DH wants a Range Rover (somewhat lighthearted)

[cadburyegg]

DH is in the market for a new car and has seen a Range Rover in the garage down the road. It’s very expensive obviously and much more than what we could afford.

Yet he keeps banging on about it and he’s been talking about how much he wants one for ages. He talks about how cheap the tax and insurance is so he’s already investigated it

We have 2 young dc, I’m on maternity leave, we earn average salaries, live in an average house.

AIBU to keep telling him to forget it. How can I get him to forget this pipe dream?!

Tell him to calculate the depreciation and weep

Buy him a plastic range rover and tell him you found one with even cheaper tax and insurance

Get him to work out the MPG on it and what an average months fuel would cost you.

All well and good budgeting for the tax and insurance if you can't afford to put the fuel in!

Point him to the Dacia forecourt. Dusters are the poor man's Range Rover.

I love mine 😍it is the best!

If you can’t afford it you can’t have it and he will have to just suck it up and have a diffrent car!

My mate has one. Never drives it, it costs too much to run. Drives his wife nuts as he’s always nicking her car.

It just sits on his drive looking expensive

Point out repair costs and that range rover are notorious for needing repairs. Although maybe this new, slightly strange looking generation are better.
Or let him enjoy his dream, he will move on when he thinks about paying the cost and you wont be the bad guy x

Has he ever attempted to park a Range Rover in a real-world parking space?

I park at a naice gym and naice supermarket (stealth boast) regularly, and there are tonnes of Range Rovers in each every day, overhanging their parking spaces like Robbie Coltrane sitting on a barstool.

He’s looked into the tax and insurance. Has he actually looked into how much one would cost to buy.

My super wealthy friend has a top of the range one which she has owned from new, so very carefully looked after. The annual service, MOT and general maintenance charges are eye watering (think thousands). If anything goes wrong it seems to cost three times more than it would on my non flash run around.

Although your husband may think you can afford it, there is much more than the initial cost of the car to consider. They’re lovely cars but unfortunately only for the very wealthy.

My boss has one, its in the shop almost every month. If you drive a lot be prepared for a big maintenance bill.

I'm of no help when I say I absolutely love them and am aiming for one next time I change.

You could always look at a lease deal or a just add fuel one. Of course you'll never own the car but it does work out a cheaper payment, or even salary sacrifice if you have one.

I'm just about to get a BMW in the next couple of weeks from work that I'd never have been able to afford but with salary sacrifice on a just add fuel deal it's costing me about £250 per month.

Tell him he’d look like a footballer’s wife.

We compromised on a Freelander and DH does the servicing and maintenance himself (although it’s still bloody expensive). It’s fun to drive and very handy in the snow but far more expensive to run than our other car so it’s a bit of a treat to take it for long journeys.

Tell him to check the cost of a tyre! You can't afford to run one unless you have money to burn. I love them, I miss the one I had with exh, but it killed in terms of running costs.

If you have one, especially if it's not newish then you will be on first name terms with your mechanic.

Perhaps go for a test drive, but make sure you get in first and set the dashboard display to show mpg. Trust me dh had one it will go down to single figures.

He could either buy an older one or lease one. Either way he should set his eyes on something more economical and practical for your children. If he's getting annoying you could always suggest he gets a job paying 4 times as much!

Absolutely look into repair bill, the mechanic bills are eye watering, I know a couple of people with one and they are always complaining about how much it costs them.

We love ours but it is eye watering thirsty on fuel and to have it serviced could make you weep. We didn't buy one until we knew we could definitely afford to run and maintain one

bellsbuss What's the mpg on the Range Rover you have at the moment?

Genuinely intrigued!

Jeden I wonder if your friend is my ex’s father... he had one and kept nicking his wife’s/ daughters/my ex’s car

Don't do it! They are so try-hard and incredibly expensive to run. And if you are planning to lease from the dealership it's even worse. We had a Q5 on PCP and it was the biggest waste of money, we got barely 30mpg (on a good day) and it was a PITA to park in smaller spaces. Not worth it just for the sake of looking pretty on the driveway. Currently getting 60-70mpg in our new mid-range SUV that we own outright, we will not be leasing a car again in a hurry that's for sure.

Also consider that the future is very much electric, these big Chelsea Tractor chuggy deasels will certainly suffer the most.

Tell him to stop being so fucking ridiculous. You can’t afford it and you don’t need a vehicle of that nature. He wants the thing he doesn’t need the thing.

Range Rovers are grea5 cars, but they have a well-earned reputation as money pits. Depreciation is by far the biggest cost of owning a RR. Compared to that, the cost of tax and insurance is irrelevant.

Old ones have a shocking reputation for unreliability. There are a huge number of things which can go expensively wrong. The air suspension and electrics, in particular, are a nightmare.

Fuel consumption is high for petrol engines, less so for diesels. How important this is depends mileage, of course. If you’re doing less than 100 miles a week, it’s completely irrelevant in the context of RR ownership costs. If you’re doing 500 miles a week, however, it’s a big cost.

Unless you actually need the towing or off-road ability, I would think very, very carefully about buying a used RR.