New Range Rover Questions

It is a fair saving over new I suppose.

Well the fuel consumption is not bad. I get around 26 to 32 mpg from my chipped engine. Your vehicle will still be under warranty for a while but I would try for another years warranty in the price. Also make sure that any modifications needed have been done.

One service every 15000 miles is all it usually needs. Make sure that it has had a service within the last 5000 miles and you should not need another for another 10,000. Services will be expensive at a main dealer but once it is out of warranty any competent garage can do regular maintenance. There is less to do on these than some superminis. Make sure synthetic oil meeting BMWLL01 is used even though LR do not insist on it.

Possible electrical gremlins and flat batteries unless the mods have been done. The same problems afflicted the BMW X5 so there is nothing serious to worry about. Some problems have been encountered with front prop shaft couplings due to misalignment causing diff pinion shaft failure but these should have been sorted under warranty.

Visit ATS or similar and buy new ones.

I think they are superb and my 20,000 mile example has had no problems. None. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Huw touching wood.

Nice to see you are one of the lucky ones with no problems, but when you do you won't be touching wood you will be touching cloth ! ! ! !

Well I listed the most common faults and they are pretty well known to be mostly in common with BMW X5's. AFAICS it is an extremely well built vehicle that performs superbly. It is just as good as my daily drive which is a Land Cruiser Amazon as you know. That is high praise which is not given lightly.

Huw

I'll stand next to Huw on this one. Damned fine vehicle. Well screwed together, and THOUGHT has gone into the design of a lot of it, i.e. the dash is not anywhere like the bitch the P38a was to take apart, there's access to a lot of the normal stuff you'd expect, and it's not all poxy plastic clips.....

I was rather shocked to hear the new LR3 has, for one service, to have the body removed from the chassis?!?! Much annoyance to the dealers who needed new modified ramps....not sure that much thought went into that, unless of course it was designed to maximise the wallet beating of the customer :(

You can't be serious? Are you? Nah......surely not? There must be more to that than meets the eye. For one thing it is a monoqoque. Perhaps a subframe has to be removed for some reason?

Huw

It's not really a monocoque in the usual sense. There is a 3 piece welded bodyshell, mounted on a ladder frame chassis. That's why it weighs as much as it does I suppose.

There can only be one sensible reason for a vehicle to have two chassis , and that is that another vehicle is going to be built on the same line, without a welded bodyshell....

Still, cannot imagine why you'd need to lift the body to do a service.

"Tim Hobbs" wrote

Is the chassis rigid enough for this? I shall have to craul under one of those new Discoverys to have a look at how they stick them together. Anyone know of a web cutaway drawing or similar that will save my wife wearing the washing machine out? She has enough dirty clothes to wash from the crawling under the other cars in adoration.

Neither can I. The mind boggles. In fact I cannot believe it to be true.

Huw

A Land Rover project engineer is quoted, in an article in European Automotive Design magazine - "We did this principally because we believe this is the best solution for this type of product, but also because it gives greater flexibility for platform development".

Huw - after the obvious deletions is your e-mail address good? I may be able to send something.

"Dougal" wrote >

Yes. Thanks. Please do.

Huw

Doesn't matter. RR Sport and Discovery have different chassis - still go down same line. Any future model could have a different, stronger chassis.

The line was called T5. Guess how many models were originally planned for it?

Huw

Haven't been near the place for a long while, but last news I heard was that it was now going to be 3 models at most.

I would now not be surprised if no further investment took place in Solihull, but I cannot back that up with any facts - it's just an opinon.

On or around Tue, 01 Nov 2005 16:50:53 +0000, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

There's nothing inherently wrong with a welded body shell, either, provided the bits on the outside that are easily damaged such as wings are bolt-on for easy replacement. This seems to be the way a lot of manufacturers do it, with monocoques, as well - the basic body is all one piece with bolt-on wings and suchlike. The "meccano" approach on the series LRs and 90/110 is not exactly ideal, really - it makes for flexibility, true, but in the end, the number built without the back body is vanishingly small. Retaining the ability to make a pickup or a hardtop/SW on the same basic back body would be good - but from the factory POV, you could still weld the top on. And let's face it, how many owners actually bother to remove a hardtop? I've never done one, it looks like too much work.

I have spoken to the person who informed me of this requirement. Sadly he could give me no further information, other than his nearest dealer was hopping mad about the expense of the new ramps.....I would assume it's for the equivalent of the 24,000 service. Are there not cars that require the engines to be removed for such services nowadays .... ISTR some are Fords?

As I understand it there was a problem in early production (i.e. prototype) that they never managed to fully overcome. That of what to bolt the magnesium sub frame to the shell with....obviously you have to coat the bolts or they will soon make a mess of the magnesium.....

If they hadn't fully sorted this issue, it's conceivable that the bolts would become a service requirement - and the subframe removal a necessity....

This isn;t gospel .. just pieced together from information I have gathered from good sources. It's also one of the reasons that even if I did like the LR3, I'd not buy one until the model was at least 3 years in production....

Nope. Maybe a model of Ferrari but that is a different kettle of fish.

Being the new Discovery of course.

I'd not buy one until the model was at least 3 years in production....

Hmmm. We need a service schedule for this model. IIRC the LR web site allows registered users to download service schedules and indeed the workshop manuals for these vehicles for a small fee. Who is interested enough to find the correct information on this?

Huw

Hmmm...my business partner has a Ferrari 360 Spider...I'll see what the service schedule on that is :-)

I'm sure the 355 had an engine out service somewhere on the schedule, somewhere in the region of £2-3K for that one. Don't know about the