Why Land Rover's are good but Land Rover isn't

"SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media" (silentbutnotreallydeadly)
07/31/2017 at 18:19 • Filed to: None

I’ll say this...modern Land Rover’s are typically quite good motor vehicles. They are capable, comfortable, often good looking, well specified and generally reasonably well made vehicles.

They do have a couple of well known down sides, mostly related to their asking prices (they’re often damnably expensive for what they are) and they have some electrical and computer systems of questionable quality and execution. We’ve all heard the stories and, much more rarely, experienced them.

This is not one of those stories. This is a story about Land Rover the company rather than Land Rover the car. It may only be about Land Rover Australia and it may have nothing to do with Land Rover on the rest of the planet. But it does reflect rather poorly on the capability and capacity of the modern Land Rover to actually do what Land Rover marketing constantly says it can do...

Not Mum’s car...

This is a Discovery 4 from 2015. Not only was this the last iteration of this particular chassis and driveline, it was the last in a long line of body on frame Discovery’s. The new Discovery 5 is now a monocoque blob.

My 73 year old mother owns one just like it. HSE trim, TDV6 engine, all the fruit. It replaced an earlier 2010 D4 that she shared with my late stepfather. She has since kitted it out to travel the length and breadth of the Australian countryside. Bull bar, rear integrated bumper tow bar with swing away tyre carrier, dual battery system, electric brake controller etc etc. She tows a small Complete Campsite Exodus 9 camper trailer with it. And she was as happy as Larry with it.

The plan this year was to take off into the middle of Australia from Sydney in May with two other vehicles, also towing camper trailers. Their plan was to do the Binns Track which is thousand kilometre plus off road tourist trail that runs from south to north across the Northern Territory from Mount Dare in South Oz to Timber Creek in the north-west of the NT. The idea of the trail is that it provides an alternate route North from the all-tar Stuart Highway.

The plan happened and they left. Part of the plan was that we would meet them in Kununurra after they got off the track and then travel with them for a couple of weeks. This happened too.

But all good plans never survive contact with reality. One of the vehicles (Nissan Navara dual cab) had its sump stoved in on the way to Old Police Station Waterhole. This required a five day layover whilst a new sump was flown up from Melbourne by the Nissan dealer in Alice Springs and then bush fitted. On the camper trailer towed by the other vehicle (Toyota Prado) one of the shocks split in two whilst in much the same area (it was temporarily replaced by a ratchet strap). The replacement shock was sent from Brisbane (Queensland) to Kununurra (north western Western Australia) in just two days.

But the kicker was the Disco. Somewhere in this section between Alice Springs and the Devils Marbles, the underside of the Disco contacted something on the ground or the ground itself hard enough to crack the rear diff casing and slowly let the oil out . Once back on the tar north of Tennant Creek, the lack of oil finally caused the diff internals to fail. And that was that. It was Wednesday 21st June.

Credit where it is due. Land Rover Assist organised the recovery of the vehicle that same day. They had the Disco sent to the nearest practical dealer (Darwin, 990 km away - it could have gone to Alice Springs but the rest of the party were going to Kununurra which is closer to Darwin) and the camper trailer sent to Kununurra. They organised a hire car in Kununurra to allow Mum to still get around.

The Disco arrived at the service agent in Darwin on the following Monday 26th June. From there it went south. They diagnosed the problem and sat back to organise the parts and critically a ‘special’ tool to disconnect the tail shaft from the diff. Meanwhile, Mum organised the insurance and we all went about our holiday together from the 28th June.

Two weeks later, we were told that all the parts had arrived. However, no tool. Dealer had no idea where it was. Land Rover had no idea where it was. Nor would anyone tell us what was the big deal. We flew out of Kununurra on the 13th July.

The other two teams had to get back South as well and so a week or so later Mum was left on her lonesome in Kununurra. The mysterious tool arrived in Darwin on Monday 24th July. Quite why this tool was so hard to attain is a mystery since Mum’s D4 can’t have been the only one since 2009 with a busted diff. Someone in the network must’ve had one. Failing that, getting a new one from the UK or Asia shouldn’t have taken that long! Land Rover Australia not the dealer were remotely illuminating or even responsive to pointed questioning.

The D4 was duly repaired and left Darwin on the back of a truck three days later and arrived in Kununurra last Friday. Naturally, Mum didn’t find this out until yesterday (the following Monday) because that’s the way the icing on the cake is delivered in Australia.

