codfather wrote:

Why is there such a big gulf in build quality between these cars? At the one end you have the original poster with his 30 plus problems, and at the other there is our company which in 15 years and over 300k miles between 2 discos,2 freelanders 1 evoque and my RRs, have had only 1 problem (fuel gauge needed a wire replaced)
Cheers
Dave

Between 2000 and 2010 I was very happy with all my previous Lr's, dealers and lrcs but the last 2 years with my rrs have been terrible - lrcs have been useless and fallen out with 2 dealers

Faced with 10 good years experience I should shrug it off and think its just bad luck but I can't help feeling the recent increase in global sales has changed JLR for the worst and maybe time to try another brand - if its worse I can always come back  Wanted a Series 2 LR since childhood but previously owned MY16 Disco Sport HSE TD4 Auto, MY13 RR Sport Black Edition TDV6 Auto, MY10 RR Sport HSE TDV6 Auto, 2007 Freelander 1 Freestyle TD4 Soft Top, 2009 Freelander 2 GS TD4 Auto, 2007 Freelander 2 GS TD4, 2004 Disco 2 Metropolis Auto, 2002 Disco 2 GS, 2000 Freelander 1 SE TD4 SW

Still hoping for a S2 one day!

I think the problem is down to JLR getting too big too quickly. They sold just over 300,000 vehicles in 2012 (of which just over 250,000 were LR) and made £1.5bn in pre-tax profits on £13.5bn of sales.
http://www.jaguarlandrover.com/pdf/13340_JLR_SR_Inter_1_H.pdf

I think they've got to the point where they're taking their eye off the customer and focussing totally on becoming a world player. I think they're going to go down the road that Mercedes did a few years ago - they once had a reputation for solidly built, well engineered products backed up by first class dealers. Then they decided to increase profits by cutting out some of the good stuff - the stuff that costs money to do - and ended up becoming known for poor reliability and bad service (not helped by dumping garages (or was it amalgamating dealerships?)).

LR vehicles are well designed with some really great features - the Terrain Response / HDC / air suspension combined with 4WD is brilliant and appears to have been replicated by most other SUV makers these days. Unfortunately the vehicles appear to be being put together by a workforce / subcontractors who don't care about what they're doing, probably because they are being asked to work flat out constantly to meet the demand. I also have no doubt that some of the issues we face will be purely down to a unit price decision made years ago by accountants and managers. And I bet the price differences are tiny but the results are telling.

We then have the customer end of the system - the dealers (and LRCS). We've all got stories about those lovely people...

I'm on my first LR product and after 18months I'm already wondering about selling and going elsewhere. For example, the Touareg/Cayenne would do everything I need (with better mpg as well). Will it be reliable? Who knows but could it be as bad as the RRS has been? I'd love to keep the RRS (or even change it for a D4 for better space) but I keep coming back to the reliability issues and that is ridiculous in a premium vehicle. 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Totally agree RRSTDV8, The thing is, JLR are living on L/R's of old reputation ie defender reliabilty, that gave L/R it good name, which to be fair is about as good as it gets because its basic and there isn't that much that can go wrong. But with the permium models technology has moved on and become a lot more complex so more to go wrong and it clearly has. L/R need to get their act together very quickly in the customer services dept now, but to be fair, i can not fault my dealer so far, but having said that, i really haven't had any problems...... He says touching wood.

RRSTDV8 and Ady's make some good points and valid argument. From my perspective there appear to be a couple of fundamental issues.

The first, is the build quality with some of the new vehicles appearing to be so poor in terms of reliability and that is not acceptable. LR's marketing and indeed design, focuses much attention on the 'go anywhere & robust vehicle' element, so customers should expect the vehicles to deliver accordingly month in month out, year in year out. Given the vast majority of LR's spend their time on tarmac & still have too many issues, LR are failing to deliver here.

The second area is the quality of components used and introduction of new technology. Terrain response etc is brilliant and setting the standard for this vehicle category, however, why do front suspension elements fail, gear boxes fail, turbos fail, compressors fail, random warning lights popping up etc (& and list of other key components) so regularly? Are they using cheap sub standard components? Many of these common issues seem to be much the same now as they were 5 years ago.

