The Truth about the Land Rover Discovery 3

Why am I terrorising Land Rover?

Today my campaign starts in ernest - I have returned from 2 weeks vacation and am energised to get an adequate admission of guilt out of Land Rover.

I thought I would remind you why I am waging this campaign:

I have spent £45k on the highest spec Land Rover Discovery 3 and Land Rover and Stratstone of Mayfair ( the dealer) have failed to keep me happy as a result of 3 main areas:

1) The car's electronics system failed rendering the car useless for three weeks while Land Rover tinkered around haphazardly replacing all sorts of bits and pieces.

2) The car was marketed with certain standard options - one was a bluetooth phone kit and the other was a tow bar - both of which weren't included when delivered - Land Rover won't retro-fit the phone-kit on the first build cars and the Tow Bar cost me a lot of money to fit after delivery.

3) Both Stratstone of Mayfair (the dealership) and Land Rover are totally apathetic when it comes to sorting out my problems. The dealership always blames Land Rover for poor delivery and I am the poor customer stuck in the middle. They don't return phone calls or emails and the only way I get a response is to make a personal visit and kick up a stink in front of customers.

My Demand and the resolution I seek: I want Land Rover to admit publically that my car was a first build F*** Up - I want them to replace it with a new one and (at this stage) I am still prepared to pay in some money for the mileage I have done to date - but they still need to compensate me for the humiliating breakdown; the terrible experience with Land Rover Assist and the overall shoddy, complacent and ineffectual post sales service I have encountered thus far.

So far I have written to the dealership without any response, Land Rover's PR company and the Head of Communication of Land Rover - also without any response - Today I spent £500 on Google Ad Words and Search Engine Optimisation services and hopefully this Blog will start creeping up in the Land Rover Discovery Searches - it already is being referred by Yahoo and Google and is getting 175 hits per day!

Please email this url to as many people as you know who may be owners or potential owners of the Discovery 3 - the truth is it's a great car - it really is - but Land Rover needs to keep their customers happy - I am most unhappy - it's sad that I have to go to these lengths to get some response out of Land Rover.

I am going to post daily on this blog giving you a full account of my struggle so keep returning.

Another brilliant piece of Electronic Wizardry

This is classic! I left my car key at the office. No sweat, I just took the spare key out of the bottom drawer at home. Of course the battery on the key was flat which meant I couldn't open the car automatically. You can't change the battery because its so smart that it charges itself in the ignition of the car... good thinking Land Rover.... except .... had you thought of this...? I now remove the plate off the passenger door so I can manually open the car. This I do, car opens but the alarm goes off! I then think - ok if I put the key in the ignition I will get enough power to press the disarm button on the key... no... it doesn't work! So I try to start the car .... impossible ... alarm an immobiliser are now active- so i sit in the car with the alarm breaking the peace of a Saturday afternoon.... waiting for the stupid key to charge up - 20 minutes later - still nothing- neighbours starting to revolt now.... so I walk out to find a taxi to go back to the office to fetch my keys. An hour later, £40 later in taxi fare, some very angry neighbours.... I am left wondering if I am was so smart buying this electronic beast!

I am off to France for 2 weeks holiday - we have decided we can't trust our 4 month old Land Rover Discovery - wy wife is 7 months pregnant so we have decided to leave the Disco in the driveway (maybe I should disconnect the battery to prevent another meltdown!) and we are going to take our trusty old P Reg Mercedes E230 Estate with 100,000 miles on the clock and never given me a days trouble. 

Happy Holidays!

Electronic Melt Down

I will blog in detail about this when I have some time soon but our New Discovery broke down out of London - Park Brake Failure - all electronic - had to be towed away and the engineers took 3 weeks to sort it out after replacing several key pieces of electonic circuitry - Again - Landrover doesn't hold the stock so everything takes days to order in - I had a horrible experience with Land Rover Assist who tried to give me a Toyota Yaris to transport my 2 dogs, pregnant wife and mother in law back from Suffolk to London! A lot of shouting and screaming achieved some results but believe me I would think twice about buying the Discovery at least until the third build comes out later in the year.

What's even more worrying is that it appears that the Dealerships have a hard time from Land Rover - as they don't give them enough support. Having said that, Stratstone of Mayfair wasnt that hot at looking after me- I had to storm into the dealership to get decent service which was very disappointing.

Email me at landrover@haveyoursay.com for further details.

Interesting Autoblog rekons that the HSE is over priced - I am starting to agree after my checkered experience.

Selling something they don't have: Integrated Bluetooth Phone Kit

  I took delivery of the new LAND ROVER DISCOVERY 2.7 TDV6 HSE 7 SEAT in November 2004 – one of the first on the road which turned heads. This comes at a price as it’s the first build. I bought it from Stratstone of Mayfair – from a good Salesman – handed over almost £45k One of the really neat toys was supposed to be the integrated Bluetooth Car Kit. The dashboard of the car comes with a phone keypad and the voice activated software has all sorts of nifty commands to control your phone with your voice. Of course I had ordered it and I was somewhat surprised that on delivery Land Rover had installed a Nokia Bluetooth kit in the car. According to the salesman, Land Rover didn’t have the software available for the Bluetooth integrated kit. I bugged them for a while and now I am told that they can’t retro fit the kit which is available in all second build cards. This is nothing short of breach of contract - Misrepresentation - the option (which I elected when Land Rover took the £1,000 deposit from me) was made available to me in all communication and the literature. I am looking for similarly aggrieved purchasers to contact me and we can mount an action on Land Rover – My solicitors have quoted £3k to scare them into action – who wants to split the fee and chase the daylights out of them?

The Truth about the Landrover Discovery 3

Please come back to this page as I am going to be dedicating a lot of time and effort to get all those people together that have had a raw deal after buying the new Landrover Discovery 3.

Email me at landrover@haveyoursay.com in the meantime and I will be sure to email you when this Blog is up and running.

Thank you