She and the D4 left Kununurra this morning after nearly five weeks apart.

This is clearly too long and demonstrates that Land Rover Australia is fairly useless at supporting its products out there in the real world. In the end, the vehicle can be as competent as it likes but without a competent company behind it they they are selling the automotive equivalent of a chocolate teapot.

She’ll probably keep the D4 because she really likes it (as a LR fan and former owner, I certainly do) but I’m told that Land Rover dealers and service departments will not be willingly used ever again.

Ultimately, in Oz, you’d be a fool these days to buy a new Land Rover if you lived anywhere away from the eastern seaboard or a capital city because that’s where all the dealer support is. There’s nothing out there in the Back of Beyond that Land Rover says you can take your new D5 too. Nearest dealer to me is 4.5 hours away. And if it does break then it’ll probably take them weeks to fix it anyway...

It’s a long rant but it feels better getting it out there. Thanks for reading...

DISCUSSION (7)

Dark chocolate > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
08/01/2017 at 07:45

I was on vacation in the Albany / Montreal region for 2 weeks ago last month and my cousin gave me the keys to his Land Rover (TD V6 - 2015) for the entire duration. He has plenty vehicles and I needed one for three kids (3 car seats) plus luggage.

The Land Rover was great to drive.

Visibility was superb.

Acceleration was good enough (we own a pre-historic 2014 V8 Navigator L, lol).

Fit and finish was pretty tight.

It’s just that LR is plagued with reliability issues and it’s cheap to maintain.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
08/01/2017 at 08:01

In the olden days (for a Series landy), a trashed dizzy would be solved by taking the driveshaft loose and popping the axles out of the hubs, to be replaced with a cap or greased rag. Then, driven to find help, pumpkin popped out, replaced, put back together. The same wrench that takes the axle drive member’s bolts loose from the hub fits the driveshaft and the pumpkin bolts as well.

Rufant > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
08/02/2017 at 07:45

I’ve always thought the low hanging undersides on a modern LR looked like trouble. I know in off road modes their clearance is a different story, but in ‘normal’ mode... Anyway, no doubt it is what makes them so hospital on road.

Isn’t the ‘special’ tool to remove the disconnect the tail shaft from the diff known as a ‘spanner’?

Anyway, looking forward to pictures of the Kimberley’s

Good rant. I wish someone would take on Toyota as the genuine off-road marque over here, and I wish it was Land Rover. Just wishful thinking it would seem...

Apart from all this, how did they find Binns Track?

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
08/02/2017 at 18:40

Can confirm, that’s what my dad did when he trashed his rear on the IIa in Mozambique. Drove 400 miles in FWD.

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
08/02/2017 at 18:44

That sucks to hear happen. Have you written to Land Rover HQ in the UK? Feel like that is something they’d like to know about.

Has your mom looked into armor for the diffs? These days with independant suspension, diffs are way more susceptible coming into contact with rocks and the like.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts.
08/02/2017 at 18:58

We haven’t...mainly because we feel it will do little good. One only has to look at the current Land Rover line up to know that they’re primarily suburban-centric. And therefore so is the support. And they will never change from the ‘just in time’ approach to parts management.

They were caught out a few years back by the ‘just in time’ in their first D4 when rodents chewed their way through coolant, suspension hydraulics and electricals during a layover whilst on an overseas trip. The coolant and hydraulic hoses were sorted within a week but the wiring damage required a new sub-loom. It took Land Rover almost six months to get a new loom - it had to be ordered in the UK, manufactured in India, tested and approved in Singapore and then sent down to Australia. It wasn’t available as an ex-factory part.

I fully expect the next Defender to be an outstanding 4x4. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I think I’d like one, it will be ‘supported’ by Land Rover and there’s no way I can trust them to do it even remotely properly.

As for body armour...no. Not yet! If you’d ever get the chance to look under a D4 you’d see why as everything is visually tucked out of the way so it’s out of sight and out of mind. Besides...Mum is into her 70's and not exactly the typical offroader!!

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
08/02/2017 at 19:20

Fair enough, still think it’s worth mentioning. If anything it might score you some free swag in the way of an appology.

I know LR tucked most of the stuff up out of the way but I know the diffs are still exposed to knocks. One of my mate’s here in the US does Luck8's (Land Rover accessories/performance shop) social media stuff and they have a D3 and RRS that they have kitted out for rock climbing.