Author by : Dave Lewis
The sign of a desirable vehicle is often the rate of its depreciation. The lower rate happens because more people are prepared to pay top money for a previously owned vehicle, which boosts the price and so maintains its value.
Though none of them are that old yet, the current prediction is that at three years old, the Land Rover Discovery III will have retained 62 percent of its cost price.
The Range Rover and the Discovery II are both well below 50 percent with the Freelander only fairing marginally better at the three year old mark. As far as the Discovery III is concerned, this is both good and bad news. You will have to pay good money to own one, but it will retain more of your money while you own it.
The bottom line needed to buy one at the moment is around £22,000 which, at eighteen months old and 20,000 miles, would be a saving of only £5,000 over the brand new lower spec diesel models. The base specification model features all round coil sprung suspension which in my opinion, will provide the best base for future modification projects.
They are still depreciating though, and when the market for them opens up in just under a year when the first lease and hire purchase vehicles reach the end of their three year terms, the asking price for these will be around £17,000 which represents outstanding value for the subsequent purchaser.
There are no points of weakness coming to light as yet, though some of the ancillary items like the heater on the diesel models can be problematic. There are some signs of rust appearing on some of the under body seams on certain high use vehicles so maybe in a decade or so we might be discussing corrosion problems. If long term ownership is intended then a rust prevention programme could be worth a though instead of trying to cure a rust problem in the future.
Running one is surprisingly economical. The MPG figures are around 30 for the diesel and around the 20 mark for the petrol engines which is quite an improvement over the Discovery II.
As the model ages and the prices drop, I can see more and more people daring to use the Discovery III in the way the designers intended, finding this luxury motorway cruiser as an absolute animal off-road. I foresee this model becoming integrated into the off-road arena in much the same way the Discover I and II already have done.
With sales figures for the Discovery III through the roof, aftermarket companies will soon be manufacturing a whole range of goodies for this model.
For those interested in motor sport, Land Rover is currently developing a competition version of the Discovery III, based on the Range Rover Sport.
|
For more Land Rover Information, please visit land-rover.wiop.co.uk Dave Lewis: Aspiring Author, Full time traffic manager, part time coach driver and all round nice guy. Is currently developing a UK weighted homepage for the intelligent home user. http://www.wiop.co.uk WioP: The World In One Place. |
[tags]Land Rover, Discovery. Range Rover, off-road, off road[/tags]
