Dealer can't find problem!!!
- Thread starter dlittle
- Start date
For a while, every tech at our dealership drove Land Rovers. Most aren't spending their days web wheeling.
While I did not mean to disparage the few fine techs that may work at dealerships I stand by my statement that generally speaking someone with a 10 to 15 year old Disco has better places to take their truck.
The Dealership is great if you have a new truck under factory or extended warrantee.
I have learned this by experience as I've been told twice by a dealership that I need a new engine for over $10k.
They were wrong both times and lucky for me I had options. An independent LR specialist (and former tech at a dealer) provided the solution at 1/5 the cost.
So I'll say it again, generally speaking, non enthusiast non DIY Disco owners should steer clear of dealers and head toward indy LR specialist shops... Unless of course you are a walking talking stack of $100 bills with platinum Visa cards falling out of your pockets.
In that case go on ahead and get yourself that $200 oil change with 5w20 and a car wash.
The Dealership is great if you have a new truck under factory or extended warrantee.
I have learned this by experience as I've been told twice by a dealership that I need a new engine for over $10k.
They were wrong both times and lucky for me I had options. An independent LR specialist (and former tech at a dealer) provided the solution at 1/5 the cost.
So I'll say it again, generally speaking, non enthusiast non DIY Disco owners should steer clear of dealers and head toward indy LR specialist shops... Unless of course you are a walking talking stack of $100 bills with platinum Visa cards falling out of your pockets.
In that case go on ahead and get yourself that $200 oil change with 5w20 and a car wash.
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There sure is a lot of bashing of dealer techs here. It might be fairer to say this: The Discovery has been out of production 10 years. Dealer turnover is such that half the Land Rover dealers were not selling Rovers 10 years ago (under same ownership/management), and of those who were, few of today's technicians worked there then.
You have technicians who were trained on the newer Tata/Ford vehicles looking at a totally different piece, from a technology standpoint. If they drive Rovers, chances are the Rovers are newer designs.
What you need is a shop that has people who are skilled in older Rovers, and has the proper tools to fix them. There is a huge difference between a $10,000 factory test system and a $150 code reader. The factory level tool gives far more diagnostic info. That said, this is likely not a problem a tester will solve - it may need practical knowledge of the vehicle and the dealer you are talking to may not have staff with those skills. If so, you should have the truck elsewhere.
That's no cause to tear the techs up, though. They do their job, and in a dealer, the job is new cars.
You have technicians who were trained on the newer Tata/Ford vehicles looking at a totally different piece, from a technology standpoint. If they drive Rovers, chances are the Rovers are newer designs.
What you need is a shop that has people who are skilled in older Rovers, and has the proper tools to fix them. There is a huge difference between a $10,000 factory test system and a $150 code reader. The factory level tool gives far more diagnostic info. That said, this is likely not a problem a tester will solve - it may need practical knowledge of the vehicle and the dealer you are talking to may not have staff with those skills. If so, you should have the truck elsewhere.
That's no cause to tear the techs up, though. They do their job, and in a dealer, the job is new cars.
Look closer John, were not bashing the Techs here, we are truly dissappointed with dealerships.
Even with vehicles 10 yrs old they should still support the product, not all but most could care less .
You know that as well, look at your business, why are you so busy?
Thats why this board is so valuable , Oh, by the way , Welcome back ,it's been awhile.
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Blanket statements are never 100% accurate. (except this one). ;-)
I've known dealers that had skilled technicians with many years of experience, good labor rates and didn't mark their parts up over MSRP. And for some dealers the opposite is true.
Honestly nothing on a D2 is rocket science, if you have access to the manuals, you should be able to go to a skilled independent or the dealer and expect the problem to be resolved.
I've known dealers that had skilled technicians with many years of experience, good labor rates and didn't mark their parts up over MSRP. And for some dealers the opposite is true.
Honestly nothing on a D2 is rocket science, if you have access to the manuals, you should be able to go to a skilled independent or the dealer and expect the problem to be resolved.
okay let me rephrase that sentence to properly convey my point.
it takes a special kind of 20 year old kid, who's never worked on anything other than the lab cars at wyotech (which yes they teach basic theory) , to properly diasgnose a basic american V8. A 'basic american V8' it may be BUT have you ever personally seen a small block american V8 have the funky shit going on that our rover V8's have?
or better yet, how many technicians do you personally know that have never worked on something earlier than 2006 who can propelry diagnose and repair a unique issue on a 'basic american' rover V8?
ask any technician you know thuis question "what happens, on an OBD2 car, if the long term fuel trim exceeds -10 - +10%?" because on rover engine management up to ULEV '03's it doesn't flag a CEL...long term on these trucks make it run fat which causes other issues that lead to improperly diagnosis.
