Is the V8-powered Range Rover Sport an RS6 alternative? We live with one to find out

How long does it take you to ask the owner of a current Land Rover model if it has been stolen yet? My money would be on immediately after they tell you they have one, if my experience is anything to go by. Owners of 996-generation 911s might sympathise, having gone through similar tedium when their icon’s flat-six had a reputation for eating itself. Or Ferrari 488 owners who were asked if they wore Nomex undercrackers during the early days of self-combusting turbocharged Ferraris. Being more mass-market and seemingly on every corner, the perceived Land Rover security issue is vastly bigger.

Perceived? Not really. Even Land Rover admits its models built before 2022 – and therefore excluding the current Range Rover and Sport – had security weaknesses. The ‘BCM’ hack (Body Control Module) is the most common, where a device is plugged into the car’s OBD‑II port, allowing for a cloned key to be programmed and the car to be driven away with the owner none the wiser until they notice it is no longer parked where they left it. Not to be confused with forgetting which level you parked on at Heathrow T5, of course, because that’s just embarrassing.

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How are thieves gaining access to the car in the first place? Vehicles left unlocked in petrol stations and car parks provide two opportunities, or signal jammers may be used to prevent a car from locking when the owner assumes it has. On models prior to 2018 there was also the relay hack, where thieves ‘search’ for the signal being transmitted from the key, then reproduce it closer to the car to unlock it and even start it. Then there’s the CAN hack (Controller Area Network), where a hole is cut in the tailgate to gain direct access to the car’s electrical system.

A software update is now available that makes the BCM method redundant, so if someone wants to steal your car with a key they’ll need the physical key for that car. It’s an update being rolled out on models as far back as possible, 2016/17 at the moment, and takes 20 minutes at your dealer. If your car and key have been updated, the latter now goes to ‘sleep’ to prevent its signal being intercepted, too.

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These updates and measures have, to date, cost JLR £10million, and a further £5million is being spent to protect older models built before 2016. Thefts of Range Rovers and Sports built between 2018 and 2022 have dropped by more than 40 per cent as a result, while less than 0.1 per cent of all new Range Rovers and Sports built since January 2022 have been stolen, and only 0.3 per cent of new Defenders have found their way into a shipping container against their will since 2020.

However, this hasn’t resulted in an immediate drop in insurance premiums, or indeed the ability of some to be able to insure Land Rover products at all. Much of this is down to the glacial pace at which the insurance industry works (not the brokers, I hasten to add), and depending on who you talk to, the industry, as yet, doesn’t recognise if a car has been updated with the latest security measures or not. Which is one of the reasons why JLR launched its own insurance product last year, although some owners have even struggled to get cover with that, too. Including me.

In January I was quoted £437, but as I write, in March, JLR’s insurance can’t provide a quote because: ‘As with other insurance offerings, eligibility criteria are based on an individual’s circumstances and will vary accordingly.’ Which is odd, because my circumstances haven’t changed.

This story was first featured in evo issue 321.