6 months of D3 owership

[gasser]

I bought the car second hand from a LR dealer in Sydney with side steps, rear aircon, tints rubber mats and adaptive headlights. Best car I've ever owned and am totally happy with it, with one exception: - is changing a wheel the most frustration filled act in the world? The jack is crap, and trying to get the wheel off the lowering cable is not simple. I hope my wife never has to do this. The only other mystery is the wooly velcro on the front seat belt latches - why?

[peterall]

Gasser...you are spot on about the spare wheel arrangement...it was designed by the same muppet who designed the towbar.
As for the wooly velco...that's to stop the centre cubby from being scratched...very important you know.
Despite all this, I still love my D3.

[WhiteD3]

Gasser,

See the link below. I bought the jack after getting stuck off road with a locked wheel nut, breaking the wheel brace and watching the distortion in the jack.

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/d3-zone/52...ttle-jack.html

LR replaced the brace under warranty but I bought a 22mm socket and 450mm wrench to suit anyway. $50 from memory.

Re your Mrs' chances of changing a tyre: If she could get the spare tyre down from its hidyhole, jack the car up (oh, and the Gasweld jack is heavy), get the wheel off, I think she'd struggle getting the spare on, then getting the broken one back up under the car or over the tail gate.

[stevo68]

Awww don't mention the jack.....absaaaaaallooooouutttteelllllllyyyyyy ****ing useless. I'd get another jack....and I will tell you why. Long story short....had a flat......used jack......luckily had spare under rear bar.....jack **** itself.....door handle smacked me on the top of my head and car plummeted to the ground. Nothing like seeing your D3 on the ground, brake discs a centimetre into the gravel. Would have been worse if spare wasn't there.

To top it off.....it did something to the fuel guage reading....so when I thought I had quarter of a tank...I had nothing....car ran out....on a blind corner....at night......100km zone. Nothing like seeing lights zooming up behind, braking, skidding etc. Luckily a mate was with me and snatched me and my family out of harms way.

I won't even start on stripping the release wire 3 times . Other than that...loved my D3,

Regards

Stevo

[gps-au]

Wife changing wheel ?
Buckley's chance...
That's why I have NRMA membership !

[Neil P]

It's got to be one of the worst wheel-change-experience vehicles
around.

[WhiteD3]

Reminded me of my "experience". Quoting myself in Feb 2008 after a GCLRO trip to Ormeau.........

Stikman's now joined us and I find myself in the lead banging up against big rocks. Clear that and find I've managed to put a rock through the wall of my rear passenger tyre. Said tyre had suffered a puncture late last year reccing a GCLRO trip with Inc and was repaired and put back on by a well-knowing tyre repair company.

We spent an entertaining hour or more possibly, with ten blokes breaking 1 D3 wheel brace (LR tell me this morning they'll replace it under warranty), a tension wrench and later a socket (PM me Stikman with the $$). Using 3 jacks (Yes, I'm out this week to replace the scissor jack) and everyone secretly wishing I could actually afford this D3 and hence was willing to drive outa there on the alloy rim (yes, no one said anything but you were thinking it), we managed to strip the "for show" casing off the nut so it was slipping around the actual wheel nut. Lots of groaning at this stage, I can tell ya!

To the rescue came a Patrol driver with a broken leg (no joke) with an old 4 spoke wheel brace and hammer. Somehow the wheel nut casing came away in the brace, which allowed us to apply a smaller socket on the brace and with the assistance of a hammer and D2 bottle jack (to keep the brace square to the wheel), the nut finally came off.

Had fun that day I can tell ya

[rmp]

Instead of a socket, get a multi-fit wheelbrace. I have one which can do four nut sizes with two heads, and it extends out a long way for easy leverage.

[boop]

yes Agree have had same problem, broken brace, jack and cant get spare out.

We called LR assist - NRMA he has trouble too.

Wife won't drive car because of it.

She wants to get the Landcruiser because of it's spare wheel.

[Neil P]

There is no need to crunch the hell out of wheel nuts.
Molygrease and reasonable torque is quite sufficient.
Tightening until they squeal is WW2 army crap.
I've not had a wheel attachment problem in 1.5 million km
by using this principle.