ask one of your technician friends "what happens on an OBD2 car if the catalytic converters are gutted?" should throw a catalyst effeciency code right? then why have i run (codeless, yes the CEL light bulb works and i pass emmision testing every time) for almost 4 years without cats and not manipulating the monitoring oxygen sensors. is it dumb luck or is it the engine managemnt in my truck doesn't care?
these are simple engines yes, but the engine management is not the most state of the art.
we can argue for days, but unless you fix vehicles for a living and understand the industry you really dont understand. AND if you do work in the industry I can understand your statemnet....yes it is basic and 'should' be easy to diagnose.
and yes it does take a special person to wrench nothing but rovers all day. even on my worst day i thank god i dont work on rovers exclusively for a paycheck.
Singingcamel, I guess you are right - most criticisms were directed at the dealer. But what dealer is really good on 10-20 years old cars? They are all in the same boat . . . high turnover, no one who knows the vintage vehicles.
I have a larger concern when it comes to Land Rover . . . the new vehicles are really passenger vehicles, not off roaders. They seem to have left that whole segment behind. And I don't know if Tata cares. I don't see much to connect the Defender or Classic to the Evoque and other new LR products.
I wonder what that means for our community. What do you think?
I have a larger concern when it comes to Land Rover . . . the new vehicles are really passenger vehicles, not off roaders. They seem to have left that whole segment behind. And I don't know if Tata cares. I don't see much to connect the Defender or Classic to the Evoque and other new LR products.
I wonder what that means for our community. What do you think?
I saw some lr3 and lr4 at scarr last year. I'll take my lr3 off-road without second thoughts. It's probably safer and in some ways more capable than my ex-mod 90. I also got it cheap enough that a few more scratches won't bother me. I think I only paid $500 more for the lr3 than for the d2.
Dont take it to the independent rover shop here in ohio the end of this month will b 2 months and still no word on the problem?
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I gave up on all the mechanics in the area. I didnt trust any of them or their work. But it all worked out for the best. Im saving a shit ton of money by doing everything myself now.
Let me just say, no technician, Land Rover or other make, likes doing warranty work. The technician almost always gets screwed when it comes to manufacturers warranty. Every tech at our dealership would rather be doing head gaskets on a Disco rather than diagnosing intermittent medium speed CAN bus faults on an LR4.
I have about 4 days in this motor install, and I'll be getting paid for about 18 hours (warranty time). That's not including the time it took to do the head gaskets first, which didn't fix it. To make matters worse, I took it apart in December, and just got it running today.
I have about 4 days in this motor install, and I'll be getting paid for about 18 hours (warranty time). That's not including the time it took to do the head gaskets first, which didn't fix it. To make matters worse, I took it apart in December, and just got it running today.
On a side note, imagine a diy'er swapping a 5 liter?
I'm sorry you had to share this unfortunate pleasure. Having actually done it, I actually don't mind pulling the body. It took me about 3 hours to have the body off of the chassis which is surprisingly in line with the warranty time. I've heard that you don't have to pull the body, but I liked being able to fully assemble the motor with the body off, especially since this is a supercharged.
That was a buddy of mine, he had to finish the warranty job because the tech who started the job quit! I do look forward to doing this job on an out of warranty truck. I'd say the worst warranty pay time is VW/Audi. Our other mechanic has some good stories from his VW dealer career.
Agree with SGaynor above:
Originally Posted by robisonservice
It sounds like the ignition wires may be incorrectly routed from the coil packs to the plugs. That is the first place I would look. The crank sensor (suggested by another poster) will not generally cause a misfire. It causes total failure to run.
If you are going to listen to anyone on this board, listen to this guy ^^^^
Originally Posted by robisonservice
It sounds like the ignition wires may be incorrectly routed from the coil packs to the plugs. That is the first place I would look. The crank sensor (suggested by another poster) will not generally cause a misfire. It causes total failure to run.
If you are going to listen to anyone on this board, listen to this guy ^^^^
I agree about the off road capability of the newer Rovers. It's the image that has changed. The capability of my supercharged full size Rover is amazing, compared to the original Rover from 87. But hardly anyone takes the new trucks off road. I'm glad some of you see LR3 and the like at events . . . we do not see a lot of off road interest from those folks here, even though we work on a lot of them.
Those photos of the body off Sport do show that dealer techs take some challenging work. But the fact that they get stiffed on time for warranty ultimately hurts the industry. It's a systemic problem though, every carmaker does it.
Those photos of the body off Sport do show that dealer techs take some challenging work. But the fact that they get stiffed on time for warranty ultimately hurts the industry. It's a systemic problem though, every carmaker does it.
Which jobs require removing the body on an LR3? And what's required to do it? It looks like the bumpers had to come off the sport.
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