And US of A folks say owning a Range Rover is...

[GiveMeAVowel]

Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
Funny you mention the Rover. Apparently Toyota is the vehicle of choice for off road traveling in the Africa. Rover is a distant second.


That may be true today but if you go back a few decades or more
the Land Rover ruled, nobody had ever heard of Toyota.

 

[wings&wheels]

Originally Posted By: horse123
Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
Funny you mention the Rover. Apparently Toyota is the vehicle of choice for off road traveling in the Africa. Rover is a distant second.


That's because land rovers are as off road capable as an AWD acura sedan from the factory.


Is that your experience? Evoque?

My DD is a '13 Range Rover and, while you can legitimately knock LR for a number of things, its off road capability, for what the vehicle is, is not one of them. No its not my Defender, but then again I wouldn't condider the Defender, even the latest ones, luxury cars.

 

[MrHorspwer]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
Whoops. Guess I was thinking of the wrong thing. I was thinking of the one where they hit it with a sledge hammer and had to pay $700 to fix the quarter panel and tail light - $500 of which was the tail light.

I don't think it's necessarily that truck that is going to be expensive to fix. Pretty sure if I can-openered a 2014 it would be just as much


How about we just post the article:

http://www.edmunds.com/ford/f-150/2015/l...with-video.html

The repair from the sledgehammer hit wasn't $700, it was $2,938... and the dealer misquoted Edmunds. They should have quoted their aluminum repair rate ($120/hour), but they mistakenly quoted their regular repair rate ($60/hour). Being true to their word, they performed the repair using the misquoted price.

Using the proper $120/hours rate for aluminum repair, the repair should have cost $4,138.

The tail lamp wasn't $500, it was $880.

The real thing to take away from the article: Labor costs for aluminum repair is twice as much ($120/hour vs. $60/hour) and the repair time was twice as long (20 hours vs. 10 hours).

Edmunds also contacted the local independent collision shop they typically use, who typically do aluminum repair on high-end luxury vehicles: $50/hour for steel... $105/hour for aluminum.

 

[MrHorspwer]

Originally Posted By: hattaresguy

I don't get what's the big deal with aluminum bodies the Europeans have been doing it for a decade or two. How is it harder to fix than an Audi A8?


The big deal: Ford sells nearly twice as many F150 in a month than Audi sells A8 in a year.

The number of workers in the service industry and the parts infrastructure necessary to support collision repair on a vehicle that sells 6,000 units per year is significantly different than a vehicle that sells 763,000 units a year.

The "car wash F150" demonstrated that perfectly. Technician inexperience resulted in more labor cost and part unavailability result in high part costs.

Will that trend lesses as collision repair techs are trained and parts supplies loosen up? Sure, but it's not going to happen tomorrow... or even in a year.

Then comes the issue of rural Ford dealers. Many of them don't have their own collision repair shops, so they farm work out to local body shops... who have never repaired an aluminum panel. They can't perform the repair, so now they're shipping the truck 100 miles away to the nearest Ford dealer who has a bump shop and has the training.

Again, this may be expected if you're servicing the only Audi A8 in that part of the state, but half the parking lot at the local post office is F150s.

It should be a serious consideration when purchasing a truck.

 

[bdcardinal]

Originally Posted By: horse123
Originally Posted By: Miller88
The majority of that was the tail light with a camera - NOT the aluminum body panel.


not sure if serious...


The LED RH taillamp on a 2015 F150 p/n FL3Z-13404-B has an MSRP of $703.28, plus a $50 core charge.

 

[horse123]

So $700 is the majority of $17000?

 

[hattaresguy]

Originally Posted By: MrHorspwer
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy

I don't get what's the big deal with aluminum bodies the Europeans have been doing it for a decade or two. How is it harder to fix than an Audi A8?


The big deal: Ford sells nearly twice as many F150 in a month than Audi sells A8 in a year.

The number of workers in the service industry and the parts infrastructure necessary to support collision repair on a vehicle that sells 6,000 units per year is significantly different than a vehicle that sells 763,000 units a year.

The "car wash F150" demonstrated that perfectly. Technician inexperience resulted in more labor cost and part unavailability result in high part costs.

Will that trend lesses as collision repair techs are trained and parts supplies loosen up? Sure, but it's not going to happen tomorrow... or even in a year.

Then comes the issue of rural Ford dealers. Many of them don't have their own collision repair shops, so they farm work out to local body shops... who have never repaired an aluminum panel. They can't perform the repair, so now they're shipping the truck 100 miles away to the nearest Ford dealer who has a bump shop and has the training.

Again, this may be expected if you're servicing the only Audi A8 in that part of the state, but half the parking lot at the local post office is F150s.

It should be a serious consideration when purchasing a truck.


Insurance will take that into account, if people are getting whacked when they go and insure one than I guess sales will slow.

The kicker is all this and the F150 still weighs about what a Chevy weighs.

 

[bdcardinal]

Originally Posted By: horse123
So $700 is the majority of $17000?


They were referring to a different incident.

 

[Andrew1972]

I wonder if insurance will quickly realize the expensive of fixing these exotic body's and place and raise owners insurance rates.

To me full size trucks are appliances for a job. Not sure the reasoning for complex turbo's and aluminum body's for a meager MPG increase.

 

[bdcardinal]

Originally Posted By: madRiver
I wonder if insurance will quickly realize the expensive of fixing these exotic body's and place and raise owners insurance rates.

To me full size trucks are appliances for a job. Not sure the reasoning for complex turbo's and aluminum body's for a meager MPG increase.


I bet it will happen soon. I see a lot of the repair bills since we sell a lot of parts to body shops. There are cars that would be better off totaled out, but they have to fix it due to the high MSRP of the vehicle.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: madRiver

To me full size trucks are appliances for a job. Not sure the reasoning for complex turbo's and aluminum body's for a meager MPG increase.


CAFE. If people didn't buy them for regular everyday driving then they could stay heavy duty and no one would care.

[Not that I am above daily driving one, just sayin'.]

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted By: horse123
Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
Funny you mention the Rover. Apparently Toyota is the vehicle of choice for off road traveling in the Africa. Rover is a distant second.


That's because land rovers are as off road capable as an AWD acura sedan from the factory.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGWp8R-IqoE

Not sure on lockers, but these are built to be pretty entry level. Little to mild lift with aggressive tires.

 

[InfmousCornholio]

Originally Posted By: rshaw125
A Range Rover is expensive without any accident or driving it. Just sitting in the garage.


^^This.

They aren't all that good, either. At least not the new ones. They seem extremely unreliable, dealers sell them for cheap, and when it's time for service, they go up for sale again.

That's why you see so many on the road.. Resale value is horrible. Same as just about any Land/Range car, or British car product..