After spending a week and a half in the garage due to engine problems I found the car has sustained tyre damage while away.

After collecting the car from the garage I drove it straight home (8 miles), on my return I decided to give it the once over, paying particular attention to the wheels. The reason for this is it was taken away on the back of a recovery truck and strapped down by placing straps through the spokes. Anyway to my horror I found a large bulge and tear in one of the front tyre side walls. So much so, that when you peel the rubber back (about 1/4" thick, 2"wide and 4" long) you can see yellow coloured threads (I took photo's using my mobile), as well as the damage on the front tyre there is a small tear in the rear tyre. Directly below the damage the alloys have a lot of black marks, probably made from where the straps were placed to hold it down. The car is not driveable until the tyres have been replaced so is now back in the garage awaiting new tyres.

Anyway Landrover Assist have been great but the problem is the tow company and the garage are both refusing to accept liability and not prepared to replace the tyres. At the moment it looks like I'm going to be left with a bill for over 400 quid. Anyone have any advice on what to do

Who instigated the tow truck, you, LRA or the garage? You could pursue the instructing party and claim their responsibility but ultimately they could claim it was done on the way home - what you don't want to hear is that you should have checked the car over before departing.

I'd personally have a go at the body arranging the tow truck first...

LR Assist organised everything. I'm 99.9% sure it was the recovery truck as the the straps they used were positioned exactly where the tears are. It was the same guy that came to collect it the 2nd time and he denied it saying that he did not use anything with a sharp edge. I know thats a lie as the straps he used had small hooks attached and they were on the tyre where the tears were. There were also black marks left by the straps exactly where the damage is (Which I have photo's of).

My journey home was only 8 miles of mainly motorway I then rang LR assist as soon as I discoverd the damage (garage was closed), so approx 15 min's after collecting the car. When I spoke to the garage the next day the guy said his expert reckoned they were damaged from driving (very convienient) but after speaking to him later on that day and telling him I thought it was the recovery truck he said it could not have been done while driving as the alloys would of been damaged .

I've now appointed a solicitor because it's an issue with the principal more than anything else and I'll be damned if I'm going to go down without a fight

I know I should of checked it before leaving the garage but it went in due to engine problems so not expecting damage to the tyres. Also it was nearly half six and the garage was due to close.

When my previous D3 was recovered the tie down strap the on the recovery truck was positioned incorrectly and the ratchet took a chunk out of my alloy wheel. I mentioned this to the dealer and to LRA, the recovery firm did try to get out of it but my dealer pursued this with LRA (with a letter from me to LRA) and in the end I did get an apology from them, a new wheel and two cases of wine (pity I don't drink). So LRA do know that this type of damage does happen so don't let them get away with it. Should add that my dealer replaced the alloy before they got the go ahead from LRA.

If you want the name of the person I dealt with at LRA PM me and I'll send you his contact details.

That's a real bastard Tony, i would say that you need to pursue a claim through LRA as they were the company that instigated the recovery of your vehicle, it is there responsibility for making sure your car is safe, and down to them to sort it out with the recovery company, not down to you.

What they should be doing is apologising profusely and replacing at there cost any damage that has been caused to your car, then sorting it out with the other company.


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LRA Quality standards are now involved and running an ivestigation.

I've also been informed by them that when the investigation is complete and if blame is not apportioned to either the Recovery Company or the Dealership (they organised), I will also have to pay for the replacment vehicle they provided. So on top of the £400+ for tyres I'll also get a bill for over £300 for the hire car

Also asked if I want to speed things up could I get the digital photo's taken by the garage, as well the invoices and report sheets and E mail them on (not sure if it's me or them that are doing the investigation). Anyway this is really starting to me off as I've now been without my car for three weeks and could end up facing a bill for over seven hunderd quid.

Time for the next episode and it only gets worse, so much so it's putting me off ever owning another Range Rover

I received a call last night from LR Assist to tell me they will not be extending the hire car. The report from the Landrover garage was that the tyre damages is cosmetic only and the car is drivable I was asked to take the loan car to the garage and collect th RR in the morning. I asked if the tyre damage had been rectified and she said no the investigation will be on going.

I could not believe her request and unfortunately she received a bit of a hard time I know she was just passing on the message but this whole sorry state is just so frustrating. She also said the report from the garage was that the car was not that new and had over 7,000 miles on the clock, "don't know wnat that has to do with it but the car was first registered on the 1st Mar 07 and has 1,800 miles on the clock" .

Anyway collected the car this morning against my better judgement and without a word from the garage (to be honest I really did not want to talk to them anyway) drove away. My drive back was full of trepidation and worry that at any moment the tyre may blow so did not exceed speeds over forty miles an hour (even on the Autobahn). Before going home I took the car to two independant tyre companies for them to asses the damage. Both of them told me that driving the car with the tyre in it's present state was very dangerous and should not be driven and under no circumstances should I venture onto the Autobahn

I have asked for a report from both of them and this evening I'm going to sit down and write my letter of complaint. Is there anything else I should be doing

I still can't get my head around the garage allowing the car to be driven with the front tyre being in such a bad state. I feel the only way they are going to accept this is if myself and my familiy are involved in an accident

So here I am still without my car as it's parked up outside and no replacement vehicle to get me back and forward to work. I know I can put the spare on but if I then have a puncture I'm back to square one, and believe me with the luck I've had with this bloody car it will more than likely happen.

Tony, have you tried talking direct to Land Rover Customer Services in Solihull to see if they can help. I assume LRAssist are the appointed agents of LR, and therefore if LRAssist have failed to provide a satisfactory service, LR themselves should be called upon to investigate and address your complaint.

Just a suggestion.

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As you can see by the dates it's been a few good months since the problems I had last time. All problems were resolved (eventually) but low and behold here I am back again with the same problem I had all those months ago.

The car died the other night and would only allow me to travel at 30MPH (takes about half a mile to get to 30mph) so back on phone to Landrover Assist to get recovered and a replacement car. Car has now been in the garage since breakdown with no Idea when it will be ready. The car is the RR Sport V8 Diesel and is only 8 moths old with less than five thousand miles on the clock.

My concerns are I'm due to travel to Austria next moth for a weeks skiing and have lost all faith in the vehicle. The replacment vehicle they gave me is a Merc C class as thats all they had available on Sun evening, what happens if this happens again while I'm down there and they can only find a normal sized saloon car? (there will be five of us skiing with kit).

Due to replace the car in March and was going to buy another V8 but a vehicle costing over 50 grand should not be having all these problems so more than likely will now go with a BMW.

Not sure if there is anything else I can do about it, any ideas?

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Bad luck with this Tony

I can see how this would undermine your confidence in the brand. If the dealer manages to fix it and you still have the car by the time you go on holiday - just get confirmation of the LRA coverage whilst in Austria. I think we recently found out, for example, that there is no LRA coverage in Denmark. Yet if you travel a mile over the border into Germany you can get the same service as in the UK... 

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I think the moral of this story is to check your car over thoroughly whenever collecting it from a garage...even if it is 6.30pm!!

Or alternatively get a garage employee to sign on a piece of paper that you have collected your car without inspecting it and reserve the right to do do when you get home

As usual it seems that a great product is let down by crap customer service once again

Phone call this afternoon from Assist asking me to go to garage as they can't find anything wrong with the car When I arrive I jump in the car with techie guy to find car works perfectly. After long conversation about what happened I'm informed that unless the problem is present there is nothing they can do. I now have the car back at home but as you can imagine my confidence in it is not very high.