Hiya! First off, thanks for all the useful information on the forum! It's always heartening to see help being given freely to people who would otherwise be completely stumped - gotta love owners clubs!
Danger. Long rambling post ahead. You can probably skip to the last couple of paragraphs and save a few braincells.
It's time for a new car. I've been doing all the usual research; marques, models, finance, TCO, etc. I also started doing the inevitable 'feature creep' that we ALL do ?. I was originally just going to go for a Skoda Yeti as a family workhorse to replace the trusty Focus, but the wife really didn't want the badge on the drive ?. The inlaws are on the Ford ticket, so I've been buying their 3 year old cast offs for a great price for years. I have Focus fatigue in a big way! Having said that, I've owned 3, covered a whole lot of miles in them and apart from a faulty coil pack and suspension bushes, that's the total amount of non service/wear items I've needed.
So I decided to up the budget and get something I might actually be interested in owning - the wife has a brand new A3 S-Line, so why can't I have a nice motor?. Enter the usual suspects; Q3, X1, Sportage, Kuga, Qashqai, Countryman, Tiguan. Of all the ones I test drove, the Tig was (for me) the pick of the bunch. I feature creeped a bit more and decided it was an R Line spec or bust. Also bear in mind, I'm in the sub 20k range here, so older models. But hey, THEN I'm in Evoque territory - whole new ball game! A car I've always wanted! Why did I even bother with the others?! Sure, there's a bit of a practicality tradeoff, but sod it - it's an Evoque, dammit, I want one. I really want one.
So lets spend hours and hours (days, weeks) researching Evoques, trawling forums, drooling at Autotrader etc. I know a couple of people with Evoques, so I had a drive and quizzed them. 'Yeah, it's been fine! The key packed in once, but they fixed it no problem' and 'Yeah, sound mate, it's been great!'. Then contrast it with the horror stories - so many of them. Then you rationalise it with 'people come to forums to find solutions to faults and complain about issues'. Then you read Trustpilot's reviews on JLR and think 'christ, that's eye-wateringly bad'. Then you think 'It's OK, mine will be a good one'. Then, 'but what if it's not...' Round and round and round...
So let's mitigate the risk... I've found a warrantied approved car at a Land Rover dealer for a surprisingly good price that's exactly the spec I want with a reasonable mileage for the lifecycle I have in mind. It's done 43k - I'd plan on owning for 4 years, adding about 12-13k a year, so say 90-95k-ish by the time I plan to get rid.
I'd made the decision. This is the car for me. The dealers number is in my phone.
And yet I just can't bring myself to hit the button and commit. It's a ridiculous place to be in. A car that I've absolutely loved since the day it came out is totally within my grasp and I'm scared to commit because JLR appears to be a complete sh!tshow. Do I want to own a car that I'll be constantly worrying will let me down - I wonder how many sales JLR lose to exactly this issue? Or am I just overthinking?
I'll let you know!
Stay safe, I hope you're all well. Strange and worrying times.
Danger. Long rambling post ahead. You can probably skip to the last couple of paragraphs and save a few braincells.
It's time for a new car. I've been doing all the usual research; marques, models, finance, TCO, etc. I also started doing the inevitable 'feature creep' that we ALL do ?. I was originally just going to go for a Skoda Yeti as a family workhorse to replace the trusty Focus, but the wife really didn't want the badge on the drive ?. The inlaws are on the Ford ticket, so I've been buying their 3 year old cast offs for a great price for years. I have Focus fatigue in a big way! Having said that, I've owned 3, covered a whole lot of miles in them and apart from a faulty coil pack and suspension bushes, that's the total amount of non service/wear items I've needed.
So I decided to up the budget and get something I might actually be interested in owning - the wife has a brand new A3 S-Line, so why can't I have a nice motor?. Enter the usual suspects; Q3, X1, Sportage, Kuga, Qashqai, Countryman, Tiguan. Of all the ones I test drove, the Tig was (for me) the pick of the bunch. I feature creeped a bit more and decided it was an R Line spec or bust. Also bear in mind, I'm in the sub 20k range here, so older models. But hey, THEN I'm in Evoque territory - whole new ball game! A car I've always wanted! Why did I even bother with the others?! Sure, there's a bit of a practicality tradeoff, but sod it - it's an Evoque, dammit, I want one. I really want one.
So lets spend hours and hours (days, weeks) researching Evoques, trawling forums, drooling at Autotrader etc. I know a couple of people with Evoques, so I had a drive and quizzed them. 'Yeah, it's been fine! The key packed in once, but they fixed it no problem' and 'Yeah, sound mate, it's been great!'. Then contrast it with the horror stories - so many of them. Then you rationalise it with 'people come to forums to find solutions to faults and complain about issues'. Then you read Trustpilot's reviews on JLR and think 'christ, that's eye-wateringly bad'. Then you think 'It's OK, mine will be a good one'. Then, 'but what if it's not...' Round and round and round...
So let's mitigate the risk... I've found a warrantied approved car at a Land Rover dealer for a surprisingly good price that's exactly the spec I want with a reasonable mileage for the lifecycle I have in mind. It's done 43k - I'd plan on owning for 4 years, adding about 12-13k a year, so say 90-95k-ish by the time I plan to get rid.
I'd made the decision. This is the car for me. The dealers number is in my phone.
And yet I just can't bring myself to hit the button and commit. It's a ridiculous place to be in. A car that I've absolutely loved since the day it came out is totally within my grasp and I'm scared to commit because JLR appears to be a complete sh!tshow. Do I want to own a car that I'll be constantly worrying will let me down - I wonder how many sales JLR lose to exactly this issue? Or am I just overthinking?
I'll let you know!
Stay safe, I hope you're all well. Strange and worrying times.