Fifteen years ago, Land Rover introduced the fourth generation of the Discovery, and wanting to distance it from the reliability challenges of that line, dropped the Discovery label and simply called it the LR4. So I am told. I’ve always loved the boxy look of the LR4, or any SUV for that matter, and was commenting on that just last week when visiting my oldest son, and we took a spin in his first-generation Ford Escape. Loved that box, too. The LR4 is a way upscale version of the Ford Escape. Tell me I’m wrong.
The LR4 had a good run through 2016, and Land Rover brought back the “Disco” for 2017. Here we have a 2015 Land Rover LR4 HSE Lux, a top-of-the-line model, and one with 6,278 miles on it. That’s crazy low miles for a 10-year-old SUV. Makes it a pretty much brand new yet extinct unicorn, its own special category. When new, this Brit-Ute was priced in the mid-$60,000 range. It’s only depreciated by a third since. My 2021 GLE63 AMG depreciated by that much in two years. I should know better.
The LR4 has a nicely appointed interior. Heated steering wheel, Meridian audio, normal safety stuff like lane departure and blind spot warnings, navigation, and so on, but really nothing fancy or high-tech. I remain shocked at how much technology is in my daughter’s new Hyundai Tucson. Same price, but not the panache of a Land Rover. This LR4 has third-row seating that, like most, looks forced and uncomfortable. As if marketing told the designers we HAVE to have third row seats to be competitive, and the designers bolted in fancy leather beach chairs. I don’t fancy them at all.
But how does it perform? First, I was surprised and disappointed that this LR4 only has the 3.0-liter supercharged six-cylinder. I prefer the power of a V-8. The six makes 340 horsepower and 332 ft-lbs of torque, which isn’t awful, but the 0-60 time is in the mid-seven-second range, and the mileage is less than 20 mpg. Worst of both worlds. But the LR4 is a bona fide off-roading pro, even though it’s luxurious and a bit dated. I do recall old Car and Driver SUV comparisons in which the LR4 almost always came in last over well-appointed competition, and yet the reviewers noted during the off-roading part of the testing, when the other SUV’s got stuck, they always used the LR4 to extract the wounded. Admirable.
Let’s get back to that reliability thing. I asked Chat GPT to summarize the reliability challenges, and it did so below. I don’t think the naming convention mattered all that much.
But reliability and expensive repairs don’t phase us CarMax unicorn folks, because we ALWAYS shift the financial risk to CarMax by buying the MaxCare extended warranty, don’t we? And with MaxCare, you can drive this old-school SUV another 118,000 miles over five years pretty much worry-free. Oh, things will break, and you’ll be annoyed, but you won’t have to pay for the repairs. In between, you’ll have alovely and rugged legendary British SUV to make your way around town and country.
This 2015 Land Rover LR4 HSE Lux is a one-owner, accident-free, hardly driven car that has spent its life in Wisconsin and Kentucky. And it’s now coming soon here in Cincinnati. The price is a bit steep and the features few, but it is pristine and a bit exclusive.
Stock No: 26484472 VIN: SALAK2V65FA756099