I've had a nightmare vehicle in the past and only thanks to the dealer was I able to get rid of it. But even though my current vehicle has been good as gold so far (touches wood) with only a parking brake fail, I still wonder if a Touareg or Cayenne would be better from a long term reliability perspective even if they do look as ugly as a pig in knickers.

When they work, they are the best vehicles on the planet in my humble opinion but LR must address their build quality & reliability issues. I've several friends who drive an assortment of LR vehicles, all between 2-5 years old and all of them have had major problems at one point or another, which along with the comments often made on this excellent forum, suggest LR have fundamental issues to sort out.

Please get it right LR as I really don't want to end up driving a VW!!! --------------------------------------------------------
RRS TDV8 Black/Black (Gone)
RRS TDV8 Stornaway (Gone)
RR Vogue TDV8 (Gone)
RRS 4.4V8 (Gone)
Defender 110 300tdi (Stolen, much missed)
RR Vogue V8 P38 (Gone)
LR 90 TD (Gone)

Well put bigcat  "Remember its easier to say sorry than it is to get permission " especially off the Mrs !!

I have had to replace the alternator on a 2003 FFRR, on a 2007 FFRR as have many of my friends on theirs and on my own RRS 2007 To put this in perspective I have never had to replace an alternator on our fleet of Mercedes Sprinter vans that have all done over 200,000 miles each without any major problems! There has to be an issue with design or quality at Landrover that needs addressing...

I have only ever had to replace one alternator due to failure and that was on Allroad at 140000 miles when it stopped charging. At that mileage I really didn't have any objection. Have to say, and probably shoot my own foot here, that its possibly the fault I haven't had with my car.
Where all this becomes an issue for me, is that the same things are having to be changed again and again, and it can't be blamed on abuse as I don't use my Sport as an everyday car any longer, simply because it is too unreliable to do so and it is a ridiculous situation that I eventually had to go out and buy an alternative as for instance, when I needed a tow car, mine was in dry dock and loan car didn't have tow bar or electrics.
At one point my car sat for weeks at dealer because LR had changed suppliers/manufacturers for ball joints and there was no stock.
So currently sitting waiting on an engine that is back order and has no ETA just brings it all back, I think records show that in first year of ownership, my car spent four months at dealer. Not a good record. 2x TDV6. SE and HSE. Both returned to sender with issues👀
TDV8 Sport HSE...... Gone. Loved it but it didn't love me!!
Now rolling in MY10 Fullfat TDV8 Vogue. Slammed it to go round corners🙈
Cruising daily #56 mph in a Volvo V8. 😱
Lots of other toys in the cupboard...😜

A good selection of posts as usual. As for whinging only about the bad points, to be fair I gave the brand a second chance when I purchased the second RR Sport after the first was not one of the best.

What have I gone for, well as the better half has a Subaru Forester (third one and only one warranty issue across all three in 7 years!) and I can use this for work and dog transporting, I picked up a new Audi A8 Quattro SE Executive this morning...different, I know, but time will tell if this was a good decision. Long suffering RRS Owner, but I can't help it!

Unfortunately like many of you here I've gone away from JLR after 30 years. My Jag XF fell apart and went back in 6 months and my TDV8 was nothing but unreliable and hassle - which meant I often used another car because I couldn't trust it.

In my opinion the concept and design are good (except if you need to reverse an Evoque!) but the procurement cycle seems to have distinctly changed to 'source the cheapest' and so long to the car's dependability (Mercedes had to change their stance in recent years!) .

When the major issues are well known and keep repeating then JLR obviously decided they can keep attracting new buyers at a greater rate than they loose their current clients and, unfortunately, it seems to work as they have grown year on year !!! In a volume business it is a common business strategy that concerns its self with shareholder returns and growth - customers are merely the revenue flow as an individual owners we have to recognise we have no real impact and are really just a marginal irritation - as to some extent is an individual dealership

I belive most issues come from usung cheap sensors and ancilliariy components; we've been making alternators and turbo-chargers for donkey's years so really shouldn't fail inside thier design life with the frequency they do. But if you shoehorn them into to an engine bay with inadequate airflow so they run hotter than is wise they will give upper. as will cheap hieght sensor, cheap compressors etc etc.

