Leaderboard

I won't give my opinion on range rovers as I have done many times so if you search the site, you will find it. The only one good thing about range rovers, they are comfortable. Everything else I have to say is bad. I can recommend gulf stars in Sharjah as being very competitive on parts prices and they have a free delivery service. Don't worry, after a few months of ownership, you will know everyone in all the parts shops on a first name basis.

I really wouldn't know as I usually do them myself or at a friends place, a service is what, oil and filter replacement, air filter cleaning or changing. Checking up on coolant and top up if needed. See if any hoses, pipes or belts need change, slide under the car to see all's well. Filter original costs around 50-60 dhs you can get aftermarket for 35. I put in synthetic oil at 120 per gallon, you can use any good synthetic oil with in the 40-50w range and even 30w in the winter months. although I think LR recommends castrol. , air filter was also around 60. Diluted coolant was around 35. belts and all, all under or around a 100 each, the most expensive thing i found was a paper gasket for the transmission pan with was 100 dhs, just for a piece of paper cut in shape! The gear oil filter itself was around 50. Anyways the sport SC doesn't have that, the filter is built into the pan and you replace the entire thing, not too pricey either. Once you drive a Range Rover, you'll forget Cruisers and Patrols, because literally nothing rides like a Range Rover. After a decade of driving Land Cruisers, around 10 yrs ago I got my first Range Rover and now I literally don't like anything else I drive, totally spoilt now ! I would also strongly recommend you get one of these http://www.icarsoft.com/web/icarsoftus/allproducts/landroverscantools/2012/201212/20121229123158a6ef0_1.html You can get one from ebay for around $150 and will save you a lot of headache, heartache and holes in your wallets if you end up with monkeys who don't have a clue whats gone wrong with the ride and just keep throwing expensive parts at it. Plus it can reset quite a lot of systems if you ever get stuck in a situation, like your suspension freezes for whatever reason, ( and it will tell you exactly whats wrong, so you can get to the heart of the problem right away instead of aforementioned monkey trial and error method, that alone is worth it

Before our resident mechanics come and scare the living daylights out of you, and force you to buy a 1990 corolla as a "safe bet" I say go for it, suspension parts are not all that expensive anymore, were when air suspension was a new thing, now almost all luxury cars have it, there are even places that will redo your air spring with a new bladder for as little as 500dhs a corner. And Land Rover has learned a lot about air suspension reliability since the 1990s and its not that common anymore, something that gave LR a bad name in the 90s as unreliable cars. I know three cars now model year 2002 ( 1st year the L322 generation LR came out ) still riding on original air bags which it came out of the factory ) but like tyres they are made of rubber and will eventually need to be replaced. Another thing is the air compressor for the air suspension failure, which is usually a few cheap fix, garages here will instantly tell you to get a new air compressor i,e $$$$ but its just the piston ring that gets worn out and you can order one from ebay for as little as $10 and its an easy non greasy and getting DIY fix. I even have a cheaper fix which will cost you a grand total of 2dhs, no thats not a typo and I kid you not. Sharjah has now atleast half a dozen parts shop dealing exclusively with Land Rover parts, which sell original as well as aftermarket parts at very reasonable prices, there are also a couple of Land Rover scrap yards and bits and bobs are plenty. Although I myself prefer the full size range rover the sports is my second choice, and the SC goes likes the clappers, be ready to see a lot of cars eating your dust in the rear view mirror. The Jaguar derived V8 is a solid tried and tested motor and you can put another 200k on it without worrying much if you just keep regular with the services. Just take care of the engine services and make sure to service the transmission at 100k, with a complete fluid flush and new gear filter and be 1000% of sure of putting in the right fluid as it does not like anything else. Don't trust the service history even if its says its been done. Just go ahead and do it anyways. The oil is a bit pricey starting from 30 to 100dhs per liter depending where you buy it from. Saluki in Al Qouz run by Mark Powell is a pretty good garage and they know their Land Rovers and so does Capital Auto also in Al Qouz. Avoid AAA and A2B

Adding more camshafts does not increase volumetric efficiency. Adding more valves can give you a higher percentage but to say a DOHC engine has higher volumetric efficiency than a SOHC engine is simply untrue. A properly built SOHC cylinder head with matched, polished ports, large valves and good camshaft can easily outperform a standard, out of the box DOHC head. Again, I will point out, valve timing, lift and duration has absolutely nothing to do with the number of camshafts. It is controlled by the profile of the camshaft. On a properly set up, well adjusted drivetrain, any losses would be so low as to be immeasurable.

Confirmed

In my experience RR are the most comfy and friendly car I have ever owned and at same time I always felt like I am sitting on a ticking bomb. What desertdude is explaining the fact, but after your first year of ownership and few bad bites you will graduate to that level of ownership experience when you can differentiate between real and honest LR professional and just greedy monkeys. What Danny shared is based on lot of greedy monkey experience touting around the market and LR name, esp RR name become too notorious because of those greedy workshops. They made this judgement that everyone who own RR is a big shot and if they rip them for couple of thousand then it's acceptable in their business dictionary. I have even come to hear from one of such greedy mechanic - that you drive RR and looking for a bargain.....! Ticking bomb was the beep of EAS - Beep beep beep - I still remember it clearly and it used to be the most haunting beep of my life, that while driving all of sudden three beeps can turn your ride in to limping beast running at 60 kmph. After couple of attempts, I finally gave up on EAS and switch to solid springs (softer version) and enjoyed my RR thoroughly. Like desertdude mentioned, I also agree that in newer version RR have improved much better on their EAS build quality and reliability. I also tasted Arnott ballons that comes about the same price and last forever in one of my close friend car, who is still driving the same RR without any haunting EAS beeps with best ride comfort. The second best thing of RR after comfort is the seating position that shows you almost every nook and corner of the road with almost zero blindspot - some seriously amazing design done by LR guys, much better than Porsche, BMW and Merc in similar league. As I owned my RR, I happen to realize that they are very easy to work on many DIY things like changing oil, filters, spark plugs and other basic maintenance that if you just have an honest mechanic, he wouldn't charge you fortune for same jobs as compare to LC, Patrol or any other Japanese 4x4. For ride comfort explanation, all I can say that I drove that RR to Salalah and while coming back due to some rush, I drove 1600 kms in 12 hours non-stop, with just fuel top-up break every 400 kms.

