1 ashapiro@aztec.co. Thu Aug 22 05:05 63/2752 Landy owners in revolt 2 kielen@worldaccess Sat Aug 24 12:07 37/1211 RE tow rings D110 3 smitha@candw.lc Sat Aug 24 16:16 62/2902 Re: Landy owners in revol 4 grunberg@dbn-pop.i Mon Aug 26 00:31 42/1595 LR SA / reliability ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 14:05:42+020 From: Arnold Shapiro Subject: Landy owners in revolt I would like to draw your attention to an article published in today's 'Drive Times' in the Cape Times (I think the same supplement appears in the The Star in Jo'burg). The headline reads as follows: ROVER OWNERS IN REVOLT. LANDIES IN DEEP MIRE AS BEEM BOSSES GO BALLISTIC The content of the article is concerned with 'horrendous' quality problems in Land-Rover vehicles. BMW has labelled the problems 'a disgrace'. A recent survey by consultants JD Power survey placed Land-Rover worst out of 37 manufacturers regarding quality. Land-Rover dealers abroad are said to be in agreement with the survey. Among the problems cited are faulty gearboxes (of which we heard much in this mailing list), lopsided suspension, windscreens which fall out repeatedly, oil leaks which can't be fixed, air-conditioning, rear suspension etc.etc.etc. Apparently the deterioration in quality has to do with the increase production following on the surge in demand over the last few years. As a new Landy owner (Defender 90 Tdi, 1996) I am obviously concerned about these claims. My vehicle has yet to have its first free service and needs a new right front door (bent and does not close flush with the body), rear door is skew and can't be locked without repeatedly slamming it, plus a couple of other little things. I am most concerned about hidden problems that may arise on a long, hard trip. Perhaps members of this group can comment on the above and point out particular areas which should be carefully checked for defects and obvious signs of trouble. I am not a member of the international landy mailing list because I don't have time to read all the stuff but I have no objection if you repost this message to another list for comment. Regards, Arnie ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 21:19:12 -1000 From: kielen@worldaccess.nl (Kielen) Subject: RE tow rings D110 to "jean gruneberg" Hi, Here in Holland you can get those tow rings by any LR dealer, so I suppose its the same in SA. I just bought two for my 90. Only had to cut out a little piece out the plastic grill. In Holland they are about R 100,00 a piece. Greetings Pim _______________________________________________________________________________ Pim Kielen Baronielaan 115 4818 PD Breda Holland e-mail : kielen@worldaccess.nl ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 19:14:55 -0500 From: Allan Smith Subject: Re: Landy owners in revolt On Thu, 22 Aug 96, Arnold Shapiro wrote: >As a new Landy owner (Defender 90 Tdi, 1996) I am obviously concerned about >these claims. My vehicle has yet to have its first free service and needs a [ truncated by lro-digester (was 10 lines)] >particular areas which should be carefully checked for defects and obvious >signs of trouble. Sorry to hear about so many problems with such a new vehicle. I got my 300Tdi 90 in February last year and the following have shown up: 1. The transfer box that comes with the R380 gearbox needed to have an oil splash disk installed to avoid axcessive wear of output shaft splines. Current boxes will no doubt have this problem resolved. It was a warranty repair but as there is no dealership here the parts were sent free and I did it myself, as with all maintenance. 2. Apparently the bonnet cable release was likely to break. The first I knew about it was when I received a free warranty replacement in the mail. The new one looked identical but I changed them anyway and took the opportunity of removing the new cable from the sleeve and greasing it before installing. That really makes a difference! Despite having a spare on the bonnet I now need only a light one-finger pull on the release handle. 3. If you live near the coast you should should rustproof the inside of the lower door panels as soon as possible. They will rust very quickly, particularly at the bottom front corner. This will probably be the first rust-through but there are other problem areas and you should Waxoyl everything that a magnet sticks to (except the hot bits of course). 4. The fuel filter that comes new (unless SA is different) is a very ineffective design and should be replaced as soon as possible by the much better AEU2147L (the usual replacement part for the 300). Other than that mine has been amazing. Cheers Allan Smith St. Lucia ------------------------------ From: "jean gruneberg" Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 09:35:29 +0200 Subject: LR SA / reliability Hi all Most of you will have seen my postings about LR in SA recently. The build quality on a R140k+ vehicle sucks. However one thing I dont know is; are all LR's imported as full CKD units, i.e. is there no local componentry? If so then the blame for build quality probably lies in the jigs used locally. However back up is a local product, and leaves lots to be desired. Regards jean _______________________________________________________ Jean Andre Gruneberg Vector Control Lab. ph +27 (0)31 295252 Durban City Health c-ph +27 (0)82 551 8433 P.O.Box 2443 fax +27 (0)31 3003030 4000 Durban e-mail grunberg@iafrica.com KZN South Africa ------------------------------ END OF LAND ROVER OWNER DIGEST Input: messages 4 lines 204 [forwarded 11 whitespace 45] Output: lines 203 [content 102 forwarded 5 (cut 6) whitespace 44]