak I was proud of. That long, unbroken line of three-pedal enthusiast machines died back in July when I bought this 2008 Land Rover Range Rover.

I don’t believe in spending over $5,000 for a daily driver. In years past, that meant ratty Miatas, BMW E30s, and the occasional Subaru in my lineup for things like commuting, out-of-state visits to family, and everything else that didn’t involve fun roads. Now, though, it means a giant luxury SUV with more modern appointments than I’ve ever experienced outside of a brand-new press car. Here’s why I made the switch.

The Streets Require A Blood Sacrifice

I live in New York City. That means terrible roads, horrendous traffic, bad drivers, and, most importantly for this story, street parking. My neighborhood is particularly cutthroat when it comes to public parking spots. Sometimes it can take over an hour for a suitable spot to become available. My personal record is 1 hour, 45 minutes of circling the block searching. It’s not for the weak-minded.

To get around the agony, I’ve employed small cars like the vehicles mentioned above to squeeze into spots most modern cars couldn’t. For years, I had great luck finding parking using this method, even if it meant a 30-point turn just to get out the next day. The only problem? My cars kept getting trashed.

Though my cars were cheap, I kept them in fairly good condition. But half the time, I’d return to my car with some kind of new bump, scratch, or dent, either from another driver, a pedestrian, or a cyclist. In one particularly heartbreaking instance, I came back to my 318i’s front bumper cracked in two after parking behind a pickup truck the night before. Anyone who knows how expensive these plastic bumpers are will know my pain.

My cars weren’t just being destroyed by parking. The roads themselves also took a heavy toll. Like many northeastern cities, NYC is known for its horrid road conditions—potholes, missing pavement, road debris, metal plates, you name it. My old dailies quickly mushed through their bushings, leading to unpleasant rides and a lot of extra work on my end. While it was all bearable—I’ve known the cost of entry is high when it comes to driving a classic in New York—I just felt bad ruining these cars, one after another.

So I decided to pivot to something that could take on these external forces. Something I wouldn’t feel bad about leaving in a street spot for a week. Something that could shrug off bashing through four-inch-deep holes in the ground. Something that didn’t mean much to me, so I wouldn’t feel bad about sacrificing it to the streets of New York.

An SUV was the most logical choice, given the extra suspension travel and bigger tires. Because this was a semi-disposable vehicle, I didn’t want to spend much. And it needed to work, at least up to speeds of 50 mph. I also wanted it to be interesting, because otherwise I’d lose interest in keeping it alive.

I narrowed it down to three choices: the L322-generation Range Rover, a 100 Series Toyota Land Cruiser, or a first-generation BMW X5—the one you could get with a manual. I quickly ruled out the ‘Cruiser, simply because presentable examples were too expensive. I had a few X5 leads, but they either sold before I could get to them or turned out to be in worse condition than presented. Range Rovers, meanwhile, were cheap and plentiful on Facebook Marketplace. So I took the plunge.

So Why This One?

Before I bought the Range Rover you see here, I looked at a couple of other examples. Both were from 2004, the first year of production. Because this SUV was developed while BMW owned the company, those early cars are mostly BMW underneath, and even use an M62 V8 engine, like you’d find in early 2000s 5 and 7 Series models. That connection is part of the reason I sought out one of these Range Rovers in the first place (I am, historically, a huge BMW nerd).

But those cars I looked at were in rough shape. The first one had an incredibly loud chain rattle—likely due to the plastic chain guides at the front of the engine failing, a common issue with those engines. While the second Rover ran just fine, it was leaking a considerable amount of oil, and the check engine light bulb was removed. It wasn’t turning on, even though the car had active trouble codes coming in through the OBDII reader. So I walked away.

The L322 I bought is an HSE model that hails from the 2008 model year, which means it uses the 4.4-liter Jaguar V8. Numerous forums and YouTube videos I’ve watched prior to my purchase have led me to believe this is the most reliable powertrain of the bunch, as the later supercharged models had timing chain issues (plus, forced induction means way more complexity, which I wanted to avoid).

