JD Power - LR Still at the bottom of the pile for reliability

[ozscott]

Hi all.

I see on the Drive.com.au web site (http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor-news/toyota-tumbles-in-quality-ranking-20100618-yluf.html) that the JD Power results are out again with Porshe at the top and, they say, land rover "still at the bottom". I would have thought that with all the money Tata had to throw at the product and with the new shapes having been around in the line up for several years things might have gotten better. Its a shame.

I wonder what the problems are. I know with my D1 and D2 the problems have all been niggly not car stopping problems. For example dodgy window regulator, or air con drains blocked up, or a vacuum whistle, or more recently a slow leak from the brake master cylinder requiring a re-sleeve kit (ie at 160,000 for the D2), front prop shaft joints needing servicing (replaced with greasable unis) but never a drive line issue (apart from the prop shaft - and eventually the front CV's if I had not serviced them so well...) - so engines all good (just under 300,000 for the D1 V8 and 165,000 for the D2 V8); transmissions all good, diffs all good etc.

When considering down the track to 1. Stick a 4.6 into my D2 and keep it (cause I love it); 2. Buy a D3; or 3. Buy a new Nissan Patrol when it comes out later this year reliability is part of the equation. I love LR's but it really is a shame that LR cant build cars that hang together better than ...someone...! I mean I accept that an LR in my garage is never going to be more reliable than the Honda Accord Euro that i have sitting down there with it but halfway up the ladder would be nice.

Did anyone look or care about reliability scores before buying a new D4? Did you look and not care? Did you not want to know cause you liked the look of the D4 so much? Did you not care cause you are a roverphile through and through...Interested to know.

Cheers

[CSBrisie]

Yikes, yes, that is a suprise and LR wont like it one bit. I cant say it reflects my experience at all (D3) but would be interesting to hear what D4 owners (90 days into ownership) all say.

[Disco4SE]

Yikes, yes, that is a suprise and LR wont like it one bit. I cant say it reflects my experience at all (D3) but would be interesting to hear what D4 owners (90 days into ownership) all say.
Had my D4 for 6 months now and covered 22K. Apart from a couple of minor faults at the very beginning it has been fantastic to own and drive. The Q093 patch fixed the tiny niggles. I beleive that the patch is already fitted to the new D4's now, so there shouldn't be any problems.
BTW: There are 1100 changes from the D3 to the D4.
Cheers, Craig

[ozscott]

I cannot imagine that the problems are major because of my experience with LR to date over the years. But there is no point saying oh well, LR are minor problems and look at Toyota their problems are major...its really not acceptable to be last for SO many years running! I just cant understand it because the design and underpinnings are so excellent - but it seems to be the execution of the product that lets it down...or is it the outsourcing of the bits - eg brake boosters, air compressors etc. Should these even be outsourced if they cannot reign them in? But to the point of the thread which is, I suppose, do people who go and buy a D4 look at the reliability issues hard?


Cheers

[jonesy63]

I think those of us here have "rose coloured LR glasses" on. Taking them off, just for a moment... how about these for starters:


Recalls for poor design of high pressure diesel pump in Euro 4 TDV6 - causing fuel leaks onto turbo. (I've had this 3 times!). Incompetent dealer then fit some parts incorrectly.
Recalls for poorly designed brake system in all TDV6 motors. I've had this fixed - and luckily never had total brake failure.
Windscreen wipers that sound like a wailing banshee when used.
Premature suspension failures - bushes, tie rod ends, etc all fail too soon, in my opinion. Sure, it's a heavy beast - but really!
Niggling failures of brake lights, rotary coupling/clock spring in steering wheel, steering wheel buttons for cruise control, etc.
Parts supplied from Melbourne - so if something is wrong, your car is in overnight at least. Then if out of stock, a few weeks for it to arrive from the motherland. Mine has been off the road (at dealers, not off road!) for several months over the 3.5 years I've had it.

Don't get me wrong - I do love it. But reliable? I totally agree with the results of that survey.

[mowog]

You might want to look at what really separates first from last with JD Power surveys.

While they are a guide they are far from conclusive.

[jonesy63]

Oh - I also forgot to add "EPB screamers" to the list of issues.

[Tote]

My D3 was off the road for an extended time about 12 months into ownership for a faulty loom (was pierced when it was installed) but apart from a 10 day wait for the loom the other 3 months was made up wait time for the dealer to get someone to look at the problem. they would get a set of fault codes from the vehicle, diagnose, get a reply from tech support then wait another week before they got back to the vehicle.
What could have been a 3 week period off the road became 3 months due to bad staffing and workshop practices.

Regards,
Tote

[RoverLander]

I purchased my D4 in May and the reliability issue was and still is the biggest concern with my purchase. I love driving the car and I have not had one problem in the 5K the car has done so far.

I had reason to need a new windscreen last week (no i really dont want to discuss why !@##) and the news from LR was that they wouldn't have one for 2 weeks.... and that is in metropolitan Sydney! I doubt that would have happened with the LC100 I previously owned.

I'm doing a 3 week trip outback later this year... after that I'll decide if I need to keep worrying about reliability...I hope I wont have to put a cheap used D4 on the market :)

[ADMIRAL]

I had reason to need a new windscreen last week (no i really dont want to discuss why !@##) and the news from LR was that they wouldn't have one for 2 weeks.... and that is in metropolitan Sydney! I doubt that would have happened with the LC100 I previously owned.
Don't bet on it ! Virtually every manufacturer has issues with spareparts of their models at some or the other.How common do you want. Try buying a new Commodore VT-VZ front K Frame.....and how many millions of that model were sold in Oz !

