My uncle, a few years back bought a 2007 Range Rover Sport 2.7 V6 Diesel, despite me advising him not to.
He paid £11k for it, it was 10 years old with 133k on the clock but ‘mint’ -FSH ‘Didn’t want for anything’ - bought from his ‘mate’ who is a second hand car dealer who runs his own business.
In the 10 months he owned it, he loved it, but it had:
1) Aircon condenser
2) Wheel bearing
3) Dash cluster rebuilt because speaker had failed, meaning parking sensors didn’t make a sound
4) Both EGR valves replaced
This was supposedly a mint car, which it absolutely wasn’t. Despite having marks on the body all over it, but my uncle was too proud to mention anything to anyone.
I drove it, it was comfortable enough, albeit dated. Fuel economy was rubbish and it wasn’t very quick in any sense of the word.
The straw that broke the camels back was when he was driving through Sevenoaks high St and it cut out. My uncle knows engines and cars, as he attempted to restart it he knew something bad had happened. Got it recovered to his ‘mate’ who diagnosed that the engine had seized, think it had slipped a tooth on the cambelt. Land Rover wanted 8k for a new bare block, apparently the 2.7 V6 doesn’t recondition well, trying to find a new, second hand engine was possible but we were advised by a Land Rover specialist in the Weald (where he lives) that it wasn’t worth it, and any new engine would be a ticking time bomb.
He cut his losses, put it up as is on Facebook market place, some polish guy bought it for 2.5k, he planned to take the 2.7 V6 out of his Jag S-Type which had failed its MOT due to corrosion and transplant it in the RRS.
My uncle then bought a Nissan Navara and never looked back.
One of the problems with these kind of vehicles - ~3L V6 diesels - they do not like short especially stop/start journeys :s previous owner of my Navara it looks like from the trip history in the computer was mostly doing the school run a few miles each day twice a day (average speed 15mph or something which tended to indicate traffic jams) with the end result of fuel pump issues (looks like the filter wasn't regularly enough changed) and gunked up EGR sensors which was easier just to replace the whole lot than try and clean up (fortunately done under warranty).