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Home > My Range Rover Sport > Letter to Land Rover re Poor design of alloys

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Jeffrey

Member Since: 03 Feb 2006
Location: California, USA
Posts: 23

2006 Range Rover Sport 4.4 V8 HSE Giverney Green

Biggles,

thanks for the reply. I'm glad we agree. Using your head and common sense, is required to enjoy our vehicles off pavement. Experience helps a lot, too. Perhaps the creator of this thread did not, and had none? '06 RRS Giverny/Alpaca
'97 Discovery
My Rover Site -- My Photo Site

Sat Feb 04 2006 11:40pm

sportman

Member Since: 25 Jul 2005
Location: UAE
Posts: 550

2006 Range Rover Sport Supercharged Buckingham Blue

strong letter man I hope they will come with new improved desing, I wish to see the pictures..are they stormer wheels..one more thing to say 10 days back I had a chance to visit Suliholl the home of legents when I was in UK and i got chance to drive RRS supercharged with landrover experience It had 20'' alloy..so how do they manage that I'm very sorry to hear about yours wheels..but ur r right there are not design for real offroad

Sun Feb 05 2006 11:10am

Robbi

Member Since: 14 Jun 2005
Location: Channel Islands, Guernsey
Posts: 130

2007 Range Rover Sport TDV8 HSE Rimini Red

mpwox11 wrote:
Very annoyed wrote:
They'll probably put an unremovable sticker on the wheels!

Like the horrible yellow info on the sun visor. It looks awful from the outside when the visor is down!

Not wanting to change the thread!! ... but has anyone removed this silly stickers and if so how? Rob
*Gone - HSE TDV8 Rimini Red + Tasmod sill plates

Sun Feb 05 2006 3:41pm

Jeffrey

Member Since: 03 Feb 2006
Location: California, USA
Posts: 23

Robbi, I do not think they are stickers. It appears to be screen printed or made using some sort of heat transfer process. '06 RRS Giverny/Alpaca
'97 Discovery
My Rover Site -- My Photo Site

Sun Feb 05 2006 6:17pm

RRUK

Member Since: 10 Jun 2005
Location: Leicestershire
Posts: 2581

2013 Range Rover Sport Supercharged Autobiography Stornoway Grey

Jeffrey wrote:
Biggles,

thanks for the reply. I'm glad we agree. Using your head and common sense, is required to enjoy our vehicles off pavement. Experience helps a lot, too. Perhaps the creator of this thread did not, and had none?

Jeffrey, You sure know how to make friends and influence people don't you? Perhaps you should consider what you type before fingers touch the keyboard.

I am fully aware of offroading techniques and have quite a modicum of common sense believe it or not, I have been off roading on the same ground all of my life, so I know the terrain and I have experience of Land Rovers since I was a kid. My first and second cars were a Land Rover and a Range Rover.

I know the alloys are designed differently to the stock 16" rims you get on a P38, Disco or Defender, the point is, Land Rover do NOT bill this car to be an on road only vehicle and NOWHERE does it state not to use these alloys on this car if venturing off road.

Let's get some perspective here (and if you had read the letter in detail you would have picked up on this) this was not some extreme off roading, it was a grassy field with some mild ruts. My letter aims to point out to Land Rover that the design is not ideal for ANY off road use at all, and therefore goes against the grain of what the car's purpose is all about, i.e a multifunctional SUV/4X4 vehicle. Otherwise, they would advertise the Supercharged as a road car, not an SUV. The alloys are not fit for purpose as off road wheels and on road wheels. It would be possible to have 20" rims with a different design that could have avoided this happening.

Do you honestly think that after spending £59,000 on this car I'd want to damage the wheels by throwing into an unknown and potentially damaging off road situation? That would be plain stupidity. (A little like throwing stones at people on forums you have only just joined when you know nothing about them)

I'm pleased you have joined this forum, but would appreciate your comments to be more helpful than condescending, that's not what we're about here. L319 D4 HSE

1998 110 TUM HS FFR Hard Top XD WOLF

1982 Series 3 SWB

Mon Feb 06 2006 1:14pm

shmoogle

Member Since: 07 Sep 2005
Location: ... and for every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you!
Posts: 24350

Jeffrey wrote:
Sorry for being a bit too direct, but truly offroading a Land Rover is my relative point of view. If one visits my Rover site (or the pic below), then one will understand. Schmoogle, it seems that your statement agrees with my point completely, unless you were simply re-stating what I had said.

I'm not disagreeing with what you said, Jeffrey (indeed you are right, they are an unsuitable choice for offroad use) but am supporting what RRUK is complaining about to LR. LR sell you an offroad vehicle with a particular type of alloy wheel as standard from the factory. Is LRs expectation that you should never take it offroad just because its an SC and therefore has 20in wheels? Why should SC owners have to think about buying another set of wheels and then swap onto them everytime they want to cross a field (or anything more challenging)? That's clearly impractical and impacts the usefulness of the vehicle.

