quavey
Member Since: 22 Jan 2017
Location: Lancaster
Posts: 302
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My First L322 4.2 S/C, and other Range Rovers | |
(So now we have the book title out of the way!)
I have done an introduction post but I suppose this is my first proper post in the community rather than asking for advice on what to buy. So here we are, a bit of history. I've been a massive petrol head since before I can remember and started of in 2004 with the fairly customary Honda Civic a 1.5 Vtec-e to be precise, (the "e" was not for exciting!) However it was 90bhp which was reasonable for a first car and got me from A-B and it taught me allot about driving. However it could have been all so different, I was obsessed with discoveries at that time as my parents still had a "300tdi" era V8i ES D1. Although all I would have been looking at would have been early 150k plus 200tdi's eventually dad managed to talk me out of it. The Green Oval obsession subsided for a short time. I then moved onto an E36 323i which I bought when I was (just) still 18 and the jump in power was a different world and that really did teach me allot about car control as even by modern standards 170bhp and 250nm torque is enough to get into trouble without really trying.
I won't continue to list each and every vehicle and the story behind but lets fast forward through the pair of Nissan 300zx Twin Turbos, interspersed with a beautiful E36 M3 Evo, and onto the E39 M5. Now if there were ever a vehicle I shouldn't have sold the M5 is probably at the top of the list. Although I happily broke even on ownership... little did I know that just a year later the value would have gone up by 50% or more but hey ho. Anyway the reason why we stop at the M5 is that I had reached an age in life where my house was all but finished, the bank account was missing its usual prefix symbol and I felt I needed another project. Now the Green Oval obsession had been smoldering away over all these years and I must have been partly aware that the M5 was due to go up in value soon as I felt it would be a good idea to keep the miles and road salt of the old girl so my attention turned to a "cheap" P38 (is there such a thing) to rock around in.
The full justification was that my parents live in the middle of nowhere, and had no 4x4, I had no company 4x4 and I have to travel in bad weather and to keep miles of the M5. Now whilst all these justifications were very true they were dreamed up after the event. Really I just wanted a Range Rover V8 to play with.
So here was the first one:
In Cobar Blue on Triple sports I felt she looked modern for a P38. With the Thor 4.6 she went OK and made all the right noises (and much more noise after the center box delete!) Usual maladies of a flat battery (actually a failed battery and a new unit failed on delivery which was a curve ball), compressor weak (rebuilt 10 days after purchase), air springs needing replacing, radiator failed etc but she was a faithful old girl and I was sad to see her go after just under 2 years and 8k miles or so. I replaced it with an E39 530i Touring which ended up being more trouble than the P38 but the idea was my OH might drive it instead of her 1 series as it was bigger. In practice she drove it once, announced there was now no fuel in it and as it was my car if she were to use it I would have to put the fuel in it. The logic never ceases to amaze...
By this time the E39 M5 had long gone and I had bought an E63 650i as my car but a few short months after buying the 650i I found out we were going to have a baby (hes now 18 months) and I imediatly thought about selling the 650i but my OH talked me out of it and when it was time to buy a pram and baby seat I was pleasently surprised that the 650i was more than capable of transporting two adults and a tiny baby.
Anyway as I'm sure many people will understand Tiny Babies do not stay Tiny for long. They grow enormous, heavy and ever more demanding.
By this time, his Lordship was 6 months old and whilst no problem to get in the 6 it was a bit of a ball ache. The 530i was mainly used to ferry us around at a weekend yet one surprise cold January morning a friend of mine announced he was on the way to buy the 530i. I wasn't aware it was officially for sale but he had decided he wanted to take it home and waved a pile of paper under my nose and that was that. The 530i departed into the night just 6 months after purchase.
Now although I feign surprise here, I had infact been looking at the infectious disease that is Range Rovers again and there was a beautiful 2001 Vogue just 60 miles from where I live. I missed the auction but sent that chap a message on the of chance it didn't sell... Well in hindsight the reason it didn't sell is because there was several issues he had not disclosed and someone with more blood still in their brain had walked away. However with precious little blood left in the driving seat I went to see it. Even the stars were telling me not to as the insurance quote had magically disappeared over night and I had to pay £120 more than intended but the bit was between my teeth and he was a charming SOAB and so entered the second chapter of Range Rover's with the 51 plate Vogue in Oslo Blue on Hurricanes in Original bright finish.
