Blog entry: Theory on Build Quality Reputation and Land Rover Freelanders

Here is one theory I have about why Land Rovers in general and Freelanders more specifically get such a bad rap relative to build quality and what not.  By this I mean in recent times, say since the 1990's.  If you look at the ratings, they are generally based on counting and comparing how many reported problems per vehicle.

This is key - the words "reported" and "per vehicle". Land Rovers are not the only make that consistently get a relative higher number of reported problems per vehicle. Other luxury brands like Mercedes-Benz and even Lexus also get a bad rap. The Freelander is a supremely capable off-road vehicle (for its class) but it is also a luxury vehicle and it has a lot more features than your average car.

Why would luxury brand cars in general have more problems reported per vehicle? One reason has to do with the word "reported." Luxury brand buyers, and I would dare say especially Land Rover and Freelander buyers, are more picky. They pay a lot more so well they should be picky. So Land Rover owners are more likely to report problems. Other car models and brands may have the same percentage of problems but their problems are not being reported as often because their buyers are not as picky

Next luxury models tend to have more features. If the car has twice as many features, then there are twice as many things that can go wrong. And thus twice as many things to potentially report. Really there are more than twice as many things that can potentially go wrong because there are so many interrelated systems, like the computer systems, in todays modern cars. Since Part A might depend on Part B, adding in more parts geometrically increases the potential for failure rather than additively increasing it. Land Rover Freelanders add both more features in the luxury area, and more features overall with their off-road capabilities.

So are the ratings services comparing apples to apples, or are they comparing apples and oranges, or rather apples to fruit salad even, when they compare one car with half as many features to another more complicated car with more complicated systems? They are not comparing like to like, and their ratings are very misinformative because of it. Instead, the rating services should report problems not on a per vehicle basis, but rather find a system that reflects how complicated the cars are and how many features they have. This would give a much more realistic and accurate representation of build quality for SUVs like the Land Rover Freelander.

And if they did switch to such a system that considers the complexity of the car, I think Land Rover would fare much much better in relation to other cars. They are expensive, they appeal to picky buyers, and they do have their problems. There are some factory workers in the UK that need to be keeping on their toes. But, overall, Land Rover Freelanders are excellent vehicles that are much higher in quality than the ratings services would lead you to believe. You can consistently put 250K miles on plenty a Land Rover engine, and consider that since they are used off-road Land Rovers tend to get beat on a lot more than vehicles that never leave the pavement.