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Mon Feb 06 2006 1:21pm

MDP

Member Since: 14 Jun 2005
Location: Back in an AUDI
Posts: 8598

Shmoogle, I could'nt agree more & fully support RRUK's arguement on this. But, there again I'm biased I have the same car
" WITH MORE EXTRAS THAN A HOLLYWOOD EPIC "

Mon Feb 06 2006 2:32pm

smudge

Member Since: 12 Aug 2005
Location: East Horsley
Posts: 83

2006 Range Rover Sport TDV6 HSE Bonatti Grey

To lighten the thread a bit - I now well as may go offroad in my 20" stormers..... I kerbed the nearside one badly at the w/end owing to manouevring round some old lady who forced me up the kerb when parking .... grrrrrrr... sob

Anyone used Carsten Sleight from ChipsAway (in Surry area)... Range Rover Sport TdV6HSE Bonatti Grey 20" FE Stormer wheels, Privacy Glass, Mats, Boot Mat, black badges, SC grille and vents

Mon Feb 06 2006 2:58pm

shmoogle

Member Since: 07 Sep 2005
Location: ... and for every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you!
Posts: 24350

I used the Hants/Surrey Wicked Wheels bloke once for the wheels on my M3 - did a "wicked" job His name was Dennis Bastable... I have his details if you want them?

2009 Outstanding Contribution Award - Joint Runner Up
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Mon Feb 06 2006 3:46pm

smudge

Member Since: 12 Aug 2005
Location: East Horsley
Posts: 83

yes please schmoogle - can you pm me ... Range Rover Sport TdV6HSE Bonatti Grey 20" FE Stormer wheels, Privacy Glass, Mats, Boot Mat, black badges, SC grille and vents

Mon Feb 06 2006 4:11pm

shmoogle

Member Since: 07 Sep 2005
Location: ... and for every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you!
Posts: 24350

Done

2009 Outstanding Contribution Award - Joint Runner Up
2009 'Tech-Head Of The Year' Award - Runner Up

Like it here? Then Donate to RRSPORT!!

Mon Feb 06 2006 4:18pm

JayMann

Member Since: 19 Jan 2006
Location: Stop acting like snob when you just won the Lotto!
Posts: 22898

2006 Range Rover Sport TDV6 HSE Buckingham Blue

RRUK did they get back to you on this yet? if you don't mind me asking ? RRS TDV6 Gone but still around
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Wed Feb 22 2006 10:54pm

RRUK

Member Since: 10 Jun 2005
Location: Leicestershire
Posts: 2581

I got a written reply from Land Rover on this one. I won't type out the complete letter but to cut a long story short they acknowledged my complaint and said they had consulted the designers and they have come to the conclusion that they are not to blame for the damage, the closing gambit was something like "I hope you can appreciate Land Rover's stance on this", in other words, if they admit to me the design is easily damaged off road, they open the floodgates to lots of owners with damaged wheels saying they did it off road and want LR to pay up.

It's unfortunate it has happened, but I am long past getting hysterical about these things, they happen, and it just seems that when you have a brand new car that costs an arm and a leg, it just seems worse somehow.

I scratched my fuel filler area yesterday trying to get the nozzle in at a funny angle from thw wrong side of the car, I was angry at first but....mweehh. L319 D4 HSE

1998 110 TUM HS FFR Hard Top XD WOLF

1982 Series 3 SWB

Sun Feb 26 2006 7:48pm

RRUK

Member Since: 10 Jun 2005
Location: Leicestershire
Posts: 2581

Have you seen the latest EVO magazine?

As EVO magazine had a long term test of the 1st Edition Supercharged in Vesuvius, I was reading their end of term report on the car, mention of the damaged alloys from off roading and how LR replaced them made me angry that I had been fobbed off. So I wrote in, and lo and behold they printed it...

evo Issue 93:

"Having heard the latest issue (92) of EVO plonk onto my doormat the other morning I unwrapped it to find a nice long article (for a change) about the Range Rover Sport Supercharged. Despite having owned one myself now since September 2005 and covered 13,000 miles in it, I still like to hear what other people think about the car.

What really stood out though was the recollection of the off road foray in which the 20" Stormer alloys wheels became scuffed.

I had a very similar incident in some simple and very mild off road conditions on our shoot ground. After going through a rutted gateway of slithery mud, all four of my lovely wheels are scratched and scuffed. I wrote to Landrover expressing my amazement that an off road vehicle can have an inherent design flaw whereby the alloys wheels are so susceptible to damage when venturing into such mild off road conditions. Not surprisingly (as I am not writing for EVO magazine) they did not offer to replace MY wheels or even acknowledge that this was an issue at all. Instead, they told me that they had consulted their designers and concluded there was no design flaws in the wheels on my Supercharged. (Of course the designers are going to say that!)

So, it seems Landrover are prepared to help out those who can easily make their lives hell by writing bad things about their latest and greatest product, but for Mr Joe Bloggs who forks out £60K on a nice new off road car and actually takes it off road, well he can follow the Christmas turkey and get stuffed!

Another little known fact is that the Land Rover Experience centres that run off road days in these cars also swap out the 20" alloys for the standard 19" alloys found on the HSE models, as they found them too easily damaged. If that's not proof enough, I don't know what is."

Strange that after this got printed a few days ago, LandRover have contacted me to address my issue. Watch this space. L319 D4 HSE

1998 110 TUM HS FFR Hard Top XD WOLF

1982 Series 3 SWB

Last edited by RRUK on Fri Jun 09 2006 1:45pm. Edited 2 times in total

Fri Jun 09 2006 1:18pm

MDP

Member Since: 14 Jun 2005
Location: Back in an AUDI
Posts: 8598

That's great news then Adam

Fingers crossed and all that..........
" WITH MORE EXTRAS THAN A HOLLYWOOD EPIC "

Fri Jun 09 2006 1:25pm

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