• Surprisingly economical diesel
• Impressive PHEV battery range
• Expect expensive servicing

What are the running costs?

Owning a Range Rover Sport is going to be an expensive endeavour no matter what you do. It’s expensive to buy in the first place and running it won’t be cheap, either. The diesels can likely return close to 40mpg, if our experience with a full-size Range Rover D350 is anything to go by. Expect to see figures under 30mpg with the petrol straight-six and around 20mpg with the V8. Not great in the grand scheme, but these numbers are similar to those posted by other luxury SUVs with equivalent engines.

As for the plug-in hybrids, they have the potential to lower running costs if you can benefit from cheap off-peak electricity tariffs or a cheeky free charge at work. The official efficiency figures are impressive – CO2 emissions from just 18g/km and WLTP fuel consumption of 338mpg. But that’s in laboratory testing. We saw around 30mpg when driving with a discharged battery, and 40-plus when running as a hybrid with charge in the power pack.

And don’t forget that it usually costs to charge the battery. The vast 38.2kWh unit is likely to cost around £12 to charge at home on a standard domestic tariff. With about 50 miles of range, they’re not really any cheaper to run that the petrol and diesel models.

View detailed MPG and CO2 figures on the Range Rover Sport specs pages.

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Servicing and warranty

This is a high-end SUV and you need to budget for commensurately high servicing and other running costs. Land Rover offers fixed price servicing plans to help owners map out their future costs for the next five years or 50,000 miles. There’s also the option of a 75,000-mile plan.

All Range Rovers are sold with a three-year/60,000-mile warranty – as long as most finance agreements, but it lags behind most of the opposition. At least the Sport will remain highly desirable for many years to come on the used car market, keeping resale values buoyant.

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Reliability

• Land Rover’s reputation isn’t great
• Old version had issues but was loved
• Reports suggest gremlins continue

Reliability and perceived quality remains Land Rover’s weakest link. In recent times, its reputation for a lack of dependability has been well deserved, with engine and electrical issues topping the list of failings. We’ve had no trim or electrical issues with our Range Rover Sport test cars, although some of the shutlines around the tailgate leave a lot to be desired.

But there are some signs the company is getting its act together, although anecdotally we’re still hearing that quality out of the factory isn’t what it should be, leaving dealers with plenty of rectification work to do. However, the quality of the Sport’s interior materials is excellent, and easily up there with its German rivals. We’ll monitor the reliability situation and keep you updated should any problems crop up.