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

Originally Posted by RoverLander

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.

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

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!

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

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.....