Insights into Range Rover Vogue

The Range Rover Vogue 03 to 05 was made under BMW ownership and they share the same components, systems( electronic, core power units), engine and transmission with X5 and E38 7 series of the same year. BMW had already sold land rover to Ford some two years before the L322 went into commercial production that is why some of the earlier Range Rover Vogue(2002) uses some ford parts for replacement. The 2002 - 2005 Range Rover Vogue is 5 speed automatic transmission,4,950mm in length, 1,923mm in width and 1,862mm in height. The production of the range rover from the late year 2005 onwards, the electronics were based on Ford/Jaguar systems and The Range Rover's exterior was updated for 2006 along with the BMW V8 replaced with a Jaguar unit. The new engine choices were Jaguar's AJ-V8, with 4.4 liter 300 hp (220 kW) or 4.2 liter 400 hp (300 kW) supercharged variants.




This BMW brand of Vogue is still the desirable for some people because it has been around for over a decade and some smart mechs have actually known the in and out of the jeep. For those who had theirs when Nigeria was still using leaded fuel till 2005, it was a disaster, this has always been because the engines were made to run on unleaded fuel. The BMW X5 of the same era suffers the same fate. We can count on the street of Nigeria how many X5 and 7 series made in that era as the Vogue and you won't be surprised at their few numbers but the Vogue is still the only one that is consistency is still hampered by the mechs and the use of substandard engine oil and low octane fuel. There are some vogue that uses leaded fuel then and they are still on Nigeria road till now because they are maintained by good mechs that knows exactly what to do. Though some of them still have little issues that are caused by oil, heavy viscosity on a high compression engine.

One of the problem with the Range Rover Vogue is when the warning sign of engine performance reduced comes up, it means our regular leaded fuel is taking a toll on the engine. But there are also solutions too until Dangote's refinery comes on board. Use Octane Boosters, octane booster uses one or a combination of "anti-knock" agents, which are usually other types of hydrocarbon fuel that resist detonation better than gasoline. If you add enough high-octane additive to gasoline, it'll bring the fuel's octane number up. If you have a supercharged, use octane booster at all times or you will be spending money left and right to solve an easy problem. if you damage your engine with this bad oil you will spend a fortune to get another as the used engine of a supercharged cost N1.3m or more with the increasing level of FX.

Another problem with the Range Rover family generally is the use of substandard engine oil and wrong oil requirement compared to what the manufacturer specified. The use of substandard oil or oil that are not specified to range rover or any other car causes sludge. Sludge destroys an engine no matter how good the engine was built. That's why failure of engine is rampant. The vogue was built to use high quality oil and fuel which is sometimes deliberately ignored by the owner of this cars.
For example, the oil requirement is 5W30 which protects from -30°C to 35°C (-22°F to 95°F) and people use Mobil 1 which is 0W40 and they still find sludge in their engines. Why? Because the oil requirement is not Mobil 1's rating. Total Q9000, AP Syn, Castrol and Oando Syn are all 5W40, it will protect from -30°C to 50°C (-22°F to 122°F) and they are very good. If you are a fan of Mobil 1 engine oil endeavor to find the Mobil 1 SAE 5W30

I have heard so many people say that the transmission(gear) oil is a life time thing. I seriously disagree with that because every car has a particular mileage that the transmission oil must be change. In the case of Range Rover Vogue and it's brothers, it is required to change the transmission oil at every 96,561 kilometers. This will keep the gear in pristine form and you won't need to change your gear throughout the usage of the car.

Many owners don't use coolant or they use coolants not suitable for their Jeep and then the overheating comes to play. Due to the size of the engine mounted on this jeep, the use of water alone as coolant is not advisable. Get a good anti freeze coolant for your range rovers and you will see that overheating will be history.

Photo Credit: google.com
References: Oga Pat(CEO Rescue N Recovery)
                    wikipedia.org