Its sad but they could not only be really good but also reliable with just a bit more care at sub-component procurement.

what are the alternatives? VW, Cayenne, X5, ML, Toyota, Lexus etc - how are these for reliability though?

I'm also 'off' having disposed of the 3rd of my RRS and 5th Range Rover overall. Whilst my most recent one was generally pretty good it has had in 6 months a parking brake failure and according to the new owner has a locking issue and TPMS failures which have all resulted in trips to dealer. I have lost count with how many times I’ve needed to book RRS’s into dealers, but have had 4 roadside breakdowns which is 4 more than I ever had driving BWMs or Mercs.

I've bought a cheap (£6k) 55 plate Grand Cherokee, I know all very plastic etc but it has a merc engine, gearbox etc and is not that bad. Better ride in terms of more comfortable than the RRS, premium sound, nav etc and a better TPMS which tells me the pressure on each corner rather than just a light saying 'issue' coming on with the RR system. I will admit it is as ugly as a PIK but looks aren’t everything as I was once told by a fat bird!

Not sure how long it might be before I'm tempted back into a RR of any sort, I really lost confidence having had issue, after issue after issue & just got fed up with either driving or being carried on flatbed back to main agent.

I'm now adopting a cheap as chips strategy so the GC is sufficient for my needs. The Range Rover's might have very high desirability on the branding side but my experience of buying 3-4 year old examples from main dealers has not been great. When they work they are very nice, but a little too high maintenance for me at present, I just need a vehicle that goes when needed.

All that said, this is the best forum I’ve seen and will maintain a keen interest in what goes on! --------------------------------------------------------
RRS TDV8 Black/Black (Gone)
RRS TDV8 Stornaway (Gone)
RR Vogue TDV8 (Gone)
RRS 4.4V8 (Gone)
Defender 110 300tdi (Stolen, much missed)
RR Vogue V8 P38 (Gone)
LR 90 TD (Gone)

Best of luck with the Jeep.

I bought a brand new GC 4.7 V8 back in 2001 and it was the worst car I've ever had. It was definately put together on a Friday afternoon. Depreciation was a killer too.

That said, the dealer was good and did cover the cost on the majority of problems with no questions asked. 2013 (13.5MY) RRS HSE Black | Causeway Grey | Privacy | Ivory & Ebony | Grand Black Lacquer | Style 7 Alloys | AWESOME

Also had Grand Cherokee was very good car until it was over 70 degress granted not very often in the uk but then the alarm went awol & nothing could be done with the car till it cooled down - not much fun when towing a twin axle caravan !! - Jeep spent a month trying to find the problem with no success & I ended up getting a new one from Jeep which I immediately sold as not going through that again - all I can say is dealer was far better than LR dealer although did need to be kicked a bit.

& I'm off we no longer have any horses can put the dogs in the wife's car no longer tow a caravan & I'm usually the only one in the car so gone for something completely different - bought a 2007 SL350

This forum has been excellent over the years on my many RRS & RR's & will keep a watching brief as know I will be back  Paul

L405 Loire Blue
Swift Conqueror 645
Abarth 500c

PJB, am giving serious consideration to picking up an older SL myself, love them and based on today's weather can't think of anything better. Best of luck with the Merc.

Re the GC comments, I would not have touched it unless it had the key components based on Merc units. From what I am told pre 2005 they were a bit of a mare, but the ones built in Austria which have the 3.0 CRD engine etc are pretty good from a reliability stand point.

I'm planning on using a specialist service option as the local Jeep main agent does not have a good rep and given the age & value I think a specialist with an excellent reputation in this area would be a better option. --------------------------------------------------------
RRS TDV8 Black/Black (Gone)
RRS TDV8 Stornaway (Gone)
RR Vogue TDV8 (Gone)
RRS 4.4V8 (Gone)
Defender 110 300tdi (Stolen, much missed)
RR Vogue V8 P38 (Gone)
LR 90 TD (Gone)

Last 2 Porsche's Dire and big issues as well as small. 2014 5.0SC AB

Gone 5.0 SC

Last edited by Tboner on Thu Jan 16 2014 12:45pm. Edited 2 times in total