If your 16 yr old wants that vehicle you may want to make a caveat that he/she can also pay for the repairs, because they (Land Rovers) are notorious for spending time and money in the shop.
A second generation Mazda MX-5 Miata (1999-2005) in good shape with up to 180,000 miles is a good car for a responsible 16 year old to get started with. It has good handling & visibility. Only if the 16 year old has proved to be responsible.
A friend had a Discovery years ago. It was a maintenance nightmare—always breaking down and at least $1k every time it went in the shop. British cars have a lousy reliability reputation.
I would also be leery about giving that kind of vehicle to a 16 year old. I would also agree Mazda Miata would be a lousy choice for a 16 year old. You know he’s going to have accidents, the only question is how bad. Bigger cars always fare better in an accident v a smaller one. Laws of physics. Best choice for a new driver would be a big four door sedan, but of course no teenager wants that. For an SUV, a Toyota 4Runner is a great choice. They are practically indestructible and maintenance is cheap.
Dude, my kid is going to drive a4x4 crew cab pick up when old enough. Sits up high and is an American made vehicle so plenty of people know how to work on it when it needs repairs. Safety and practical. If the kid doesn’t like it, then walk.
I agree with the Doc. They’re a maintenance nightmare. Ridiculously expensive to repair, major problems with the air ride. It says something when virtually no aftermarket warranty program will cover them. Doug Demuro (YouTube and autotrader) did a piece on his. He was lucky they wrote warranty’s at that time.
I have a British car and they can be a disaster particularly electrical.
I’d give this a hard pass and go with something more reliable.
I like the idea of an suv for a kids first car. Safe in a crash, 4 wheel drive helps on bad roads, good visability, etc. But I would go with something a little cheaper to maintain.
I'm a huge fan of my Grand Cherokee and in fact I "sold" my old one to my 16 year old nephew when I bought my new one. He loved it right up until his parents took it away from him when a cop caught him and his girlfriend having sex in the backseat a year later.
So you may want to reconsider an suv with a big back seat depending on how much you trust your kid.
I appreciate the advice, like I told lotsoffun...
Originally she wanted a Raptor, I was unsure about dropping 90k on another one of those and I was not going to give her mine, lol.... I'm leaning more towards an Explorer.... I can get the Sport package blacked out and that should make her happy.
Ended up getting the 2019 Explorer Sport, Black out. I got the leather with 2nd row captain seats, she loves it and she has a safe vehicle that should last her through college
It was a lot.... I looked at used but I could not get past safety features like blind spot monitoring. If I bought used and she had a wreck in the blind spot, I would beat myself up over being cheap. So in the end I decided I would rather spend the money and do whatever I can to make sure she is safe.
If I had a son, and if I had the money, I would buy him a nice car, a new car, and I would pay for service. I would buy him a car that I would be happy with.
But I would not buy him an absurd car.
We have enough huge SUV's running about on our freeways and expressways as it is.
Land Rover in particular is known for being so high up that they can have problems in off road hill climbs, unweighting of the front wheels.
And I have seen SUV's get over turned on flat dry pavement. I saw one make 3x 90deg rolls. And you have zero control once the wheels are not in contact with the pavement.
Also, as they are so high up, wheel centers to the frame, the wheels have lots of leverage on the frame. So it needs to be made even heavier.
AWD always doubles the chassis maintenance, you have double the CV joints and double the booties.
And the last thing we need is weight arms race on our highways.
So what I rather like and would go for are:
1. Scion-Subaru FRS. 2 liters, direct injection, 200hp, nice looking, nice performance.
2. Nuevo Fiat 500 Abarth, because it is abarth you get the 6 speed stick, worth it for an use. Turbo raises power from 135 hp to 160hp, but it also gives more torque at lower RPM, can push a higher gear at lower speed. Hatchback design is also very versatile. FWD does give nice handling, especially in tight cornering situations. Uses now 1.4 Liter I4 Mazda engine, very practical small displacement.
SJG
Oh I see, it is our OP's daughter. Oh well, same goes.
Also, with every motor vehicle I have owned, I have always done all the maintanence myself, large and small, complex and simple.
