J.D. Power and Associates has released its most recent U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS) and Land Rover was not ranked due to a small or insufficient sample size. Over the past five years, Land Rover has ranked at or near the bottom of J.D. Power's dependability and reliabley studies while simultaneously ranking near the top of customer satisfaction indexes.
No, this isn't a case of déjà vu. It's just that the 2011 Land Rover LR4 has been on a roll lately. On Monday we reported that the LR4 was ranked as a Top Buy by NADAguides. As it turns out, last week the LR4 was also named the Premium Active Lifestyle category winner of the 2011 Motorist Choice Awards. The Motorist Choice Awards are complied by AutoPacific and IntelliChoice.
Back in June we published a Land Rover Wish List. Surprisingly enough, nearly all of our wishes have come true to one extent or another. Or rather, Land Rover has hinted that they will come true in the future. It's still impossible to say with 100% certainty that some of these items will come to pass, but the prospects are looking good. From diesels to the DC100, here is our update.
The poor LR2. With the similarly sized 2012 Range Rover Evoque stealing the show, the LR2 hasn't received much play over the past year. Land Rover doesn't even mention the vehicle in the company's monthly sales releases, leaving it up to the reader to figure out how many buyers took home an LR2. It does not help the LR2's cause that a Range Rover Evoque Pure starts at $43,995.00 while a high-end LR2 comes in with a base MSRP of $41,500.00.
Land Rover has experienced a rather tumultuous past when it comes to the ownership of the brand. In 2008, Tata Motors acquired the Jaguar and Land Rover businesses from Ford as part of a package deal worth $2.3 billion. When it was announced that an Indian company was taking over the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, many watchers of the domestic U.S. automotive market were cautiously optimistic.