The Truth about the Land Rover Discovery 3: More than meets the eye: the stories roll in.

Since Neville showed interest in this campaign, it has been picked up by several influential bloggers and journalists and Businessweek Online.

I spoke to Neville about the campaign and he is covering excerpts of our conversation and his analysis in For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report : ( podcast #50 - content is at 47 minutes into the podcast) – which should be released a little later today.

I feel like Land Rover’s Agony Auntie and have received a few desperate emails from Land Rover owners pleading for my help. Land Rover has shown interest in dealing with these emails so please post them as comments here or email haveyoursay.

In a telephone conversation with Mike Mulholland yesterday he stated that he knew they had to react quickly with an appropriate message and strategy and that he would be meeting with the Head of Communications. Despite the positive move by Land Rover, Mike told me that he was pretty snowed under for the next few days, as was his Marketing Director Andy Griffiths who is then going on holiday for two weeks. So we can only expect a formal response in terms of my offer sometime next week. Has the urgency evaporated overnight : do they understand that this conversation moves at lightening speed and spreads like wild fire?

Haveyoursay is currently attracting over 3,000 hits per day and I have received some interesting emails from Land Rover owners who are so desperate to be heard that they are pleading with me to help them. Here is one of them:

“I need your help to Identify problems they say don't exist, as I have rejected the car after three weeks of ownership and 500 miles, but surprise surprise, they won’t accept any problems exist and are threatening to dump the car back on my drive!”

I am starting to see a common theme in these messages and I can’t say I am 100% convinced that my experience was an isolated one. I think there just may be a Design, Engineering and Quality Assurance problem in addition to the perceived lack of customer care. Other issues might exist in the Dealership Network Model that Land Rover applies – are we to feel sorry for the dealer in all of this? – one consumer wrote to me last night saying

"[Land Rover] is failing to compensate dealers to properly identify and repair manufacturing faults”

As anecdotal as the above may be, this is going to blow your mind … last night when leaving Glyndbourne in my new replacement Discovery 3 (second build) with 300 miles on the clock- the engine shut-down telling me there was an “engine management fault” when I started it again it seemed fine until I got a message “Suspension fault” – I restarted the car again and managed to get home safely….. I suspect my personal story is not over. Let’s see if Land Rover or Stratstone of Mayfair (the dealer) contacts me about this.

The Truth about the Land Rover Discovery 3

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More than meets the eye: the stories roll in.

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