Range Rover L405 Review (2012-2021)

It’s nice to know you can. That’s why people buy SUVs, especially Range Rovers, even when they have very little intention of taking them off road. This is a luxury car that can scale hills and ford streams, and even if it never does, there’s something reassuring about the knowledge that, while you surround yourself with the finest trimmings money can buy, you’re prepared for anything life might throw at you.

The original Range Rover, launched in 1969, was a revelation, sold as the car you could use on the farm during the week, and drive into town at weekends. By today’s standards, those early models are pretty utilitarian, but these days, the Range Rover is a byword for luxury. Climb aboard even a standard example, and you’ll find a leather-swathed cockpit with lashings of wood and the feel of an expensive powerboat or boutique hotel.

The Range Rover is strictly a five-seater – if you want space for seven, then you'll need to look at the Range Rover Sport instead – but those five passengers get acres of room to stretch out. In the front, meanwhile, palatial armchairs swaddle you from all sides, and there’s a terrific view out through the big windscreen and windows.

The boot is massive, too. You get 900 litres in all versions except the P400e hybrid, which loses 98 litres to accommodate its battery and electric motor, but that’s still not what you’d call small.

Palatial, because once you start it up and get moving Range Rover feels more like a small building than a car. Turn the steering wheel, and the nose responds slowly and deliberately; carry too much speed into a corner and it’ll lean over on its side like a ship in a gale. Until, that is, you flip it into ‘Dynamic’ mode, when it performs a miraculous transformation, suddenly feeling half the size and hustling down back roads remarkably well.

This is still no sports car, though, and you’re always aware of its size and weight, and that clever four-wheel-drive system is especially heavy. If it’s a sporting SUV you want, you’re better off at the helm of an Audi SQ7, but what the Range Rover offers instead is uncompromising dedication to comfort – something few SUVs even at this price do this well.

Don’t take from that that the Range Rover is slow, however. Even the least powerful engine in the range, the D250 diesel, produces 246bhp, enough to get it to 62mph in 8.1 seconds, while the most powerful diesel in the range, the 346hp D350, can do the same in 6.8 seconds. These ‘Ingenium’ straight-six diesel engines were introduced for the 2021 model year, replacing the older V6 and V8 diesels.

The newer engines are a bit less effortless in their power delivery than the older V6 and V8 diesels, but they are more economical offering up to 33mpg. They’re also cleaner, meeting ‘RDE2’ and Euro 6d-final regulations – which sounds complicated but means they can travel into all current and planned urban low-emissions zones in the UK with fear of attracting a penalty charge.

If you want a bit more pace – and you can afford the fuel bills – you can also specify your Range Rover with one of three petrol engines, the fastest of which is the P565, which reduces the 62mph sprint to just 5.1 seconds, making this leviathan quick enough to keep pace with some of the quickest hot hatches around.

Palatial, because once you start it up and get moving Range Rover feels more like a small building than a car. Turn the steering wheel, and the nose responds slowly and deliberately; carry too much speed into a corner and it’ll lean over on its side like a ship in a gale. Until, that is, you flip it into ‘Dynamic’ mode, when it performs a miraculous transformation, suddenly feeling half the size and hustling down back roads remarkably well.

This is still no sports car, though, and you’re always aware of its size and weight, and that clever four-wheel-drive system is especially heavy. If it’s a sporting SUV you want, you’re better off at the helm of an Audi SQ7, but what the Range Rover offers instead is uncompromising dedication to comfort – something few SUVs even at this price do this well.

The Range Rover certainly isn’t slow, though. Even the least powerful engine in the range, the TDV6, produces 271bhp, which is enough to get it to 62mph in 7.4 seconds. For truly imperious performance, you’ll want the TDV8, which kicks out 334bhp and lops half a second off that 0-62mph time.

If that’s not fast enough for you, and you can afford the fuel bills, there are also three petrol engines, the fastest of which is the P565, which reduces the 62mph sprint to just 5.1 seconds, making the Range Rover quick enough to keep pace with some of the fastest hot hatches around.

Never was the old adage ‘if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it’ truer. If you’re worried about the cost of running a Range Rover, you probably shouldn’t be thinking of buying one. Cars this heavy are never easy on fuel, and you’ll struggle to average more than 30mpg even in the most economical Range Rover of all, the SDV6.

In which case, you might as well upgrade to the SDV8, which only loses a few mpg. The plug-in hybrid’s 83.2mpg official fuel economy figure sounds miraculous by comparison, but take it with a pinch of salt. In the real world, you’ll probably average less than half that, even if you plug it in regularly.

Petrol versions are, of course, the thirstiest. Even the mild hybrid P400 will struggle to exceed 25mpg, and if you plump for either of the more powerful petrol engines, expect average fuel consumption figures of less than 20mpg.

Along with those high fuel bills come high servicing costs. The Range Rover needs to be serviced every year or 16,000 miles, whichever comes up first, and it’s a big, heavy, and mechanically complex car, especially in hybrid form. There plenty to check during a service and lots to go wrong, and parts are also expensive. You can buy service packages from Land Rover, which allow you to pay monthly and spread the cost.

Most Range Rovers use a timing chain, which you shouldn’t need to change throughout the life of the car. However, if you choose the TDV6 model, you’ll need to be aware that it’ll require a new timing belt every seven years or 105,000 miles.

Unfortunately, the Range Rover has a terrible record for reliability. As a brand, Land Rover finished 29th out of 30 manufacturers, in the 2021 What Car? Reliability Survey, and the Range Rover itself came seventh out of eight cars in the luxury SUV category. Only the Land Rover Discovery was worse, and Land Rovers and Range Rovers made up the bottom half of that group.

Electric issues a very common, and owners report that problems are not only frequent but expensive to put right. With that in mind, it’s well worth considering extending the warranty when it runs out. The Range Rover was sold with a with a three-year, unlimited mileage warranty from new, and for an additional cost, you can extend this until the car is up to 10 years old and has up to 100,000 miles on the clock.

Land Rover also has an approved used car scheme for second-hand models sold via its franchised dealers. These come with a 12-month warranty and a year’s roadside assistance.