P38 Range Rover - Baby Seat Recommendations

[CheekyChap]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a baby seat (suitable for a 9m+) for a MY2000 P38 Range Rover? I'm soon to be on the lookout for one to replace/accompany my galactic mileage CLK. It will not be the main car junior travels round in (that's what the 330 Touring is for) so P38 'reliability' is not a huge concern, it's going to be as much a hobby as a mode of transport.

Also, we already have an appropriate baby seat in the BMW so the new baby seat would live only in the Range Rover (or potentially the CLK on the days when the Rangey isn't working).

I'm aware that P38 Range Rovers don't have ISOFIX so obviously it will be a seatbelt type baby seat, I'm just wondering if there are any other P38 owning parents on here who might be able to suggest anything that works particularly well - or doesn't - all information is useful!

Thanks very much in advance.

[bingo76]

Have recently acquired a P38 too. Can't suggest what would be the best seats, but I transferred the Recaro Young Expert & Young Expert Plus (Isofix base one) into it, and both fit fine (on seatbelt fixing). To be fair there's a lot of space in there, so most seats should fit. The biggest plus I noticed is that even with two fairly large baby seats, there's enough room for an adult to sit in the middle. Also the centre console is the perfect width to place a tablet on (on an angled stand) to keep the kids happy on longer journeys. Hope you enjoy your p38 as much as I do!

[CheekyChap]

Thanks for the response, you're the second person who's told me good things about that Recaro seat so that's great information - thanks very much!

Nice to see someone with a P38 who's not full of woe. It's not relevant to baby seats but do you mind me asking which model and year you went for? I'm really tempted by a 2000 onwards 4.6. Did you have to look at many before you found a good one?

Any feedback as yet as a new owner? Anything surprising or different to how you thought it might be?

[bingo76]

P38s do have a bit of a reputation yes, but I'm hoping I bought a good one and bought it with eyes wide-open and with a £2k contingency to hand. I went for a 99 2.5 DSE for £3k which has 110k on it, and spent most of its life in Cyprus so is very rust free. Also had some nice extras such as an overfinch rear bench seat for little’uns and an official RR bike rack. First things first, the diesel is truly, magnificently slow. Truly epic! BUT you really do get used to it. It will cruise at 70 on the motorway, and lumbers along fine. Thirst is barely better 25mpg but again was aware of that pre-purchase and it’s a 2nd car so hopefully <5000 miles a year. At that age the tax is also cheap which is an extra tank or two of fuel a year too. Looked at the petrol but would have wanted to properly LPG it which is pricey and the petrol engines have a reputation as porous and I'm simply not handy enough with spanners to want to tackle more than light jobs. Besides I have a 180mph sportsbike for speed - RRs aren't about speed!

Really enjoy the classic car smell of '99 rangie, and the ride is amazing. There is loads and loads on the net about suspension. Quite a few do spring conversions as it can go wrong, but this apparently ruins the ride and again apparently is dangerous. The suspension seems to be quite simple and what happens is the airbags perish, the compressor then works overtime and burns out which gets very expensive. I replaced all my airbags straight away with an aftermarket (better than OEM) Arnott kit (£280 for all 4) which should mean I don’t need to worry about this for years - I also ebayed the 2 good airbags on ebay and got £40 back for each.

Properly rambling now so to finish - good bits: ride amazing, road presence, hugely comfortable seats, great HK sound system (with a tape player - something to play old my old tunes I hadn’t heard for years!), driving to wales through recent blizzard with zero probs, and going wading (somewhat foolishly) through foot deep floods without hitch. Bad bits: trying not to worry about fuel costs, led on sound system has gone blank, aircon warning light blinks on and off (although 3 of 4 vents fine) , knowing that there’s something around the corner will go bang. But most things appear to be fixable with a hammer, and as long as you’ve got a contingency fund and want a car with real character you won’t go too far wrong. Hope this helps!

PS - Good luck with the seats - you're little 'un may be a bit too small for them at the moment, but the Recaro child profi plus is also good (for 0-1.5yrs I think). I found Demontweaks were about the most comeptitive on price (check both their website and their ebay listings as prices do vary!)