Of course, this is all relative. Old Range Rovers are, on the whole, known to be unreliable, no matter the year or powertrain. Any rational person wouldn’t consider this truck a viable daily driver. Unless you’re familiar with how cars work, buying one of these is a terrible idea. Hell, even if you do know how cars work, some level of suffering is guaranteed. It’s not a matter of if I break down, but when. I’m a glutton for punishment, though, and I’m always up for a challenge.

I’ve owned enough high-mile cars to understand mileage doesn’t really matter, so long as the car runs right (to a point, anyway). So the miles on this one didn’t scare me. It ran well, shifted through its gears, didn’t have any lights on the dash, and didn’t make any suspicious noises. Plus, it was an actual color, not just black or grey. So I bought it from the seller in a Home Depot parking lot in Queens.

OK Great. So What’s Wrong With It?

For an 18-year-old Range Rover with 216,000 miles on the clock, shockingly little. I expected this thing to strand me on the way home, but aside from a couple of lights on the dash, it’s in weirdly good shape. Well, except for the entire body of the car.

Cosmetically, this Range Rover is the equivalent of totaled. Photos do a remarkable job of hiding the damage, but every panel has at least one dent, scratch, or section of missing paint. This car has lived in New York City since 2017, according to the CarFax, meaning it’s likely been subject to the brutalities of street parking for years. There’s evidence of sideswipes, light fender benders, and door dings.

The front section of the car has some weird damage, too. The front passenger window has a huge crack in it. The slatted grille is broken in two places because, according to the previous owner, a mechanic had to rip it apart to get access to the hood latch, as the hood latch cable had snapped. The hood itself has been bent in on either edge closest to the windshield, suggesting it flung up while the car was moving, and was never replaced.

Then there’s the rust. There are two fairly significant patches of the stuff on the body, one on the left rear fender and one on the left rear door sill—both common places for it to develop on the L322. The underside has developed some surface rust, too, but I’m not terribly worried about it.

The Range feels pretty good from behind the wheel. At low speeds, there’s some creaking from the front end, and a bit of a shimmy in the steering wheel at highway speeds. The air suspension holds pressure just fine, and the front airbags are new, so I won’t have to worry about them in the near term. Weirdly, the truck throws a suspension fault message whenever I try to put the suspension in the higher or lower position. My solution? Simply stop doing that, and leave it alone.

Currently, there are just two lights illuminated in the gauge cluster. One is a flashing TPMS light, accompanied by a TPMS fault in the cluster’s little message box. I’d like to reset the system to see what happens, but I don’t have the right diagnostic equipment, so I’ll have to take it to a shop to see what they can do.

The other light is a check engine light for an emissions-related fault, related to the catalytic converter. A friend suggested replacing the rear O2 sensors, so I did. I haven’t been able to drive the Range Rover enough to see if that worked, though. Considering the mileage, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up needing a cat. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Here’s What I Plan To Do With It

The truck is sitting at my parents’ house right now, fresh off an oil change and that sensor swap. I’d like to bring it to the city to act as my daily driver, but retrieving it requires a whole day’s worth of time. Once I get it back, I’ll start racking up the miles to see if I actually need a new catalytic converter or not. If I do, that’ll be a several-hundred-dollar expense, which would suck. But I hate having lights on my dash, so I’d likely bite the bullet.

Long-term, I’d like to do some real off-roading with this Range. The wheels have a set of nice all-weather tires with lots of tread. Combine that with a true low-range transfer case, and there’s lots of opportunity for rock-slinging adventure (though the metal skidplate is missing, so I’ll have to replace that before I do anything). I’m also planning a road trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving in November. Hopefully, I’ll have enough confidence in this truck to take it along. That is, if something catastrophic doesn’t happen between now and then.

Stay tuned.

Top graphic image: Brian Silvestro