This summer, I bought a cheap 2008 Land Rover Range Rover with 216,000 miles on the clock from a guy on Facebook Marketplace. The big SUV was meant to be my daily driver in New York City, where it could soak up bumps and take bumper taps from people who parallel park even worse than I do.
Because I live in NYC, I don’t really drive much, so the Range Rover has mostly been sitting. I’ve put about 1,500 miles on the clock since I bought it, and have basically done zero maintenance besides an oil change and replacing a couple of O2 sensors to see if the check engine light would go away (it did not). I also complained about the placement of the backup camera, which, the more I think about it, should be the least of my concerns.
That’s because I’m about to embark on a real, actual road trip with this Range Rover. Instead of flying to my girlfriend’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving this year, we’ve decided to drive. The journey from New York to Chicago isn’t massive by American road trip standards, but for an old Range Rover with this many miles on the clock, it might as well be a trip to the moon and back.
What’s the Plan, For Real?
I’m not doing this road trip just for a road trip’s sake, despite having done many road trips in the past for no real reason at all. There’s a purpose to getting this Range Rover to Chicago: Utility. My girlfriend has a bunch of furniture in storage at her parents’ house, and wants to bring that stuff back to NYC. I could’ve reserved a press car for this, but risking missing Thanksgiving for a fun story about getting stuck on the side of the road just feels more right.
The northernmost route is my plan right now because it’s the quickest, which means blasting straight through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, where I’ll hop on I-80 the whole way. After that, the plan is to cruise the northern edges of Ohio and Indiana on I-90, before finally arriving in beautiful Chicago (technically, we’re going to the suburbs north of Chicago, which adds another hour or so).
I’ve driven this exact route nearly a dozen times in my life, which is a lot by writer standards but nearly none at all by trucker standards. I’d say it’s enough to declare myself familiar with the roads. I’m confident we can get it done in one day, with an early a.m. departure time, gas stops, and a lunch stop baked in.
Speaking of gas, the Range Rover’s 4.4-liter V-8 isn’t exactly economical. It was rated at about 18 mpg by the EPA when new, which is pretty terrible by modern standards. We’re looking at around three gas stops between New York and Illinois, with around $90 spent at each stop (the Range Rover’s gas tank is pretty huge at 27.6 gallons).
Does The Car … Work?
As of this writing, yes! I’ve been driving it for the past week or so to make sure nothing major is wrong with this Range. That’s included a trip from my parents’ house, a bunch of low-speed city driving, and a tiny trip last weekend to the middle of New Jersey and back. And it hasn’t left me stranded, which is the only metric of success that matters.
If you’ve read any of my previous musings on this thing, you’ll know this truck is far from perfect, of course. It has that emissions-related check engine light I mentioned above, which is annoying, plus another light on the dashboard for a tire pressure monitoring fault I have yet to look into. There are a few underbody panels that are just … missing. And I just learned today that the heated seats don’t work. Oh, and it leaks oil when it sits, and there are some pretty significant rust spots on the body.
For an old Range Rover with a lot of miles, that’s actually not too bad. The big thing everyone asks about, the four-corner air suspension, works fine, so long as you don’t ask it to raise up or down (if you do, it starts to get mad by throwing error messages on the dash). It holds air, which is more than I expected when I bought the thing.
Please Tell Me You’re Prepared
Anyone who’s been stranded on the side of the road with a project car knows things can go from fine to catastrophically bad in an instant. I’ve been a card-carrying Premier AAA member (the highest-tier membership you can get) for years now, and it’s saved me from having to pay for expensive roadside tows numerous times. For $125 a year, it’s very worth it, just for the peace of mind.
I’d consider myself mildly handy, so if something minor breaks that I can fix, I’d rather go that route. To that end, I’m bringing a toolbox (a 239-piece Gearwrench set I’ve had for years) and a duffel bag full of stuff like an air compressor, a fire extinguisher, zip ties, an impact gun, and a bunch of other assorted tools. I’ll also have a floor jack, a couple of jack stands, oil, and coolant.
As for road trip gear, I have a USB charger for my phone, the dash cam from my now-sold Miata (which I have yet to install, and a radar detector. I’m on the fence on whether to actually mount the detector, as I don’t plan on speeding, but you can never be too safe, right?
So, dear Autopian readers, how screwed am I? Do you have any advice for me? Is this a terrible mistake, or do you think I’ll make it to Chicago and back intact? Having driven the Range Rover without any major issues thus far, I’m pretty confident. But as with any car with this many miles, anything could happen. Let me know what you think.
Top graphic image: Brian Silvestro
14mpg was bad even by standards at that time when it came out. cause its still pretty much old school M62 from 90s
As the owners of a 2010 SC RR I think you have the bases pretty well covered there. The things that go wrong are coolant and timing chain. If you spring a coolant leak having extra is helpful, the only other potential solution is to take a full hose set or at the very least a few pieces of hose to use in a pinch. If the timing chain goes then AAA is the answer.
