LR Experience Factory Tour "Gold" trip report + ph

[Grizzly_Adams]

Hi guys,

I need your help.

As some of you may be aware my wife and I are returning to the holy land in 6 weeks time.

However at the moment I am in the UK until Wednesday visiting friends and family for probably the last time for a loooong time.

This weekend I had a hire car (about to take it back though) and ended up driving past Solihull. So on the way back I took the turnoff hoping to see the LR factory.. well it wasn't to be so, doesn't seem as if they're proud of the fact that there is a LR factory there (in my opinion though, they bloody well should be proud of it).

Anyways back onto the topic, I couldn't find the factory. I called my wife up and she has proven she is not very good at googling, couldn't find an address for the factory so I gave up and continued on my way. When I got back to my mates place I loaded up google and it took my all of 2 mins to find the address *sigh*

Trouble is we're a good 1 1/2 hours drive away from the factory and in another 45mins I won't have a car (am taking the hire car back). On top of that nobody I know here is a big LR fan :?

However I am in the UK until Wednesday, and was wondering if I should make a concerted effort to go and see Solihull as I will probably not get another chance.

Any thoughts / experiences / opinions people?

Anything else it may be worth seeing instead?

Cheerio 8)

[drivesafe]

Don,t worry about the car, give LR a phone call and tell them your interested in a tour of the factory and see what they have to say.

Cheers

[Captain_Rightfoot]

good idea DS.. you might have to book tours... or they might only run them certain days https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

You should do it if it's at all possible though https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

[Grizzly_Adams]

That's a good idea, I'll give them a call tomorrow.

Looks like it can still be done, according to HOME OF THE LEGEND (http://www.landrover.com/gb/en/Adventures/Experience/Locations.htm?route=_gb_en_Adventures_Experience_L and_Rover_Experience@__link__InfoBlockLink_2) stuff here (scroll down to bottom of page)

[Ace]

Just freaking do it, steal a bloody car if you have to. Make sure you go to the Land Rover experience centre. Matt

[Quiggers]

Don't know if I'm too late....

call PR... you'd like a tour on behalf of this site, (I'm sure we won't have any probs with that, moderators?)

being a journo, I'd just bowl up (having made a call or two) and have s mag (chat) with my fellow compatriots (probably at their local as all PR hacks are journos or ex journos), it's all good PR, isn't it??????????

go, go, go,

and standing by for the report.....(which you must do as you now have been seconded and I'll publish your story, pending your return from the dark castle)


cheers, GQ

[Grizzly_Adams]

ok fellas I've bitten the bullet and we're goin' in! 8)

Bloody long way from where I am at the moment though, so just gonna go stay at someone's place near Birmingham (a dormitory for female university law students 8O - gods give me strength! :twisted: )

Can't take any photo's in the factory itself, but I've chosen the "gold" tour which includes going for some driving.

Expensive though, almost glad I won't be doing it again in a hurry.... 8O

Report and (hopefully) photo's will be coming up shortly......

[crump]

Your in the UK, how can ANYWHERE be a long way away? https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ You need to get back to OZ quick. https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Originally posted by Grizzly_Adams
ok fellas I've bitten the bullet and we're goin' in! 8)

Bloody long way from where I am at the moment though, so just gonna go stay at someone's place near Birmingham (a dormitory for female university law students 8O - gods give me strength! :twisted: )

Can't take any photo's in the factory itself, but I've chosen the "gold" tour which includes going for some driving.

Expensive though, almost glad I won't be doing it again in a hurry.... 8O

Report and (hopefully) photo's will be coming up shortly......
Can you take photos in the girls dorms?? 8O 8O

[CraigE]

If your in the UK you just have to do it. My dream is to get to their Castle in Scotland on a LR package holiday - I can keep dreaming. LR must be fate for me, my descendency comes from Saint Aelphage and bugger me guess where his church and place of stoning was.

Solihull.

Freaky or what.

:twisted: :twisted:

[Farnarkle]

I thought Saints were celibate?

