re: The new Cadillac Escalade is insane

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never understood the hate for column shifts. Anyone want to enlighten me?

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They look fine for a truck I guess, but too cheap looking for a Lux SUV. Only good thing about a column shift is the space it saves.

The console looks an awfully a lot like the Audi Q8.

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wouldn't spend 77k on a vehicle unless I was making 225k+ per year. Probably not even then.

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Household is about $250 and we looking at Outbacks. Got to be $300k+

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All the rumors are true. They are unreliable. (I have owned two Rovers)

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The last unreliable vehicles they built were the Freelander, and the Discovery II.

I’ve worked on a number of classic Rovers. From Series one restoration projects, to Classics, and Series One and Two Discoveries.

They’re generally primitive vehicles. And while capable, they’re the product of a cash strapped company that was trying to make ends meet. The compromises are all over the place. For example, they would only paint exposed body work on some vehicles. And so when the bits hidden by interior trim got wet, they started to rust.

When they needed to meet fuel economy targets with the Discovery Two, they went with a thinner chassis. That chassis will rot and break on you.

They also ran the engines very hot, to meet emissions standards. Which was a problem because half the blocks were bad, a product of bad tooling, and the liners would slip if the engines overheated. The blocks also developed cracks, and were straight up porous.

To generate more profits Land Rover just churned out special editions in the 90s. They weren’t exactly good buys though. One year, they took unsold trucks from the previous year, threw on a bull bar, and called it the Great Divide Edition.

And they sold it at a premium.

That was Land Rover for you.

They were really cash strapped in those years. When BMW purchased them, they were shocked to find that LR was still painting vehicles by hand. And not because it was a selling point, but because they had never invested in modern automated equipment.

BMW and Ford revitalized the company and introduced modern production technology. They also invested, for the first time in the companies history, adequate money into developing new models.

When LR created the Discovery in the 80s, they took a Range Rover, modified a few body panels, and threw in a new interior. It was really just a Range Rover Classic with a body kit.

When BMW stepped in, in the 90s, they cancelled the just released P38, and ordered a new vehicle built from scratch. That was the l322.

I haven’t worked on a new JLR product. But I’ve owned and driven a couple of them. The Discovery Four is the last JLR product I like. I don’t like the look of the new vehicles. But they are well built and reliable.

Range Rover’s are gargantuan pieces of shite. All bells and whistles, with no mechanical substance. They’re overpriced garbage.