While that does not necessarily rule some cars in or some cars out, I think it does mean that one will tend to try and keep things at a reasonable scale, cost, size, power, etc. One is looking at the whole car, not just on how it is supposed to wow people.
SJG
^^^ SJG is true to his form advocating anything that is non American, including his choice of automobiles.
“If I had a son”....
Yeah SJG, why would we want to subject a child to a life of you?!!
Glad that’s not happening. Your son will want to join a cult designed with sex slaves of women draining their father’s dry 24/7. Talk about having children for your own identity!!
^^^^^ I think now it is Ford. Hard to believe they would ship stuff across the ocean twice. The largest Land Rovers, RWD, looks like they are mostly the same as Ford Expeditions, same independent rear suspension differentials. Just a change to the area around the hatch back door.
And Jaguars, I think now the 4 door ones are Volvo's. But when they used to have the RWD ones, I asked a dealer about them. To me they looked like Mustangs. The dealer hotly denied that this could be true. I do believe though I saw a Coventry placard on the body work of one of them, but you don't really know that that means.
SJG
And Meat72, Ford Fiesta / Festiva is something which used to come 2dr hatch. Same for Focus, which used to be Escort.
If they still made either of these 2dr hatch, I would have recommended them.
US car makers are not doing so well with compact cars, and less so with 2 door compacts. And hatch backs are more versatile.
And as far as the 365 day a year drained dry program, its coming.
SJG
Santana Abraxas (Full Album)
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Well the older ones really were so high up that they had problems both on and off road.
Well this is more reasonable, and they have brought the engine size down. Transmission by ZF probably does mean that it is not the same as Ford and that it is made in Europe.
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4,900lbs. We really don't need to continue the arms race of weight on your highways and expressways.
Of road stuff will always be impractically heavy.
And the new FWD-AWD SUV's, like Jeep Cherokee will be more sensible.
SJG
Even if I were to buy a new SUV, I would look first at Jeep Cherokee and Dodge Durango. They have this new FWD-AWD transverse system with this drive train sub-assembly. I believe that they have got it worked out and that it delivers, keeping weight down, but still with good capability.
This new Land Rover Discovery even looks like the larger one, Durango.
Also and even smaller one, Jeep Renegade, looks like it is well designed and more practical too.
Anyway, the less SUV's on the road the better.
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SJG
Here it says that Land Rover Jaguar is owned by Tata Motors, Mumbai India
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Says that assembly of the Land Rover Discovery is at Slovakia: Nitra (2018–present)
Here it says that the Sport model is smaller, probably shorter. May have 4 cylinder engine
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Assembly
United Kingdom: Halewood Body & Assembly, Liverpool
China: Changshu (Chery Jaguar Land Rover)
Brazil: Itatiaia
India:Pune
And still the ZF transmission.
talks about it having a transverse engine mount. ( probably FWD / AWD ) and about using BMW engines:
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but this might be only for Diesel.
Anyway
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Very had to keep track of these sorts of things. To me it still looks like those Jaguar XF still use Ford V6 or V8 engines.
This Discovery Sport then it totally different from the regular Discovery.
SJG
Good move not getting the Land Rover.
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London Guy: I forgot that an Indian company had bought them, but I think everyone else in the world still considers them British, even if the British disavow them. Doesn’t the Queen still ride around in one?
When this thread first started I was envisioning a vehicle clearly just a minor variation on a Ford Expedition.
Now what I am seeing, and seeing on the streets too, is something more similar to a Dodge Durango.
Anyway, I still say my recommendations, Subaru Scion FRS and Nuevo Fiat 500 Abarth, were better.
Other than Honda/Acura, not that many 2 door 2 + 2's left, but there are some:
Nissan Q70
Ford Mustang
Lexus RC
BMW 2 series and 4 series.
Some MBZ, like some C class.
I think these would be better than an SUV. We really don't need to be perpetuating that weight arms race on our roadways.
SJG
Rock Standards
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Camus and The French Resistance
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^^^ That’s exactly why is pit my child in a high profile vehicle to see above those shit cars you mentioned and let them bounce off the bigger vehicles that we drive for
protection.