[VladTepes]

Originally posted by crump
Your in the UK, how can ANYWHERE be a long way away? https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ You need to get back to OZ quick. https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I'll drive that far just to meet people for the start of a day trip :!:

[CraigE]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>I thought Saints were celibate?
[/b][/quote]
Probablly why he got stoned.
Was Jesus celibate, I dont think so.

Saints do not have to be celibate, just have to perform two miracles from what I can remember. Now whoever can get LR to build a comfortable Defender while retaining its heritage would be cannonised and made a saint as that would be a real miracle.

[Grizzly_Adams]

ok fellas, I agree that 2 hours isn't that far to drive and yes I've probably been in Europe for waaaay too long 8O However in order to pay back the hospitality of my friend who took me up there, I paid for him to join me too. We did the "Gold" tour which included a 3 hour factory tour, lunch, 30 mins driving instruction, and a couple of hours driving the Solihull tracks.

Bloody expensive it was :evil: but a bloody good day :twisted:

I'll do a full trip report in the coming days, photo's included (yes I know this thread is useless without photo's https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ ). Unfortunately I could not take any photo's in the factory itself, only photo's when we were out on the tracks.

I'll post the trip report hopefully late tomorrow evening, as I can't get the photo's off my camera until I get home tonight anyway....

Suffice to say a good time was had by all, and our instructor for the day was Gwill Berry* (http://www.cameltrophy.es/cameltrophy_GwillBerryLRMarticle.htm) of Camel Trophy fame 8)

* be careful on that link, as whoever created that page has kindly included pointless background music :roll:

[Pedro_The_Swift]

could've at least told us what you drove :evil:






lucky buggar https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

[fernockulated]

:roll: for that you will have to read the report to find out https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

[Grizzly_Adams]

ok ok as a taster we drove a Discovery 3 on the test track (http://www.lrm.co.uk/archive/Land%20Rover%20Solihull/Legend.htm) and a Defender TD5 on the jungle track..

http://www.landrover.com/gb/en/Adventures/Experience/Land_Rover_Experience_FD4B5ADB-99BB-4B7D-9C1E-63E4634116BF_502x670.jpg

8)

[Grizzly_Adams]

Tour of the LR factory (LR experience)

Well the urge started when I was driving back from my in-laws at Manchester and happened to go past Solihull, so I thought what the heck I'd try and stop in to see the famous Solihull factory. Well would you believe I couldn't find it, neither could my wife on google when I phoned her (she was back in Switzerland still, as we couldn't get doggie sitters) - anyway took me about 2 mins to find it on google when I got back to the place I was staying at *sigh*

So then I posted on the BBS, as I was in conflicting emotions considering going to see the factory as it was a good 2 hour drive back north to see it. After a few posts I caved and made some calls :-) By now it was about 4pm in the afternoon (UK time) on Monday the 27th, and I was flying out on Wednesday the 1st of March so I didn't have a lot of time to play with. Anyways I called up LR Experience and got some costs (ouch), then had to find a way up there. I went and asked my friend and his younger brother if either of them were interested in joining me, I'd pay for them (neither of them are 4wd enthusiasts and neither have been 4wding before), and the younger brother accepted. So I called back and booked us in for the "Gold Tour" on the following day (Tuesday the 28th). The "Gold Tour" includes the 3 hour tour of the factory, lunch, 30 mins instructional driving, and then a couple of hours going around the Solihull tracks (including the infamous Jungle track) yourself :-)

Cool all done and dusted, except to get to Solihull for a 9am start we would have to get up in Caterham at something like 5:30am in the morning - maybe earlier because of traffic. Well that didn't go down well as these blokes aren't early risers and as I was on holiday that week I hadn't been rising early myself, so we started looking for hotels in or near Birmingham. Just as I was about to make some phone calls though, one of Tim's friends who lives in Birmingham came online (MS Messenger) and he chatted her. She was delighted to have "little Timmy" over, even with his friend! Woohoo, accomodation booked so we headed up to Birmingham to stay at Lucy's place.

