u/JollyVoli

I'm looking for a car that I can have fun with on the road and also take out for camping and overlanding trips with my family. I really love the Defender. I'm looking at either a P400 new or a P500 used if I find one in good condition, which I saw a few already.

I just hear so many horror stories of people getting left stranded and that's something I want to avoid at absolutely all costs. I don't mind doing maintenance every 5,000 miles. I do that anyways on my cars but having my car in service for months or getting stranded on the side of the road is something I do not want to experience. I figured there is no place else better to go to than the Reddit forums and to ask owners directly. What do you guys think and what route should I take? I really need some convincing on this one. I'm not going to lie, the things I've heard really sway me. It's well known that this brand overall has a reliability problem. Owners tell me what you think and what I should know before making my decision.

Any advice is appreciated!

I'm located in NYC and I'm looking to get into overlanding and am preparing to buy my first real off-road-based overlanding vehicle. I have a few options in mind that I am currently contemplating. My only thing is that out of my personal friends and people I hang out with, nobody is really into this type of stuff. I'm trying to see if there are any communities or groups of people that do this or maybe a place where events get organized or something of that sort, where I can do this as an activity more often with other people and not just as a once or twice a year trip. I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks.

Hey guys, sorry in advance for the rant, but I wanted to get some opinions on how to look at this situation.

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About two years ago I bought a 2021 Explorer ST CPO from Dana Ford in Staten Island. It had only 15k miles, a solid service history, and I bought it with a four-year extended warranty from Ziegler. The car now has about 45k miles, mostly highway driving, and I take pretty good care of it.

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Over time I noticed a few issues. There was a small knock under my feet on the driver’s side when going over bumps or ramps, an occasional auto start/stop problem where the car would shake until restarted, and eventually a tire pressure sensor issue. Since I’m about to take a long road trip from New York to Georgia, I brought it in to get everything checked out.

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The dealership had the car for over three weeks, with very poor communication and about two weeks before they even really started diagnostics. In the end, they replaced the battery, both front axles, passenger-side catalytic converter, and apparently the differential as well. Everything was covered under warranty except the battery.

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On one hand, I guess this is a win because the car got a bunch of major new parts for basically no cost to me. On the other hand, it feels concerning that a 2021 vehicle with only 45k miles would need this much work already.

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To make it worse, when I got the car back, the alignment was way off and the steering wheel was crooked. Since I’m leaving for the trip soon, I just had my alignment guy fix it instead of bringing it back to the dealer. He said they probably knocked it out of alignment while doing the axle work.

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So I’m torn. Should I look at this as a warranty win because a bunch of expensive parts were replaced before a long trip, or should I be worried that this much had to be done at 45k miles? Has anyone had a similar experience with their Explorer ST?

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Hey guys, so sorry in advance for the rant or whatever you wanna call it but I recently had an experience and wanted to know your thoughts on whether you think this is normal or how I should look at it as a win or as an inconvenience and worry..

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So about two years ago I bought a 2021 Explorer ST CPO from the dealer (Dana Ford in Staten Island, NYC). Got a pretty good price for it considering it only had 15k miles and I saw the service record. It was serviced at the dealer every three months or so. Got it with a four-year extended warranty.

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At some point in ownership, maybe six months down the line or so, I started feeling a small knock under my feet on the driver's side. It was only when I would hit some kind of bumps or ramps or something. I didn't pay much mind to it. In fact when I had an engine light on and took it to service for some emission-related issue, I mentioned it and they claimed to have checked it and not found anything concerning.

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Last year in about September or so I started having some weird issues with my auto start/stop where it would seemingly try to activate it but it wouldn't work and the car would start shaking until I would restart it. It only happened once in a while, like maybe once every two weeks or so, and I realized that if I keep all that dark stuff off, it never happened at all and when I went to a dealer in Brooklyn, he didn't even service the vehicle. He just basically said that it's probably the battery and I should change the battery, see if it works.

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Figured it probably was the battery and had it in my plans to change it at some point. Now I'm planning a long trip from New York to Georgia and I wanted to service the car to make sure that everything is taken care of before I hit the road. I took the car in for service at Dana Ford in the middle of May and I told them pretty much about all the issues, including:

- tire pressure sensor that went out on the car

- the auto start/stop issue

- the shaking issue

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They had the car for about 2 weeks before they even started diagnostics. I had very little communication with the service rep and only after about two weeks did they start diagnostics.

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They claimed that the auto start/stop issue was due to a battery and they changed it with my approval, and that's something I had to pay for out of pocket as it's not covered by the warranty. They also went on to say that there was a leak in the axle and they changed the axles, both front axles. They also said that I claimed there was a loud noise, which I never did, so I'm not sure if that was a mistake or something that they found there. Apparently the passenger side catalytic converter had something wrong with it and they replaced it. They also mentioned that they replaced the differential. I don't know exactly what it was related to or why, I think about the shaking.

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All together it was just over 3 weeks before I got my car back but pretty much everything was covered under my extended warranty, other than the battery.

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On top of all of this when I got the car back, the wheel alignment was way off and my steering wheel was crooked. However I have to leave in two days already on the trip so I decided to just take it to my guy who does wheel alignment and get it done there rather than going back to them and telling them about it. My guy told me that most likely while they were changing the axles, they messed up the alignment in the front.

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My issue is that I don't know how to look at this. From one side my car just got a bunch of brand new components which likely won't fail any time soon. On the other hand there is no reason that the parts should be failing this early on. The car is only at 45K miles and it's taken care of very well. The majority of miles that have been put on it from the 15K that I bought it at to the 45K now are highway miles. It's not like it's being driven off-road somewhere even though I do like to test the power and I utilize the performance aspect of the car very often.

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Another thing that I'm thinking is that some of these parts maybe didn't necessarily fail but had enough wear for them to change it out completely, seeing it as it was covered anyhow, if that is the case then I suppose it's not as bad but again I don't know what the chances are of that being the case. I'm not sure how these service centers operate when it comes to things like this. Time-wise the experience was terrible and the communication was horrible but I think that's simply because of the person that I ended up getting. I don't think this would have been the case had I worked with one of the other service advisors.

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Anyhow this is just kind of a rant I guess lol and also an attempt to see what you guys think about this and whether anybody ever experienced something similar as well as any insights on how you guys think I should look at this experience overall.

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I think this has been brought up but I haven't really seen any definitive answers. Wanted to know if anybody can confirm whether or not the NYPD can see our CCW permits when they run our names in their system (for example at a traffic stop)

Thinking about getting myself a 2021 Range Rover, not sure whether V8 or V6 Westminster if I find a good one under 35k miles and clean title with no accidents. Wanted to get some insights from owners and people that experienced these cars on reliability, long-term ownership, and whether this is a good choice or not. I'm planning to get a fidelity exclusionary warranty policy on it for four to five years, the Land Rover dealership near me works with that. Any thoughts on the 2021 model and how it holds up? Is this something I should actually consider or steer away from? TIA!

I have a 2021 ST with about 50,000 miles. I have an extended warranty on it with full coverage and I want to make sure that whatever mods I put on the car don't void my warranty. I don't want to do anything crazy or too expensive.

I was thinking something small, maybe some slight horsepower boost but the most obvious upgrade that I would love to go for is the exhaust, considering how the tips are drilled down at the bottom on the stock exhaust. I really don't like that and want that to be the first thing I replace.

Any suggestions on what I should replace, how I should do it, and where to do it? I'm located in NYC.