Having real problems with the crappy electronic park brake on my Disco 3, works fine until you take it off road and it gets water/mud in the shoes and then all hell breaks loose. It screams like a banshee when applied then will not disengage until you do a full ignition off and power down (2 mins min) which is not great in the middle of a busy city intersection!!
Land Rover dealer has sorted under warranty in the past but now have received a memo from LR saying it is no longer covered due to high numbers of claims across the country.
Does that not tell LR that they have a serious design flaw and that it should be recalled? Seems unfair to dump the problem on the owner.
Has it had the service fix applied to it? Non-Stick Nick on Discovery owners is the font of knowledge on that one
Si
There is no service fix that I know of, spoken to a few 'experts' on DISCO3.CO.UK, it can be reset etc but can jump out of alignment if it gets full of mud/water. Just a basic design flaw IMO. LR Customer Services don't want to know.
They simply cannot drop a warranty commitment just because of the number of claims. You have a "fitness for purpose" claim regardless of age or number of claims. A warranty is a voluntary offering by a supplier and does not overrule your legal rights as defined by sale of goods act. (I think). Is there a lawyer in the house?
Not a lawyer but I can confirm this is correct - Sale of Goods Act
1979 (as amended 2002) requires goods to be of satisfactory quality. This means goods should be fit for the purpose, durable and free from minor defects amongst other things.
In England the Sale of Goods Act covers you till 6 years after purchase, in Scotland it is 5 years.
As we are talking about Andy purchasing a new, premium vehicle from a dealer here, I believe a reasonable person would expect it to have a working handbrake for at least the first 6 years of its life with only routine maintenance.
The most suitable remedy for this would be a repair free of charge. Andy's contract/rights are against the dealership he bought it from (unless its on HP in which case its different legislation) and it is them he should be talking to, not Land Rover. The only thing that may present a minor problem here would be the fact that it would have to be shown that the handbrake hadn't been abused in any way, if the car is older than 6 months then the burden of proof is on Andy to show that the handbake is not of satisfactory quality so that may require a
3rd party to examine it and produce a short report if the dealer proves awkward. If the LR is on some form of finance the finance company may be jointly liable under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, you would need to see what form of finance it was but the possibility may exist to take the claim out against them instead of the dealership.
Should the dealership fail to repair FOC then Andy has a case for the small claims court to recover the costs of repair. No lawyers needed
- speak with Consumer Direct on 08454 040506 for further assistance :-)
Best thing to do is forget about LR customer services and focus on the dealership, why are they trying to get more money out of you when they sold a product which may not have been fit for purpose? No incentive for them to get LR to fix faults if these faults are making them money.
To flesh this out, it is a used car and just over 3 years old so out of the main warranty but covered by an extended one with less coverage. I bought it from a dealer half way across the country so can't run back in to them easily. The local dealer checked with the extended warranty provider and it isn't covered.
I am pushing hard for the supplying dealer to pay but have real concerns about the longevity of any 'fix' as it seems to be an issue for cars that get off-roaded a lot.
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