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Well it's been a while since a good purchase, and as the founder of 'Today I bought' it was about time The Range Rover was next on the list for upgrade.
Ove had the RR sport for over 4 years now, and I can honestly say it's the best car I've ever owned. Not the quickest, but a rapid car nonetheless, but the quality of it has been amazing. You can cruise around in silence and comfort, and total safety. It will lug bikes and all sort something of things in it, including wheels, tyres, engines, gearboxes etc. Obviously the big draw in buying it for me was it's ability to tow. For 4 years it towed the race shuttle all over the country over countless race weekends. It only ever let me down once, and that was a dodgy fuel level sensor so it shut the car down. Apart from that, it's been mega reliable and flown through MOT and servicing. Will genuinely be sad to see it go, but it's now at 68k and thought it a good time to move on, plus the fact it's unlikely I will need to tow anything big for a while.
So what to replace it with....
I'd have loved a new RR sport, or even a Velar, but both are mega ££ compared to mine and can't justify anything of that size. I do need something which will tow just in case, and something which will lug things like bike boxes around, and needs 4 doors.
Initially looked at an Audi SQ5 plus, which was ideal at mid 40k and ticked lost of boxes. Diesel didn't massively appeal,but hey ho. But then spotted the Mercedes equivalent - mmmmm. Always wanted a modern Mercedes and found the GLC43 AMG estate to be a much higher level of trim quality than the Audi. Tows stuff - tick. But the big bonus - it's has 380bhp from the petrol 3.0 twin turbo. Job done! Really struggled to find an ex demo (I don't buy new) but one popped up in Aberdeen about 20 metres from the office, so bought it and had it transported down south.
Otes excellent, very fast and loads of gadgets. I will be honest and say I still prefer the RR as it's like your old sofa, and it's higher up, but I think the Merc will definitely grow on me. Needs an exhaust and a remap.
Now realised I currently have a black RR, black AMG, black V12 Vantage S, black Caterham R420 and a black S2000!
Not been out long Pete, only 5 months I think. I didn't know it existed as I'd not really been in the medium size SUV market before.
My strategy on cleaning is the S gets one every 2 months, the Aston rarely as it rarely gets driven, the RR was binweekly and the Caterham I dont bother
Ive got Admital multi thing but never thought of LV
Yeah, we like it. A lot of things are better than the GLA45 we had previously. The gearbox is much better, even though it's not a twin clutch. The fuel economy is not so good, but then anything with 400hp (apparently Mercs official figure is very conservative) and weighing approx. 2-tonnes is going to be crap...
They were actually availble to order in April last year, with first deliveries in June. We ordered ours then, but held off on delivery as we wanted the 'Performance' seats a.k.a. Recaros, but there was a problem with homologation and they have never become available outside of Germany.
We've done around 10k miles and had no issues apart from the front tyre thing (skipping/crabbing), which they all suffer from when the ambient temperature drops. Merc are working on changing the spec of the tyres after a lot of complaints from customers in the UK (LHD cars have difference steering geometry/diff position and are not affected). A replacement set of tyres F.O.C. will become available at some point soon. You should enquire about this at your local dealer.
05-06-2017, 04:14 AM
Today I bought
The Range Rover was next on the list for upgrade.