Sweihan drive is back on and hope to do it nicely this time. Fingers crossed.

Wasta beats all rules

to me personally, i think people dont prefer range rovers or any luxury brands because they are LAZY to get it fixed once it breaks and is AFRAID of the labor charges. I wish i had the storage and space to do-it-myself some of the works which could have avoided $$$$ on labor charges so far. but my flat is full and basement parking is packed as well. I agree with @desertdude on everything while i agree with @Barry too. Things break but right now its not a problem anymore.... I discovered the scrapyard like 2 weeks ago and i was amazed at the amount of parts they had for the cars you name it. If you dont know anyone there, they will try to rip you off... Range rovers are soo comfortable that anyone who drive it will get spoilt.. true that. Also i think they drink the most fuel which shouldn't be a problem here in UAE... If you are a good sport and prefer something spicy than normal cars (like me lol), THEN GO FOR IT.. Also find a good friend (mechanic) [which i haven't found yet]

My only advice would be if you want to get the complete Range Rover experience then go for the what us commonly known as the Full Fat Range Rover and not the Sport, go for the end of the line of the L322 shape, i,e 2012. Supercharged or non supercharged is up to you, if you like fasts beasts then the Super Charged. Although even the normally aspirated RR is no slow coach either. By the end of the production run of any car all known bugs are pretty much sorted out and its pretty solid and Land Rover usually like to thrown in all the bells and whistles in the last year for an any generation last production run. They did that with the Classic in 1995 and the P38 in 2002, not 100% sure about the 2012. I say test drive all four ( RR, RRSC, RRS, RRS-SC ) and pick the one you like best and then hunt for that one and buy the best one you can afford. Its a good time to be buying cars in this economic downturn and a very slow and sluggish new and used car market, so don't be afraid to negotiate a deal

Thats correct, as you can buy performance cams for some engines which have a different lobe profile than OEM. On a ending note after having said all that Im going to quote the great Carol Shelby, some one who knows a thing or two about power. "There's no replacement for displacement" you can tune, modify, turbo or supercharge a tiny 4 cyl engine to pump out more HP than a V8 but there is nothing like a real V8 with all its natural grunt. Oh and Im talking proper displacement, not my engine has 50cc more than yours

DOHC does not offer more variable timing. In your Pajero engine, the valve timing is fixed. Cams run on a toothed sprocket which directly correlates to crankshaft rotations. If this timing was to be altered, you would end up with at the very least, bent valves. Variable valve timing and double overhead cams are two completely different things. DOHC does not affect the amount of valve lift or duration. Lift and duration are controlled by cam profile, not the number of camshafts. Having separate dedicated camshafts for exhaust and intake valves doesn't mean anything. If it was so important, Mitsubishi wouldn't have switched back to SOHC. The only time this is relevant is if an engine has variable valve timing. My guess is that they originally used DOHC because it was cheaper to design the rocker system. Having extra camshafts can actually cost your engine power as it is parasitic having to turn extra lumps of metal.

Firstly I would like to thank @Gaurav bhai for making the change of venue and to all participants to make it to the new meeting point and making this trip happen. The briefing was comprehensive and there was a surprise in it for all. The once banned Rav4 was not only joining us for the drive, it was going to lead us all for a while. How exciting!!! So we started cautiously, but tried to build up some difficulty level, unfortunately one of the dips meant we has a broken radiator again. Saleem was quick to the rescue and MSeal was once again our savior although Gaurav bhai had a few tricks in his bags other than our regular MSeal. So the bar was open for service and some tasty treats from Gaurav bhai kept us full while some snoozed away at the opportunity. Surprisingly, although the city was hot, but the spot we got had a nice cool breeze to keep us all comfortable. Stories were also exchanged and it was total fun. By the time the radiotor was fixed the sun had also made its way to spread its light without making a full fledge appearance.As Saleem continued to lead the drive he was extra careful in selecting the route and took us to the spot where we love to do some side sloping. We had plenty of fun taking turns and although Asif bhai was a bit hesitant in the beginning, but eventually got his monster to growl, Saleem who was making rounds as if he wanted to reach somewhere yesterday and Gaurav Bhai showing us exactly how it should be done. We than drove to the top of Fossil Rock where we stopped for a BBQ breakfast which has been the highlight now for 2 drives. This is how health conscious we are. After that we came down on the other side and just before heading out we decided to play for a while. This too gave us a lot of thrills and some show-off time. Once again all I will say is brilliant time with amazing people. Gaurav Bhai treated us to some ice cream before heading back and it was another one for the books. Thank you from the bottom of the heart to all participants for being flexible enough for the venue due to my situation and well done Saleem for keeping everyone excited and well fed. I will be missing in action for a couple of weeks as I will be taking on a trip to the wild wild west and I will see you all on the other side of my vacation.