The heated seats could be as easy as a fuse if both are not working. If it is just one then it is more likely to be a broken wire connecting the back to the bottom of the seat. Both could be broken but when both are not working it is usually a fuse. If the light on the knob doesn’t come on check the fuse. If the light comes on just deal with cold seats.
Godspeed. We drive from RI to Akron, OH every year for Thanksgiving, so a decent bit shorter but still a lot of overlap. We take I-90 up through NY though, I despise driving I-95 through CT and the NYC area, and I-80 as whole. I-90 is much less traffic, a decent bit more scenic despite being about 40 miles longer for us. May your travel be traffic and breakdown free!
I look forward to Mercedes having to rescue you and having her VW break down in the attempt leaving you both stranded.
So, with the amount of gear you are packing to make sure you are prepared in case of a break down, do you actually have room in the vehicle to bring back the stuff that are going after?
Go across the George Washington bridge, and stop when you get to Chicago. Easy.
If you don’t stop at Chicago, turn left in Sacramento , drive 60 miles and you’re at my house, I-5 went through our farm.
With a North Shore Chicago girl on board, the Range Rover is a fine choice.
Eh, the Jag engine is a lot more reliable than the BMW M62 engine that it replaced (that engine, of all the BMW’s I’ve owned, was the second most difficult to work on).
My wager: at least two new electronic faults are either discovered or manifested (ABS, cruise control, you name it), but the crew arrives on time.
FWIW I am a Used Car Dealer with a shop and also a Uhaul dealer south of Cleveland. I have never worked on a Range Rover, but a 10 foot Uhaul and a car trailer might come in handy. Just reach out.
It doesn’t seem to have been mentioned… but deer like to commit suicide on I-80 in PA. Something to watch out for.
That’s why it’s vital to find a Nissan Pao to follow all the way to your destination.
“Can someone please explain to me how the naturally aspirated Range Rover HSE gets exactly the same gas mileage as the Supercharged version?”
The EPA has lots of convoluted rules that allow certain vehicles that share similar powertrain characteristics to be labeled together under a single “test group” so that manufacturers don’t have to run individual tests for every single variant of every single vehicle they make. Without knowing the specifics here, I’m guessing the SC version was a small enough percentage of total V8 production volume that it was able to be grouped with the NA variant.
So, if you make it, celebratory northern Chicago area meet up?
If you need, I have a garage with tools in roughly the area you’ll be heading, too!
I think Brian’s pushing it by claiming ‘northern Chicago area’ for what looks like Antioch
Agreed, “Chicago” is a stretch if you’re from the area. To the rest of the unwashed masses though, all of northern Illinois is downtown Chicago and you get shot daily headed to work.
I just tell people when I’m traveling for work that I live in the greater Chicago area but can see the cheese curtain of Wisconsin from my house.
British electrical be like *lurking_fifty_cent.png*
Was the low pressure fuel pump replaced?
Mine went out mid road trip at 150k miles, luckily I was driving a F-150 so a NAPA always has one in stock.
“Do you have any advice for me?”
You just need one spare part: a second 2008 Range Rover.
Or a flatbed tow truck. Here is a picture of the most common offroading Land Rovers do:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/indian-car-scene/534729d1303582486-pics-how-flatbed-tow-trucks-would-run-out-business-without-german-cars-rangerover.jpg
Or two
A credit card for repairs…
With 7,716 of towing capacity, he might as well bring along his Miata to get him the rest of the way.
Get a good audio book. Mystery books like the Bosch series. Also bring the food you want to eat with you the options on 90 though Ohio and Indiana are trash. As for the vehicle I did the drive in a 84 rabbit diesel with 250000 miles on you will be fine. I do this drive at least twice a year since I was 2 years old.
Seconded! Audiobooks for road trips are the best! I nominate the Black Fleet series by Joshua Dalzelle. Hard sci-fi, easy but compelling reads.
I love reading!
Your fears are unwarranted. Once some of the counterintuitive engineering is addressed, these are surprisingly trustworthy machines. (That leak while sitting is the oil cooler gasket, a common and easy fix.) I daily a 2006 LR3 with the same 4.4 V8 in Houston traffic every day.
Does The Autopian consider unsolicited – as in probably unwanted – submissions? I’ve done all my own maintenance on this rig for a decade, and what I’ve learned can make you feel more confident in your RR and older vehicles in general.
I’ve found the same is.true for old British sports cars*. Replace the points with an electronic ignition module, all the gaskets with modern silicone or similar, cleaning and adding dielectric grease to all electrical connectors on the harness goes a LONG way to make those cars reliable fair weather DDs. And it’s not as much work as it sounds, except the #$&@% windvane rear main seal if your car has one. That might need a shop to replace with a proper modern seal.
*The rest is still essentially 1930s tech so keep your expectations low and you’ll be fine.