The Scariest Used Car I Can Imagine Is An 18 Year-Old Supercharged Range Rover Sport, And Yet This One Ruled

Ask anyone who knows anything about cars what the least reliable cars are, and I guarantee “old Range Rover” is going to come to the forefront. That’s, in part, thanks to Doug DeMuro pointing out how his 2006 Range Rover’s Carmax warranty saved him from bankruptcy, but there are plenty of others who have told similar tales. Take British engineers, have them design an overly complicated SUV, and then sell that SUV to people who place very little value on cars older than about two years old. The result is: Used Range Rovers are humongous, steaming piles of junk. That’s why, when I learned that someone had traded a 2006 Range Rover Sport into Galpin Ford, I just had to test it out.

OK, so to be fair, Doug’s Range Rover was a regular model, while I tested out the Range Rover Sport, which is built on a modified Land Rover LR3 chassis. Still, like the standard car, you’ve got a supercharged 4.2-liter Jaguar V8 under the hood, with output on the Sport model being 390 horses (only 10 down from the regular Range Rover). The idea behind the Range Rover Sport was to offer a slightly cheaper, more street-oriented SUV to compete with the Germans (think X5 and Cayenne), but one that can still do some amount of off-roading thanks in part to a trick Terrain Response dial that adjusts ride height and traction control for mud, snow, sand, or other conditions.

Not shared with the full-sized Range Rover until 2006, this drive mode system was quite revolutionary for 2006.

To be sure, even the nearly 6,000 pound Range Rover *Sport* still wasn’t exactly a handler, with Road & Track writing in its 2006 track test piece:

…the Range Rover Sport came along for the ride. And promptly posted the worst acceleration numbers, the worst slalom time and the second-to-worst skidpad run of the group. Yet along the way, all of us, including “Mike,” came to like and respect it.

[…]

With all that weight and a tall center of gravity, high-speed sweepers made it feel floaty. And the brakes — despite measuring 14.2 in. Up front — faded quickly, exacerbated by an extremely long pedal travel. Marc wasn’t a fan of the steering, either, saying “the numb on-center feel surprised me because it reminded me of my parents’ Range Rover from the late ’80s.”

[…]

…everyone commented on the Range Rover’s high style, Marc calling it “the best design of the bunch” and Joe saying he “likes the massive, aggressive looks.” Inside, the Range Rover impressed with its luxurious appointments (especially the onboard electric drink cooler), and its fit and finish.

Despite all the comments about it being down in the sport quotient to the others, Jonathan said, “The Range Rover would absolutely be my pick for a laid-back road trip with friends.”

Car and Driver was a little friendlier re: the truck’s handling, writing:

…we drove the Range Rover Sport in the mountains near Malibu, California, and were pleasantly surprised at how well this vehicle takes to the tortuous ribbons of asphalt that traverse this area. Again, thanks to the mechanisms that discourage unwanted body motions, the vehicle avoids any rolling and wallowing during hard cornering.

The brakes—four-piston Brembos on the front end—rein in the Range Rover with plenty of power and feel. Then you can swing the nose with the smooth ZF Servotronic steering gear, which is accurate and nicely weighted if not particularly communicative. As the vehicle reaches the corner apex, you then exploit the abundant torque of the supercharged V-8 and the all-wheel-drive system to pull the vehicle out of the corner without tire scrub.

As long as the cautious stability-control system has been disabled, a driver can get on the power early and stay on a tight arc that avoids crossing over the center line. Range Rover engineers claim they could have dialed body roll right out of the equation but refrained from doing so to provide some of the cornering feedback most people expect.

Regardless, it’s a big SUV, and what pretty much every reviewer back in 2006 had to say was that the Range Rover Sport had incredible amounts of style, loads of power, and its ride comfort was excellent. But 18 years later, would that still hold up?

I drove this black-on-black Range Rover Sport that somebody had traded in for a Ford. Here’s what I learned:

Look at this thing:

It’s a 2006 Range Rover Sport trade-in, but looking at it in the photo above, you’d be surprised it’s that old. The vehicle’s styling has held up beautifully over the past 18 years, and the fact that the paint and body are still in excellent condition only exacerbates how modern this ol’ luxury SUV looks.

Yes, it doesn’t quite look as good from the other front three-quarter angle due to a yellowing headlight:

And if I’m honest, that interior is in what I’d consider worse-than-average condition, particularly up front:

The little square holes in the seat have all turned into X’s:

The armrests look like they’d look right on 19th-century furniture:

The dashboard, too, is cracked:

Yikes.

The good news is that the rear seats look decent.

So my first impressions were mixed. The Range Rover looks great on the outside, but kinda rough inside. But the question I had was: How would it drive? Would that 390 horsepower Supercharged V8 still have some spunk in it or would it have a loud knock and exhaust leak, stuttering under load and ultimately leaving me with an overheated car on the side of the 405?

What about the air suspension, which is notoriously unreliable on old Range Rovers. Do the air springs still work?

Upon firing the engine up, I was actually quite surprised by how how “not bad” the V8 sounded, and if you don’t believe me, just look at perhaps the most “not bad” faces a man can make:

Of course, I was shortly thereafter surprised to hear a loud HISS!

That hissing sound seemed to have come from under the car — perhaps it was air suspension related? One I got on the road, I was simply blown away by how smoothly the old Range Rover propelled itself down those Van Nuys streets, especially since something appeared a bit off with the air suspension. How was the ride still this smooth? How was that six-speed ZF automatic so buttery? How were the seats so comfortable? How was that cabin still so quiet? It was remarkable.

Less remarkable was what happened when I hammered the throttle:

The engine made a horrible sound that seemed to me might have been caused by the engine rocking under load, coming into contact with the electric fan. Either it was that or an exhaust leak, but in either case, I was no longer comfortable mashing the pedal all the way to the ground.

[Editor’s note: That sort of juddering under load could also be symptomatic of drivetrain problems. Driveshaft components don’t last forever, and the sealed-for-life status of the automatic transmissions in these Range Rover Sports did no favors for transmission longevity —TH]

Still, if I kept my foot from the floorboard, the engine felt responsive and smooth. The AC worked great, and thanks to the crotch vent — which really should be standard on all cars — I was not only riding in style, but I did so with refrigerated lower giblets. And that, as we all know, is the pinnacle of comfort.

In the end, I was blown away by this traded-in 2006 Range Rover Sport. It wasn’t particularly fast, it certainly wasn’t efficient, and its interior hadn’t held up well at all. But the Range Rover Sport has always been about comfort and style. And even this old Range Rover Sport — whose suspension I found worked quite well despite the hissing (which I assume is a normal relief-valve sound) — is an ACE when it comes to comfort.

As for style? I mean, come on — look at this:

The car is old enough to vote and it still looks that good.

I had expected this Trade-In Tuesday to go so, so much worse.