Lucy turned out to be a 1st year Law student, staying in a 3 bedroom flat with 2 other young ladies also going to university. We arrived around 11pm'ish and stayed up talking until almost 1am anyway, then wandered off to bed. We got to sleep on mattresses in Lucy's room, and I swear that lass has got to hold the world record for falling asleep. No kidding it was only about 20 seconds after lights out before I realised that I wanted to charge my camera batteries, so I asked out loud "Lucy?" - but there was nothing, she was ASLEEP! Tim can confirm this as we had a small conversation, neither of us could believe this lass could fall asleep so fast, it was incredible.

The next morning I was awake around 7:30'ish but didn't want to get out of bed (alarm was set for 7:50) however I did hear Lucy get up and leave around 7:45am for some unknown (as yet) reason. Anyways after we both staggered up after the alarm went off and made ourselves beautiful, we went downstairs to find that Lucy had been to the local shops and picked up some goodies to make us a nice English breakfast! Well we were very happy to have food in our stomach, though if we knew she was going to do that we would have got up earlier as it left us running a little late - it was a 30 min trip to Solihull from where we were staying and it was already almost 8:30am when we left, and that 30 min didn't take into account the peak hour traffic.

The funny thing about Lucy's place was the toilet. Her room was the attic effectively, and the bathroom had a sloping ceiling - to use the toilet I had to get down on my knees! I felt like I was in a primary school trying to pee into a bowl 3 feet below me :-)

Anyways we did end up getting caught in traffic and didn't arrive until 9:15am, however I called ahead to let them know we were going to be late so all was ok. Once we got there though, we found that the only people doing the tour was us! It was put on just for us! Well that would explain the cost anyway.
Then we were introduced to our instructor for the day - no other than Gwil Berry of Camel Trophy fame (http://www.cameltrophy.es/cameltrophy_GwillBerryLRMarticle.htm) - careful though as this site has music.

First off we sat down and got a 20min speel on LR - basically Camel Trophy stuff. Then a quick talk on factory safety - no cameras, no mobile phones, no pacemakers, stay between the lines, etc. Then off we went.

We got driven around the factory sheds in a LR 147 (http://www.aulro.com/albums/LR_Experience-Gold_Tour-Feb_2006/LR_XP2.jpg), huuuge. First shed we visited was the Stamping shed. £90mil BMW punched into building this addition for stamping panels. It's a German company that makes the machine, and it's a 5-stage press - that's better than the ones BMW has (they have 6-stage presses). They press Mini panels there also, though the contract for that expires this year. They could run the entire thing on 1 person at the control station, but they have about 20 people there looking after various bits and bobs - believe it or not they actually have a quality control section! They also have 3 x 50tn cranes in there, and at one stage were kind enough to pick up one of their dyes and spin it around so we could see the caste in it. In the factory we had to have ear protectors, as the sound of the stamping will make you deaf very quickly.

It was about here I found Gwil was very defensive on LR's, so I stopped raising any nasty questions. I was there for a good time, not for a heated discussion :-

Then we got in the LR 147 (http://www.aulro.com/albums/LR_Experience-Gold_Tour-Feb_2006/LR_XP2.jpg) again and headed off to the Discovery 3 / RR Sport assembly line. This shed was financed by Ford, and boy it's impressive. Another basically fully automated structure, with robots *everywhere*. There were still people working there, and it appeared quite a few - however in the scheme of things there weren't actually that many and they were mainly assisting the machines. Actually it was quite funny as just as Gwil was going on about how automated this plant was and how many they could pump out a day, there was a fault and one of the production lines stopped :-O Whoops! Still the automation was very very impressive. As Gwil said too, the best thing for a car manufacturing plant is to build as many different types of cars out of 1 base-plate. This is the first time LR have done this, with the Disco 3 and RR Sport being built off the one base-plate (they just put an extra bit of flooring in to make it a Disco 3), however arguable the king in the trade at doing it is VW (Gwils words). The plant was very impressive. Both the Disco 3 and RR Sport panels were being produced and supplied to the conveyor belts, and the robots would "sense" which base they had and jig / weld on the appropriate body panels - very clever. Apparently they can pump out a vehicles at a rate of something like 354 a day per line. Impressive at any rate.

