Thread: The reason LandRover isnt building in this market

Another update in next couple of days... ..

This is a post put up by me earlier this month to Land Rover... it’s long and repetitive if you’ve read this thread... sadly.. but it continues...


I wish to bring to your attention the long drawn out saga that is my vehicle, the defender 110,... (hopefully you guys know it, you've had more access to it over time in your service dept than I have...)

The vehicle is a 2013 110 puma 7 seater defender. It has travelled 90,000kms on its wheels and about 3,000km on the back of recovery trucks.... something maybe you anticipated hence the convenient tie down points?

This gets me beginning to recount the experience so far...
~It starts simple, door seals that keep coming adrift, but when asked what adhesive I could use to stop them coming loose and getting slammed into the door I was told very abruptly that any glue at all would void any warranty!!
Sure enough, door seals (especially drivers side rear) are damaged badly, causing doors to jam... but photos of this were not enough... the vehicle must be driven the 200 kms in each direction to the city so that they can walk out of the office, sight the damaged seal and then they can order another one. “Oh and can you come back next week so we can fit it? “ (sure! I will take another, unpaid day off of work, drive the 400km round trip so you can do something with it!!)
I drive to town when they tell me they’ve got the seals in. The car is in all day and I walked across town and back in time to collect it. Oh the seals came but we forgot to order one so that isn’t done yet... which one? - yep drivers side rear passenger seal!!!

~In this time I’ve also had a series of seat adjustment handles literally fall off... but they also cannot be glued... I finally gave up and glued them on myself to prevent more replacements being required.

~Family trip to the city...NO! ... blown seal in the oil cooler... trucked away for repair.. back home for us

~Returns, “all fixed” ... first trip, wife taking kids off to play in football grand finals, ...NO!, oil in water and boiling again in literally the first 25 kms... trucked away for repair.... and thanks to the 1999 Mitsubishi Magna, my wife makes it just in time for the boys to play in their grand finals...

~Numerous attempts to fix it for return and each time it is failing... eventually I am advised that the engine is faulty and they remove it and replace it with a new one.

~Turns out that once they’ve done this they finally return the car to me and the saga continues...

~The vehicle stereos as per the rest of the car started to fritz out and needed replacement..

~For the next few years the vehicle begins a sickening cycle of destruction internally. A total of 4 turbos fail with a sickening repetition. Each time causing further delays for me, or even longer delays awaiting parts that always seem to not arrive when expected.

~ In this time I cancelled at least three trips away because of the obvious unreliability of the vehicle. So now this is affecting my holiday time with friends and family... Annual trips being cancelled becomes the norm..

~Numerous times I pointed out that this vehicle was not fit for purpose, (it would appear it wasn’t fit for anything at all) All of these were ignored..

~Ironically Land Rover, apologising for the repeated failures and delays gave me a voucher for a Land Rover experience weekend. A sort of driver training and 4wd experience you attend in your own vehicle to learn more about the car and the best way to approach different situations. My family were looking forward to this and as we approached the weekend confirmations were made with the driving experience people.
On the Friday before the Saturday course, I made the silly mistake of thinking that my vehicle -that I had bought new and treated with kid gloves- would be able to survive a 200km journey to the city and return on bitumen roads. The vehicle “ate” its turbo and was trucked to Adelaide for repair.

This meant that, as we couldn’t give them the required 48 hour notice to withdraw, that the “Land Rover driving experience” meant to be a consolation because of the numerous long and extended problems we’d had - became a true Land Rover experience in that it promised huge amounts and delivered nothing.

So after having another engine swapped (I’m on my third engine now, with both the others allegedly being shipped back to England to the factory..) I managed to go away on a trip!

Unfortunately early in this trip the uhf radio stops working properly. Inspection of the aerial cable (which had to be cut and joined so the front could come off the vehicle for the engine swap) showed us that the joiner in the coax had completely come off one end of the coax. Apparently installed when there was a solder drought on, the fitting had a minimal “dusting” of solder. This separation of the aerial cable caused the transmission side of the radio to burn out.

The saga to have the uhf radio replaced was unbelievable... originally they replaced the aerial (nothing wrong with the aerial) finally the uhf was replaced.

~ The defender then shows signs of corrosion on both sides of the roof near the Alpine windows... this meant the roof needed to be replaced.. A process that was slated to take ten days and originally you were prepared to offer a loan vehicle for 3? My maths isn’t brilliant but that doesn’t seem to work! A three month wait meant this was done in January (“when we can loan you a car”)

~ I collected the defender back and I've wound down the drivers window to find the top has a large chip out of it!! .. stupidly (obviously before I found it broken) I wound the window down and drove for almost 5kms to find my arm bleeding.. - I usually donate blood in a controlled environment and at a time and place of my choosing but it seems that wasn't the case here...