[ozscott]

Admiral, I agree to an extent. In the past I have experienced delays with many brands including BMW but a K frame is only taken out with heavy front end impacts, unlike windscreens. A delay of 2 weeks for a windscreen is like a delay for 2 weeks for a headlight and is just not on.

Cheers

[mowog]

I had reason to need a new windscreen last week (no i really dont want to discuss why !@##) and the news from LR was that they wouldn't have one for 2 weeks.... and that is in metropolitan Sydney! I doubt that would have happened with the LC100 I previously owned.



I had to do a screen here in Brisbane a few weeks ago. No delay at all on the OEM class.

[jonesfam]

In early June we had the drivers window on our work L/Cruiser ute was vandalised & shattered.
6 weeks to get a replacement to Doomadgee.
Then they sent a window that was for a car without a quarter glass so it didn't fit & had to go back. Still waiting for the new window.
The irony of all this? The local mechanic pulled a window out of a '93 troopie & put that in, fit's perfectly but because of lease arrangements he can't get paid for doing that & still has to install the new window, should it ever arrive, if he wants to get paid.
So much for the often mentioned reason for buying a Toyota over a Land Rover, that parts & service are far better for a L/C in remote areas.
Load of cr^p!
That same night a staff members Jeep Cherokee had all bar 1 of it's windows smashed. It is still in Mt Isa waiting on a rear window to arrive from the USofA 7 weeks latter.
Bloody glad I left the D3 at home that night.
Jonesfam

[Dingmark Jim]

It seems that "inventory" is a 4 letter word these days, and that applies to more than just vehicles. Probably as a result of the so-called global financial crisis, no one keeps inventory if they can possibly avoid it. Same thing happens for spare parts for natural gas plants as for D4's as for Corolla's (daughter had 4 week wait for a radiator bracket). Therefore I conclude that duration of a repair is just a problem for everything these days.

I'd be interested to know exactly what JD Powers defines as "maintenance". For example my radio stopped working on the D4 and it was fixed by a software update - took 4 hours from when it occured until the dealer returned it to me by the way. Is a radio not working given the same weight by JD Powers as, say, a crankshaft failure? Having had a D3 and now a D4 it strikes me that there are a lot of "niggly" things that go wrong but only rarely is it something really serious (in my case the EPB dragged and caused a bit of a fire).

I understand that most so-called "maintenance" on new vehicles involves checking and updating electronics more than it involves premature failure of something mechanical. If this in indeed true, than just getting one of the black boxes which can interrogate, reset faults, and change values in the computer would probably greatly reduce the risk of being stranded. If I lived in a remote location (okay, never mind Perth being the most remote capital city;)) then getting some working knowledge of the electronics and having a few tools would significantly reduce the risk of failure in the middle of nowhere. At least these days we are no longer having to forever clean and adjust contacts in the distributor cap!

[Celtoid]

I knew people that had D1s and D2s.....and I was super impressed with their off-road prowess and all round appeal. It was probably 50/50 on the reliability stakes for these vehicles with some friends having no issues and others needing some really big fixes......and often.

This and the general Discovery reputation, prevented me from buying one.....I didn't even know that Defenders were having issues, as I didn't know anybody that owned one and assumed from the military ones I'd been around that they were pretty good......but were broken often due to usage rather than inherent reliability problems.

I tried to research the reliabilty of the D3 as I'd heard some good things. It was an almost impossible task. There are so many emotive reactions to LRs, that I couldn't wade through the fact and fiction. As has been noted, even official reviews and surveys are extremely subjective.

I finally drew the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that the D3 was significantly better and that all makes can have issue. After reading articles on this site....when the D4 had just started hitting the street, I still couldn't make my mind up. What actually swayed me was the fact that so many people on this site own or have owned so many LRs. I figured "surely there can't be that many people that are out of their freakin minds"....LOL :D

So...rightly or wrongly...I went ahead and shelled out 90K for a D4. It's almost ten months old now and has had a few niggly issues, mainly light fittings, that I recon were were broken on assembly....and one intermittent suspension failure (which did really **** me off).

Way, way back, I got the light fittings and a compressor replaced.....since then, all good......and I hope it stays that way.

I love my car.....:D

[bbyer]

So far I have been lucky regarding parts availability. Fortunately, I have not needed too much other than normal maintenance stuff.

A couple of months back, the air compressor quit and perhaps by luck, the dealer had one in stock so I was in and out in a morning. The only real inconvenience was to my wallet.

I asked the dealer why they seemed to have parts and he said that they kept a pretty good stock of stuff on their own shelves as they knew pretty much what would fail. I think it also had something to do with getting parts out of Eastern Canada, (the main LR warehouse), is not that easy, so they kept a more than normal amount of stuff around in their own inventory - what a concept! The reason I mentioned BMW, is that the service advisor used to work at a local BMW dealer. He finds working at Land Rover much more pleasant as he does not have to make as many excuses up re "waiting for parts".

About the only "parts" I am still waiting for are W3W indicator bulbs. The dealer has a stock of bags that say W3W, but the bulbs within are W5W bulbs. It appears that the Land Rover "bagging" department got their bins mixed up and packaged W5W bulbs as W3W bulbs. This may be a world wide problem I think as the bulbs seem to be sourced from Yugoslavia.

Mixing these bulbs up matters, at least here in North America, as if you insert W5M bulbs in the amber side marker locations of your headlight assemblies, the additional heat of the W5W bulbs melts the bulbs into the plastic and the bulbs etc cannot be removed. The bulbs are there forever. Guess how I discovered this?