Next shed we visited was "Body and white" - well actually he pointed it out as we went past. This was the painting area, and basically there was nothing to see as it is all sealed. A frame goes in one end raw and comes out the other end painted. It is setup such that it can paint each car a different colour (all automated) however they usually do it in runs as it is more efficient that way.

As I was an enthusiast, he then took us to the Defender assembly line :-) Normally they'd take you straight to the RR assembly line, but as they were both in the same building anyway he kindly showed us to the back section where they were putting together the Defenders. Wowa. Completely different, very labour intensive, no automation except the conveyor belt, every part put together by hand. Here they use a "Just in time" methodology. They don't have the parts avaiable on the shelf, they just tell the other departments what they need and it's fabbed up and sent to them in the appropriate time. If they miss their timeslot (ie. if they don't deliver in time) then the assembly line sends the relevant department a REALLY nasty bill for each minute the assembly line was delayed. Ouch.

Advantage? Extraordinary flexibility. Every vehicle coming down the line was different - different type, different colour, different length, etc. No problems at all, because the human element can interpret all that easily. Not possible on an automated factory line. Disadvantage? Extremely high cost - people cost loooots of money. He made it clear that LR no longer wants to make "special" vehicles and be as flexible as they were in the past, as it's just not cost effective. So I guess when they refurb a plant for the new Defender it'll be a fully automated jobbie and LR will lose a great deal of it's flexibility that they were so proud of in the past.

They also don't test barely anything! They shove each vehicle (I think it was each) on a computer controlled VR test-bed, hook up the car to the VR system and ensure the sensors etc. respond correctly - that's it! They don't fire the engine up, test the brakes, etc. Apparently those days are long gone also, they basically leave that to the consumers to find out. Fun eh? Apparently they learnt that from the Japanese, as what value does it bring? They "trust" everything is working as it should - why shouldn't it if their Quality Control is up to scratch? Oh dear oh dear....

The RR production line was very similar with the exception that it was considerably quieter. They pride themselves on providing a good workplace for their employees, as a happy employee is a productive employee (usually with good quality too). If, during assembly, they find a problem with one of the vehicles they do NOT stop the assembly line. All they do is put a tag on the vehicle to say what the problem is and keep the line moving along, everyone else keeps putting their bits on. For example when we were walking past there was a RR coming off the line with a A4 page stuck in the front window that said "WARNING: DO NOT DRIVE, NO BRAKES". Once the vehicle is off the production line they will take it to another department of mechanics to pull it apart and repair it. Imagine that eh? Just seems wrong rolling a faulty vehicle off a production line...

... and that was it, all the factory visited. We jumped back in the LR 147 and headed back to the LR Experience centre where we had lunch fit for at least 7 people ;-) I went outside and took a few photo's of the LR's in the parking lot whilst Gwil went off to organise what vehicles we had for the afternoon. He ended up getting us a Disco 3 for going up and down the hilly part of the tracks and then a Defender for doing the infamous "jungle track". You can see both of those tracks quite clearly in the Camel Trophy videos, so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on them here. I've also provided some photo's that we took whilst doing the tracks, and they're fairly self explanatory by themselves :-)

Poor old Tim (the mate who took me up there) had never been 4wding before and it was quite an experience for him :-)

btw some information for you on the engines.

3ltr TDV6 Diesel engine used in Range Rover: BMW design
2.7ltr TDV6 Diesel engine used in RR Sport & Discovery 3: Ford / Peugeot design
TD5 Diesel: Land Rover design
V8 Petrol Engines: Jaguar design

Photos can be found here (http://www.aulro.com/modules.php'set_albumName=LR_Experience-Gold_Tour-Feb_2006&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php) :-)

[NOZ]

Wow thats huge, very envious.

Great read and photos

Cheers
Mark

[CraigE]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>believe it or not they actually have a quality control section![/b][/quote]

Are these the guy's that are always at lunch :?:
:twisted: :twisted:

[FenianEel]

Great reports and pics!!

No surprises in the factory though! Explains a bit https://www.aulro.com/afvb/