Thread: Puma Engine Failures: heads up

Originally Posted by uninformed

what if you know nothing about mechanics and get it servied every 10k by a dealer and it was only fully serviced 1k ago.....

As far as the transits, I thought there were lots of niggling problems with the 2.4s?

And the problem can sometimes be as simple as outside temp. Wouldnt be the first time a british product, "fully desert tested" showed signs of inadequecy in other countries conditions.

If you know nothing about mechanics at all then your being rather daring driving somewhere remote alone in the first place!
And it doesn't take much to check a coolant level?
Regardless one should either investigate a potential problem before heading out into the remote OR if one doesn't know what is what have it give a quick 5 min health check by any garage. It's plain common sense surely...

Goingbush - if that's the thread I think it is (was written by leroy riding or a username similar) it was a special tool not a part that no one in Australia had. The thread has since been locked as quite frankly half of it was people harping on about a fuel pump and how you dont need a special tool for it but thinking of totally the wrong vehicle, and the rest of the thread was just a massive moan about supposed things the dealer did wrong that were actually as per LR instructions and the small remainder of the rest was just mostly bollocks.
Fear not your puma is still to be trusted

Mine's also losing coolant, ever since new. But the funny thing is, it doesn't lose coolant when driving long distance, once when I'm commuting to/from work. For example, we did a 5000km/3week trip in Namibia in April 2011, and it didn't lose a single drop of coolant.

After the last time time I topped up, it is now settled at 1cm below the mark.

I have replaced the cap yesterday. I will top up to the mark, will monitor and report back

Naks,

I'm reading quite a lot about the South African Pumas and their coolant cap issues (I'd imagine we're talking expansion tank caps?). Could you possibly post a photo at some point?

North West Australia is significantly hotter than anywhere in SA (except maybe Upington (or whatever its called these days) and surrounds). My car operated 1000's of kilometers in ambient temps averaging mid forties and higher and I've not had a single issue (no fluid loss whatsoever), nor have I heard of Australian Pumas having issues with the coolant cap.

I would very much like to compare and see if the South African one is different from the Australian one and a permanent fix might be fitting the Australian variant if its different?

Cheers,

Lou

Originally Posted by Loubrey

I'm reading quite a lot about the South African Pumas and their coolant cap issues (I'd imagine we're talking expansion tank caps?). Could you possibly post a photo at some point?

Will go get the old cap from the car at lunchtime and take pics, but I can't imagine it's any different from other markets.

Photos of the old cap and packaging of the new cap:

Hi Naks,

Yeh, you're right - no difference.

Strange that so many are reported to leak in SA then and it not being a recognised issue in Australia...

Cheers,

Lou

I've only ever topped mine up once by a very small amount and it's gone back to that same level of about 1cm below the mark.
Hasn't moved for weeks so I'm just going to leave it as is.
AlanH.

Originally Posted by fonfe

If you know nothing about mechanics at all then your being rather daring driving somewhere remote alone in the first place!
And it doesn't take much to check a coolant level?
Regardless one should either investigate a potential problem before heading out into the remote OR if one doesn't know what is what have it give a quick 5 min health check by any garage. It's plain common sense surely...

Well you better come and warn the many people, and I do mean many that travel into the Aus outback every year with new cars and caravans and not much of a mechanical clue. Potential problem, how does one identify that if they aren't mechanically minded, getting the vehicle serviced regularly and no signs of any problems.

It really does make me shake my head when people immediately defend the marque by blaming owners that are doing more than a lot of people do. Plenty of cars out there not getting their regular service or any checks of any kind. The person in the link was getting their Puma service twice the regular amount!

Id have no problem calling someone on bad maintenance of doing something stupid, have even put my hand up for the later.