2002 /03 Land Rover

I am about to invest 50k of my hard earnt cash on an ex demonstrator with 4 k on the clock, any problems i should look out for. Any one had any bad experiance and would`nt touch one with a barg pole.

Reply to
karen davies
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I'll sell you a brand new Land Rover, delivery mileage for 30K UKP with

3 years manufacturers warranty.... hell, for that price I'll deliver it to your door personally !

Obviously it may not be the same as the one you're buying but then how would I know what you are looking at or even what currency you are talking about... (that's a hint BTW)

cheers

Dave W.

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Reply to
Dave White

With a demonstrator and only 4k on the clock you shouldn't have any problems at all . If there were any problems with the vehicle they would have been sorted out during the demo period.

I purchased a demo model Defender and I insisted on there being at least

4000km on the clock before I took delivery of it, after a bad experience I had with a previous Defender that was a real lemon. This current model a TD5 has been a real gem, does a lot hard work towing a 3.5 tonne trailer with camels and it has never missed a beat. Go for a demo model every time, you save yourself a few 1000 dollars and the dealership has done all the running in and checking out.

Gord> I am about to invest 50k of my hard earnt cash on an ex demonstrator

Reply to
Gordon

Not quite true.

Well.

Not true at all.

A few years ago I bought my dealerships first S2 Discovery demo. It was a 6 month old Champagne Gold TD5 and had 6000 on the clock. I figured I'd be safe with an ex-demo, after all - it would have been maintained by the dealer, wouldn't it?

Well, if it had been then I don't want to know what the heck they do to people they don't like.

This car started pissing oil when I got it home (end seal on the transfer box gone) The fix for this was to replace the transfer box which entailed doing a "line pinch" as they were new enough at the time that there were no spares. So, 2 weeks later I get the transfer box replaced. Old one sent off to Lode Lane for inspection.

The backlight on the clock died a week later. The dealer wanted to charge me £65 for a new clock module until they were beaten soundly over the head with a copy of the warranty document. They "couldn't get the part". Couldn't get it for four bloody months. I eventually took it to another dealer who said "That's just a festoon bulb - give us a couple of minutes".

Then the ABS started rattling any time you went over a bump. Not actually coming on, but rattling. This is on an 8 month old car with, at the time,

10k miles on it. Then it took to faulting. I had the damn thing at the dealer every other week to have the ABS reset. No fault recorded on the diagnostics. I eventually discovered that pulling the fuse on the ABS and putting it back in a minute later would reset the fault light.

Then the recall for faulty clutches came out. Turns out that the clutch in my car had already started manifesting the fault that the recall was for (fractured pressure plate).

All this time there was a whistle coming from the passenger side rear door. I had a look and there was a gap in the door seal - it honestly looked like it had never been in place. Anyway, I get the dealer to replace it and the damn replacement has the same problem - the seal strips are apparently too short for this door.

Then the external handle on the back door rusts solid. This is on a 10 month old car. Replaced under warranty with a note to "keep it oiled".

Now I start getting a blart sound from under the bonnet and the car starts smoking and not pulling properly. There is obvious oil blow from the turbo assembly. Back to the dealer. They replace the entire turbo assembly under warranty, but this doesn't fix the power or the noise problem. Another dealer take one listen to it and go "That's your turbo hose. It's got a split. Give me a second and I'll pull one of the showroom model" Five minutes later it's fixed. The car is a year old at this point with 26k on the clock.

The car went wrong occasionally after that, quite spectacularly in some instances, but suffice it to say that getting a reasonably recent ex-demo landrover from a main dealer is *no* guarantee of quality. Especially if the main dealer is in the county town of Buckinghamshire. They're not the same management any more, and I don't know if they've improved or not since then, but I don't trust them as far as I can throw a 101 ambi.

What scares me is that their service level has stayed constant, but their hourly rate is now £70 per hour. I have to wonder what they do to earn this money. It certainly isn't fixing Landrovers.

P.

Reply to
Paul S. Brown

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