That's too bad they won't even let you use Atlantic British - seems crazy. I'm in Minneapolis - a little bit far from Madison to get yours worked on, but Expedition Auto in St Louis Park is where I take mine in case you want to bounce anything off of them.

 

....an '08 HSE with fairly low miles; worth fixing (and keeping) by any means necessary.

 

Did the recommended services include a new steering rack? If so, that's a good price for everything. Otherwise, meh.
But really, unless you get lucky with an LR3, paying a shop to maintain/fix it and being forced to use Land Rover parts, instead of doing the work yourself, is never going to make sense financially.
There's plenty of other things that can wrong with it even if you fix all of the issues you listed. Are you OK with spending a 2-3 thousand a year on it? If not, I'd get something else.

 

Even at, say, $2400 a year in maintenance (for easy math).....$200/mo is not bad at all compared to a car payment, and the LR3 only gets cooler with age!

 

tracyc: yes, it includes new rack, new inner tire rods, steering fluid flush, and a wheel alignment. Usually, I don't mind that kind of cost annually. I just paid for a new catalytic converter, new fuel injectors, and engine tuneup (~$4000), so it is adding up this year.

houm_wa: we looked at the prices a bit, if we want to get a new car that meets our needs, we are looking at ~$30K, which is 10 years of $3K/year, and the new car will likely not have too many issues in the first 10 years, so financially they are somewhat equivalent.

 

I get the sentiment. These older Rovers often don't make any financial sense. But I also look at it from the perspective of what would I need to spend to replace all the utility I get from the LR3. Before the LR3 I was a hardcore 4-door Wrangler guy. I had 5 wranglers (JKU and JLUs). And I loved them.

But then I tried the LR3 and really fell in love. It's 90% as capable as the Wranglers were (rock crawling being the exception), but was more useful everywhere else. The space was better, the on-road ride quality improved, the comfort was great, and the air suspension was great for loading up the dogs or loading up supplies. With the wrangler my *** would be sunk with a half-ton of pellets. When I loaded up the LR3 the guy was looking at it sagging like "you sure about this?" And then I started it, and the LR3 leveled itself out.

While I don't relish spending money on these or long hours on the occasional project, I just think about how much I'd have to spend to get an equivalently capable vehicle that I enjoy as much.

I pretty much landed on the idea that the LR3 was the best of all worlds, at least until I build my custom Grand Wagoneer .

 

elemental_garage: thank you for sharing this.

What I love is the ergonomics. You can easily get in and out of the car. It doesn't feel like you are slouching in a lazyboy like most cars are. The second and third row have enough space for seating but they are also close enough to the driver so you can hear each other. The stunk is amazing -- flat, unlike most oddly shaped trunks. The fold-down door gives you a great working surface on a fishing or hunting trip. The visibility throughout the car is amazing. You are sitting at a great height, getting a good view of the road, but not so high up that makes driving hard (our other car is a Tahoe and it feels like driving a semi).

I can't say that I am getting my money's worth as far as using the 4x4 features. I don't do much off road. Really only winter driving for me, where LR3 also shines.

These are all the reasons why it's hard to give the car up.

 

I wanted to thank everyone on this thread for sharing thought thoughts and opinions. I love everyone's enthusiasm and appreciate the support and encouragement. My wife and will sleep on it for a couple of days and make a decision. I'll let you all know what I end up doing.