I contacted the crash repairers as this is the door they worked on but they stated that in their last overall inspection which included the window -the window was alright. (they were more than willing to talk to you about this) They also advise the window may break at any time and so to keep it wound up at all costs....and be prepared as it may shatter without notice... that's very comforting...

I'm not sure if there may be hidden cameras in my car placed by you guys to capture what must be hilarious reactions to the things I'm finding one after another...* Id appreciate a copy of the footage so that I too may see the funny side of this...* *Maybe, because it is in there so often, your workshop has adopted my car as a mascot?(or maybe, as requested ages ago, I should've had a replacement vehicle when it was available !?)

I must point out that through this epic saga there were periods where I was actually disappointed in the vehicle but satisfied with the service.. that was when I was dealing with Louis English and Michael Schieffers, blokes who you should maybe have train your service advisors..

Anyway, if something happens by accident - well that's life, let’s fix it and we move on --but I'm not sure that I can afford to be the sponsor for these and I'm damn sure that a service department of a luxury high end car dealer shouldn't be hiding errors/mistakes everywhere!* Part of the high service costs relate to the illusion that at Solitaire the service done will be good quality by competent people who take pride in their work.... sadly this illusion is rapidly dissolving throughout the land rover community in recent times... a topic of conversation by the way that often comes up when SA Land Rover owners meet..

For me recent things like:-

**the lock nut cover removal tool being tucked into the centre console out of sight but broken... (It was OK when I used it last, even though the cover of the lock nut was all I could remove due to the use of the Hulk to tighten those wheel nuts!) had the cover for that not been left on the dash I wouldn’t have known at all until I’d left. I don’t know if it was used and broke or if someone trod on it or whatever but it’s broken... hiding it makes it obvious you knew this..

**the wheel nuts done up so tight that the factory wheel brace bent as we tried to undo them, and the lock nut removal tool stretched out of shape!

-the wheel brace was replaced no problem but I had to ask again for the order of the lock nut to be done - it is an obvious weak point where it has stretched and as I pointed out would undoubtedly fail in the future..

**the loss of the service book, (this by the way being the second time) but this time no details of dealer etc transposed into replacement book, I assume all my original receipts for purchase, original registration, window tint details, radio etc that were in the book front also wont be found,(they survived last times loss. by some miracle .)* The fact that the generic book (with a discovery on the front) now issued is stencilled "replacement" on every page is particularly unimpressive....(Yep that wont scream "shonky" when it comes time to sell the car....) and has the added bonus of not listing what is required at each service... a little feature that I liked for some bizarre reason.. I hope like hell that there is a proper service book on the way.

**when I brought the car in for the service (Ohhh -it seems so long ago), I specified the 90,000km service was due and that is what I wanted done... but when collecting it was told the 72 month service was done instead, "because it covers a lot of things the engine needs doing at that age”. Really? Because the engine is just 12,000kms old! So really instead of charging me for the 72,000 km service I should have again been paying for the initial service?

** So I am now stuck at home. I have been waiting for some decision of any type on what you intend to do with my vehicle. It is sitting here with a chip out of the drivers side window so I can’t use it for fear of that shattering.

But also the brakes need doing, something I’ve tried to do three times now I have the parts, but haven’t been able to for silly little reasons , like... the wheel nuts done that tight they can’t be undone by two grown men who bent the wheel brace trying to undo them. This also stretched the hub not spanner obviously making it a ticking time bomb to completely fail itself.

So I complained about the hub nut spanner when I collected the vehicle and was assured one would be sent out ASAP. I know you will be completely surprised to find out that ... weeks later it hasn’t arrived!

And now, one of the tyres on my car has gone flat.. but I can’t change that tyre because the lock nut won’t undo.. nor can I take the spare tyre from the rear door because... in trying to undo the flat tyre guess what happened to the one weakened lock nut tool?? Yep! She broke, stretched and useless, but in its last throws managed to also damage the lock nut... I would expect no less from a Land Rover product at this stage...

So with Easter fast approaching, (a holiday for which I have my annual leave booked and plans) and ANZAC Day also almost here, (again plans made where I’m needing the 7 seats... ) guess what? That’s right! The vehicle that Land Rover have insisted continuously is “fit for purpose” won’t be able to even leave the driveway!

And repeated emails to the service person who took over my matter have gone unanswered... so not only am I now feeling like the service level for my defender is set at “get him out the door” - I’m also wondering how someone with a Jaguar or Aston Martin copes when they have this happening to them? Surely all this happening to one car and person couldn’t be coincidental unless it’s happening to numerous others....

If only the car had been swapped any of the times I asked.. there were 7 in stock the last time I asked but somehow I knew that I’d be pushed past that point of no return so they were sold and there was no option.