If your going down the whole fossil fuel burning concept and it’s CO2 emissions bullshit, keep in mind one year of wild fire season emits as much our vehicles have in all of our existence from the gasoline powered automobile. It’s a trumped up activist cause to bring meaning to otherwise soulless frustrated hippies. Too bad you live in the hippie capitol of the world, SJG because it clouds your thinking to the point you’re beyond brainwashed.
If you are intentionally using a vehicle to increase the chances of harming other motorists, that could be tortious.
SUV's roll. I have seen it, level pavement. 3x 90 deg rolls before motion stopped. And once the wheels are not on the ground, you have no control.
SJG
High profile vehicles protect you from frustrated hippies high on dope driving a Prius into me. Those plastic parts disintegrate once they come into contact with an American made pick up.
I was surprised to find out how unamerican the “domestic” brands are. Word on the street is that the most American made pickup is the ugly ass Honda Ridgeline.
^ Heck I was in an accident a while back a kid in a Nissan SUV rear ended my Benz at 70 MPH I drove away had a bunch of damage the SUV was mangled and they needed to pull him out through the window, as the doors were folded into the engine compartment of his vehicle
Daddilac wrote: "You think about what my Raptor would do to a Prius....."
If you and your Raptor ever hurt anyone, a statement like that could made it civil, it could even make it criminal. You could open your front door to find the FBI.
SJG
That Mitch McConnell is an idiot. Talking about reparations payments he talks about slavery and says that we fought the Civil War to end slavery. Nothing could be further from the truth.
At the 1860 Democratic National Convention, Southerners demanded "A Slave Code For The West", they had been insisting that slavery be able to expand into the West. When they did not get this, they followed the lead of the Senator from Mississippi, Jefferson Davis, and walked out of the convention. This convention had been the last clear chance to avoid war, but walking out split the party and guaranteed that the new Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln would win. Lincoln said he was not going to let slavery spread into the Western States, but that he would not interfere with it where it was now practiced.
No matter though, in December South Carolina and Mississippi announced their intents to secede. This would then be followed by a total of 7 states announcing secession, and proceeding to take over all post offices and court houses, until there was nothing left but Fort Sumter. And this was all before Lincoln's March Inauguration.
So Lincoln did respond, even though that meant 4 more states announcing secession and turmoil in Kentucky and Missouri, simply to try and restore the Union. Original intents were simply to restore the Union as it had been. Lincoln moved at once to occupy Baltimore and DC. He drew upon Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts as occupation general.
Originally Butler was to be returning escaped slaves to their owners, following the 1850 fugitive slave act. And originally Butler saw his job as that of preventing a slave revolt, like the one which founded the nation of Haiti.
Quickly though Butler saw that returning slaves made no sense, and so he reclassified escaped slaves as "war contraband".
Though some in the newly founded Republican Party were Radical Abolitionists, not so with Abraham Lincoln. He was never like this.
What forced his hand were England and France. England had stationed a 2 million man army in Canada, "for possible intervention in the American Civil War". France was being run by that idiot Emperor Louis Napoleon the 3rd. He was claiming colonies across the globe and he had stationed his puppet Maximilian in Mexico.
England and France were saying that they were going to give diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy. Then they would be able to use their sea power to break the Union blockade, as well as advancing across US borders. This would have expanded the scope of the Civil War to the point where it was unwinable.
So seeing no other options, Lincoln broke his campaign pledge and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This did neutralize England and France. But this did not free slaves in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and some other federally occupied areas like the mid-atlantic coast and around New Orleans.
What finally made it such that slavery had to be completely abolished by Constitutional Amendment was simply the fact that 180,000 black men trained with rifled muskets and bayonets and served in federal uniform. After this it was thus untenable to back track.
extremely good:
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Mitch McConnell is full of shit!
Gimme Shelter, my favorite, Amsterdam 1995, Lisa Fischer
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Rolling Stones - Band Introductions w/ Lisa Fischer & Honky Tonk Women - 1995
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Lisa Fischer, Oakland 1994, but they hadn't learned to keep the camera on her.
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This seems to be Lisa, the video is good, more widely viewed.
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^^ If he can afford it, he should be able to buy his child whatever he wants that provides taking care of the concerns of the parent. It’s not up to us to determine if Dadillac pays too much. For me that is too much, because I am middle class, but he may be upper class or upper middle class and can afford that price point. I think safety is his main concern.
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