Now I do like a moan if I can, I am British after all, but actually she was good as gold on the whole. The satnav didn't work, both keys were in a sorry state, the ABS/TC was broken and the book icon was on plus the compressor sounded like a fat kit knocking on the door of a cake shop. I fixed all these issues apart from the book icon, that was a stuck blend motor and I just didn't have it in me to take the dash to bits. Also replaced many other odds and sods but it never failed to start, and it didn't go flat in the 12/13 months I had her but the stark realisation was that I had done just 2k miles in a year was worrying! By this time the 650i had fallen out of use as once his lordship was past the tender age of 1 we had moved to a forward facing car seat. The 650i was used on the extremely rare occasions where I went out on my own and could be bothered to move the 1 series out of the way.
The other mitigating factor in the lack of use of both of my cars was the arrival of the black sheep of the family, I had always had small vans (astravans for the last 6 years, a pair and over 260k miles between them) but they don't make anything as good as an astra any more and every small van on the market made me look stupid. My MD flippantly sent me a clipping for a Double Cab pickup I answered back with I wish but the tax rules are no good anymore. Turned out whilst I hadn't been paying attention the pickup market had moved on and as long as the payload was over 1000kg we were home free for van tax. Anyway, the NP300 Navara arrived in July of last year and immediately became very useful in reminding me that the P38 was an old girl and the 650i was very small.
At this point my 30th started to loom, quite rapidly, I decided it might be time to grow up a bit and to sell both of my V8's and drop to one car. I started to look at the F01 730d, and latterly F10 530d purely for the 8 speed gearbox would be far more suitable for us as a growing family. Fairly powerful to keep me mildly entertained yet economical and fairly spacious - I even looked at tourings and test drove one.... "Mmm, its not bad, for a diesel" Oh dear... it was never going to work.
Now my OH hates me talking about cars, its all I ever do but I managed through some clever manipulation to get her to talk to me about what she thought about what I should buy and she let slip that she would miss the P38 when it went. Despite it being cold on the passenger side! She went on to detail that it was brilliant if we went on days out, lots of space and good to see out of. Plus I don't really use my car much so was the fuel economy a big issue? Well I didn't need much more convincing that a more modern Range Rover was the way to go. That evening I had joined and was feverishly looking at Supercharged L322's.
The biggest problem being I still had the P38 and the E63 to sell (having managed a combined total of 4900 miles in 12 months between them!). Still after some perseverance and several messers I managed to sell both for a reasonable price whilst a member on here had offered me his Tonga Green MY 07 4.2 S/C, she had a few miles under her belt but had been used regularly and looked in wonderful condition. So to cut this very long story a fraction shorter after a couple of weeks of Mike being patient I was able to make the 300 mile journey to collect my new monster and what a wonderful machine it is. A credit to him and a credit to the breed.
Now one last twist in the seemingly never ending tale is that I had spend considerably less than I was intending to on the F10, it seemed 15k was the magic number at the time to buy anything I actually wanted and whilst I didn't mind in principal it was an awful lot of money on a diesel saloon that wasn't going to do any work. Anyway, with the plan of buying the S/C my attention turned to finding a cheap 330ci to go and do track days in like I did in my younger days in the Nissans/M3/M5. So I also bought one of those last week! First track day in 4 years I think is on the 28th March, and we have another booked in August!
Crisis over turning 30? I don't know what anyone is talking about! (many MANY more pictures on request if anyone is interested!) 2005 E60 M5
2006 L322 4.2 SC
2020 Tesla Model S Long Range
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2004 L322 4.4 Vogue, 2019 NP300 Navara, 2016 NP300 Navara, 2002 L322 4.4 HSE, 2006 (MY07) L322 S/C ,2001 330Ci Sport Track Car, 2005 650i Coupe, 2001 P38 Vogue, 2003 530i Sport Touring, 1999 P38 4.6 HSE, 2002 E39 M5, 1995 300zx TT Slicktop, 1997 M3 Evo, 1992 300zx TT Targa, 1998 323i Coupe
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