LR3- broken already?

[syoung]

During a dealer intro event for dealer managers/principals, an LR3 blew out it's air suspension on a mild hill climb. Apparently it was having trouble climbing so they got on the skinny pedal- and WHAM! Dash lit up like a christmas tree with errors because of a blown air line.
You'd think they'd kinda learn from all the air suspension problems of the past...

 

[gil stevens]

actually thats not what happened.. it was the 6th truck thru the trail, the previous 5 having destroyed it. the driver was inexperienced and way too throttle happy but the breakage of the airline was in no way connected to the use of the throttle as you imply. The particular LR3 in question was used the day prior as a test vehicle to take down and rebuild the air supension. It was put back together by people who had never seen the truck before that and apparently it wasnt put back together correctly, hence the airline blowing off. granted.. had she had coil springs under there, it wouldnt have happened.. heres a couple of pics..

 

[syoung]

ah! makes sense... I had heard the driver was throttle happy and it seemed as if it was the rough handling that may have contributed to the air line letting go.

 

[MarkP]

Ah, low rider off road. Not good. If this happened to me on some trails I would be in serious trouble. Any limp home mode?

Which brings up the question - wouldn't removing the air suspension on a LR3 result in your basic IFS/IRS vehicle? Granted not something one would do while under warranty but down the road some owner will need to decide to fix it or scrap it.

 

[Disco_Stu]

Man, how did they get that thing out of there??


Also, in England there will be a version available with a coil spring setup instead of the air suspension. And if you order this so called bottom of the line version, it doesn't come with the terrain response equipment either. I suspect it will still come with ABS, TCS and HDC, but I don't think the lockers will be available with this package. But I would assume it wouldn't be hard to retrofit the lockers, and figure out how to engage them with a seperate switch or so. That might end up being a nice way to build it if you wanted a way around the air suspension, and some of the elctronics.

-Stuart

 

[Alyssa]

It was very close to the beginning of the trail. I believe that 1 or 2 of the driving instructors went back to the car to bring it back to the road & then back to be fixed.

 

[syoung]

I guess the low end system with coils would basically just mean they pull all the air powered stuff. I didn't realize they had lockers available- I assumed they would rely on ETC instead. ETC does work well until one of many sensors or a bad brake switch kills ETC, HDC and ABS. Then you are SOL PDQ.

 

[Alyssa]

Yep, it has a standard locking center diff and an optional locking rear diff. ETC only kicked on one time for me while I was off-road. It wasn't needed because of the lockers.

 

[ducati]

Steve's not implying judicious use of throttle caused the issue, that's just what was going on as the breakage occured. My centre manager was in the vehicle when it happened. He claims the driver attempted the hillclimb a few times, the final try using lots of throttle. This is when the dash lit up.

He saw the airline, said it bulged outward and blew, looking somewhat like the barrel of a gun that went KB... The airline didn't just pop off.

So Land Rover let people who had never worked on an LR3 take it apart and put it back together? Did you witness this "tech play session?" Call me cynical but that sounds like so much BS to cover up for a broken part.

The reason my BS-o-meter rings so hard on this is my centre manager was told this was the FIRST LR3 broken, ever. Perhaps the LR rep meant "first production LR3 broken while in inexperienced hands" but that's not what he said.

 

[gil stevens]

i was in the truck behind it and i had a pretty good view of a driver with no clue and a truck that had no traction. what really happened we will never know. the airline story is what i got from the guys who had to go drag the thing out of the woods in the canadian darkness. is it true.. maybe, maybe not. im not sure how someone inside the truck would have seen the line "bulge and explode" but anythings possible i guess. personally id take coils over the air setup any day of the week, i just dont see the point of it. the off road performance was impressive, but would i want to be more than a few miles from civilization with it? no.

"So Land Rover let people who had never worked on an LR3 take it apart and put it back together? Did you witness this "tech play session?" Call me cynical but that sounds like so much BS to cover up for a broken part."

of course they do.. how else do techs learn how to fix the things? now, taking that same truck and putting it on the trail the next day may not be the wisest decision is thats the case. is it BS? could be.. when RR first came out and we ran pre-production models in CA they had air suspension issues as well. The production trucks havent had any. who knows.. the long and short is that the truck broke after some serious thrashing. Should land rovers be able to handle a serious thrashing and not break? yes.. they should.

 

[AlanB]

Limp home mode on the bump stops is only for mall use, not trail rated which is where 95% of these things will reside anyway.

Flame me all you want for being anti-technology, but I wouldn't buy anything with air suspension and take it off-road, have seen too many EAS systems puke on trails. For off-road use, steel is real, air just blows. Keep this thing on the street, heck if the air springs blow, it makes on hell of a nice low rider

 

[ducati]

im not sure how someone inside the truck would have seen the line "bulge and explode" but anythings possible i guess.

He claims to have seen it at a later point--not when he was sitting inside the truck. Do I believe him? Well, he did offer a good explanation.

"So Land Rover let people who had never worked on an LR3 take it apart and put it back together? Did you witness this "tech play session?" Call me cynical but that sounds like so much BS to cover up for a broken part."

of course they do.. how else do techs learn how to fix the things? now, taking that same truck and putting it on the trail the next day may not be the wisest decision is thats the case. is it BS? could be..

Well, true. But not usually at launches--the techs are usually trained after the vehicles are on the road, so to speak. Perhaps they are trying to do things differently this time, goodness knows I heard lots of grumbling from my techs about Freelanders and (to a lesser extent) Range Rovers; they just didn't have the knowledge to work on the cars. It would be idiotic to allow techs to "take it apart" and then throw it on a trail, but who knows.

I think the LR3 will be a huge sales success for Land Rover. There's alot riding on it, and the mainstream media is already buzzing about how great it is. Awesome. Now I hope to God LR comes to their senses and brings out a vehicle we can all use. Next Defender, I hope, will rely more upon old tech. Maybe toss in some factory airlockers like Jeep.

 

[LRWheelman]

And those are the same "Rover Techs" who will be doing your warrenty repairs? I wouldn't want to spend my time and money, let alone sacrifice my vehicle, to give them the much needed training they so sorely need. I will stick w/my "primitive" 96 Discovery, which is much more complex than any 4x4 need be. Thank You, LRW.

 

[LRWheelman]

P.S. I do LOVE that clamshell hood, though! Thank You, LRW.

 

[Bruno]

personally id take coils over the air setup any day of the week, i just dont see the point of it.

Noise Vibration and Harshness, ride height control, leveling ...

Bruno.

 

[Rocky]

I'd much rather have a dealer learn how to maintain a vehicle thats owned by someone else rather than learn on mine. They're is no substitute for experience.....