I haven’t gone into the rusting rear chassis rail, the air conditioning valve saga (that had been diagnosed by your workshop previously and allegedly just a straight swap, still took almost two weeks... as usual my vehicle sat there whilst the wrong parts are sent then “that wasn’t the problem so we ordered more parts to come in from interstate or overseas..” - I’ve tried not to bring up that it took about 4 tries to get the rear cargo area roof light to work. I didn’t mention the sticking rear seat latch that meant the seat wasn’t secured down like it should be..

I neglected to mention the fact that it came back from engine change missing a bolt from the front grille surround. I haven’t even commented on the fact an engine change was done but that nothing was done by the “professional service and repair” people to advise Transport SA of the engine number change... this could mean if inspected and numbers don’t match the car could be impounded for further checks. If this engine change notification is done by the customer it will require a Police inspection and therefore cost them $60.

Not to mention the fact that I was then told by the service advisor that “We’ve done hundreds of engine swaps since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen anyone do anything about changing the engine number on the registration.” So this “high end, quality service and repair” body are wilfully failing to notify of engine numbers being changed... something that is of no cost to them at all... and sending car after car out so that the identity is compromised?

Amongst the other highlights I’ve enjoyed was finding sockets still attached to my motor when I’ve collected it after service or repair (I do understand this can happen but twice?)

All of this brings me back to the fact I have a vehicle here that I paid a considerable amount of money for, I bought it new so as to “avoid any problems” and have had all mechanical work done by Solitaires as they are the professionals!!

Now I have a car with 90,000km on the clock, it has need of brake pads etc changing, I have the parts but cannot do them as the service department have repeatedly thwarted me by doing these wheel nuts up to a ridiculous degree...

I can not remove the wheels... I am still waiting on the lock nut key replacement that was going to be “sent out immediately” over a month ago.

I have a drivers window that is chipped and frankly ready to break after service and repairs under warranty but neither the crash repairers or Solitaires will accept responsibility... at least the crash repairer has stayed in regular contact about this... a common courtesy one would have thought..

And the details for the tint on that window were written in the rear of the service book... how exactly do we match that tint now? — I bet even when it finally comes time to replace the window and tint it we will be looking at days without the car again.. then when I finally get it back, I still have to do the brakes as hopefully this time Solitaire will show some compassion and set the wheel nut torque somewhere that doesn’t bend or break tools, so they can be used and I have access to the wheels!

I am almost certain to miss my Easter weekend away... that will make about four or five holidays cancelled now because of this vehicle and your servicing etc Solitaires... well done I hope you enjoy your Easter holidays.. I would suggest I shall be sitting here, at home, on my holidays, stewing about the whole saga for that 4 days...

I won’t be able to use the seven seater vehicle I bought on ANZAC Day and before and after because I cannot change the wheel, I can’t get anything done or any reply from the service department and I’m fast running out of time. The fact I’m having to pay rego insurance etc on the defender which has travelled only the kms from when I collected it from Solitaires to my house since they last had it is atrocious being that as the vehicle isn’t fit for purpose or use, I’ve also had to rego and insure an old Magna to use... (a vehicle which well in excess of 200,00kms and built for road use is still infinitely more reliable than the defender..)

The continuing saga from day 1 has been documented on a thread entitled “The reason LandRover isnt building in this market “The reason that Land Rover isn’t building in today’s market” on the AULRO forum. Throughout it documents how I have tried to persist but also be patient with these matters..It is a long read that relates to just this vehicle... sadly very few have expressed surprise.. I have sadly run out of patience.. I am now at a level or open disgust with Solitaires..

So... how about it Land Rover and Solitaires? Will you be able to contact me now and sort this out?



So that was it... (told you it was long)
Surprisingly I received a call from the assistant service manager who advised me that the window, lock nut spanner, nut cover removal tool are all there apparently waiting, no one thought to ring me, the bloke I’ve been emailing has quit and left... first, I had to remove my wheels as I had a flat tyre... this couldn’t happen as the lock nut tool they weren’t going to replace? Split as soon as I tried to use it. 😡🤬

So they posted the replacement which seemed to take forever to arrive but got here and I collected it a few days before the long weekend. Shane called in on his way to Melrose and helped me do the rear rotors and bearings (with all the little tricks I never would’ve got!) and the front brakes too! ( thanks Shane, the help of you, Tombie and JC plus others has been superb) This means I can arrange to take it in to get the window replaced. How they intend to match the type and grade of tint intrigues me... it was done by professor tint in melb so long ago! And I wrote the tint type and codes in a page stuck in the back of the service book..that’d be safe for me and even if I sold it for the next owner....ha! Now they lost that book (how is that possible in a professional workshop?).. so it will be interesting to see how much they can stuff up in this next visit...

I am that disillusioned that I decided not to go to Melrose this year... this disappoints me greatly in that I won’t catch up with friends from across the country but I had no interest in the end because of this saga and frankly I didn’t want the annual Digger engine explosion saga again...

I wait with baited (swear word ridden) breath to see what happens!