2nd will watch with interest

Cheers

Jim Another Pommie Bar Steward down under

MY20 Defender 110 SE P400 Eiger/Ebony
MY10 3.0 RRS TDv6 Fuji/Ebony/Anigre

I noticed my service indicator recently when I started the car.

Called Lance Dixon. Booked in this morning for 2nd service (12 months at 11500km)

Arrived at Lance Dixon at 0850 and said I would go Christmas shopping at the adjacent shopping town mall while they carried out the service

Got a call at 11.15, all done with a new battery fitted because the old one was showing signs of a leak due to a kinked breather pipe. No other known warranty issues to be attended to. This RRS is very reliable so far and is becoming smoother, quieter and a little quicker as it loosens up.

Total cost to me $0.00 under the free servicing for 3 years deal when I bought the car.

Top service from Andrew and the team at Lance Dixon LR Service as usual.

Its hard to beat that.....

Why do I go 100+km to Gippsland (Massaro Motors) for sales and servicing instead of 20km to Malvern or 35km to Port Melbourne? Read 2nd Rower's posts above. --------------------------------------------------------
I love Boobies, Tits, Blackbirds & Sparrows.

09 MY10 Santorini Black TDV6
05 Disco3 S (gone) (Red Disco)
08 Disco3 HSE (gone) (White Disco)
07 RRS Umbrella.(one of only 3 in the Country)
09 Volkswagen Golf Tdi(SWMBO's)
04 Datsun Insult (SWTSMBOBIO20SHOMSAH)

More details please ... What experiences have made you choose not to use ULR or MLR?

Customer Service is No1 at Massaro (in my experience and others that have bought Landies and VW's from them). I was patroised severly at Lance Dixon, when I went to buy my first D3, and thus walked away and gave my next $300k+ car dollars to a dealer I felt comfortable with. ULR did do a good job, in a timely manner, with a replacement pass side mirror some scroat decided to break on me whilst in Cheltenham. I only went to them as they were close and I was short of time, open on the day before Melbourne cup day & it was annoying me not having that mirror.

Servicing on both the Sport & Golf is easy to arrange and I wait around for the car to be done whilst being plied with copious amounts of good coffee. The cost of service is very good as well. I have not paid over $600 for a service on either D3. I must however point out that I never had brakes done. Being a country dealer they take personal care of you and your cars and have a casual, yet efficient & professional attitude and ethos. The dealer principal is very approacable and can be seen at a moments notice.

Nice sucky little touches too. Like a couple of bottles of wine and flowers for SWMBO when we picked the car up. (They offered to transport the car up for delivery but we wanted to go on to Lakes Entrance for a dirty weekend with our nice new ,clean, car ) --------------------------------------------------------
I love Boobies, Tits, Blackbirds & Sparrows.

09 MY10 Santorini Black TDV6
05 Disco3 S (gone) (Red Disco)
08 Disco3 HSE (gone) (White Disco)
07 RRS Umbrella.(one of only 3 in the Country)
09 Volkswagen Golf Tdi(SWMBO's)
04 Datsun Insult (SWTSMBOBIO20SHOMSAH)

This hasn't been resolved yet!

Having not done much over the Christmas and New Year period due to other priorities, I began chasing this last week!

I managed to speak to my case manager at Consumer Affairs Victoria, and he updated that he had left a couple of messages for the service manager at Melbourne City Land Rover (MLR). Only that the calls had not at that stage been returned by him!

So in short I have been advised that if Melbourne City Land Rover (MLR) do not call back, then Consumer Affairs Victoria will recommend I take my case/claim against Melbourne City Land Rover (MLR) and Land Rover Australia to VCAT!

I have to admit, it would be interesting to have to go to either VCAT, or the appropriate civil court, just to hear what Land Rover Australia have to say on record about their stance on all terrain tyres, and of the knocking suspension incidents on Range Rover Sport's!!

CAV have just called to say that Melbourne City Land Rover's response is that they are willing to look at my issue but could never find anything wrong with my car?!

Its only taken Melbourne City Land Rover two weeks to return the call! Good to see the good morals and ethics continuing...

WTF??

Why then in September did I get an email from John Cooke at Land Rover Australia telling me they would do no more with my car, and that it was the tyres. Also reneging on all the other commitments he made on behalf of Land Rover Australia..

At the same time Melbourne City Land Rover did not reply to my email about my outstanding warranty claims. Yet within a couple of weeks Lance Dixon noticed an issue with the suspens\ion, that was missed when Oliver Harding did his thorough review!

So next stop for me is VCAT, and unlike CAV I can, as is appropriate, make my claim against Land Rover Australia!:

http://www.vcat.vic.gov.au/

Come one, come all join up:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=323858542342

Hi second Rower, did you manage to get to VCAT and what was the result ?

Any update on your case?

Any update on your case?

It's still ongoing....

I emailed John Cooke at Land Rover Australia (He's now titled "Director of Aftersales at Jaguar Land Rover Australia") in March this year in what I considered a civil and approachable manner, and on the off chance to see if they wanted to be reasonable about my ongoing issues.

I won't quote the detail, but my opinion from his replies were the opposite, he was very unapproachable, short and unreasonable. In brevity, despite telling me in September (amongst many other unfulfilled commitments) that he would take personal ownership of my issues, he was telling me to go to a dealer and demonstrate the issues and call Land Rover Customer care with any further issues after that! (He'd forgotten I'd been that frustrating route before between Feb 09 and Sept 09)

Mr Cooke also stated I'd been paid the gesture of good will on 16th Nov 2009... I hadn't received anything. So I then even phoned my finance company to see if somehow Land Rover Australia had paid it direct to them.. They hadn't.

So I then paid for my car to be inspected by an independent.. Two notable issues were found.. The prop shafts are outside of allowable tolerances, and the air filter was so dirty that it had allowed dirt/dust through the intake and through to othe engine. In fact it was so dirty the inspector assumed that I had never had the car serviced, and was then shocked to see a full main dealer service histroy stamped in the book, with the last service only 2k km's ago!

I shall not put into words how I felt.

It is fair to say the prop shaft issue should have been identified by Melbourne City Land Rover in the numerous visits to them, or then Land Rover Australia in their detailed inspections, and the last "nut and bolt inspection" conducted by their senior Tech Oliver Harding as this is clearly a potential contributor to the reverberation issue.

What can I say about the air filter not being checked and recommended for change at the most recent (Lance Dixon) or preceding services (Melbourne City Land Rover)???! ..

So I then filed all my paperwork with VCAT (a couple of months ago), and have since provided further details requested. My claim is against Land Rover Australia, Melbourne City Land Rover and Lance Dixon Land Rover.

I recently received a further update from VCAT. All parties are required to attend a compulsory conference in Sept at VCAT.

My limited understanding is this is a conciliation whereby VCAT will try and get the parties to agree to an outcome/settlement. If this fails then there will be a full hearing scheduled in front of a VCAT board. I believe this would be before the end of the year.

My car's service indicator came on recently - I don't do enough km's so this was the regular 6 monthly interval that gets triggered by the on board computer.

For obvious reasons I wouldn't / couldn't use the Melbourne based dealers, so I had to go out to Geelong to use Rex Gorell. 3 hours there and back in the morning to drop off, and then 3 hours there and back in the late afternoon to collect. Paid $40 for the FL2 loan car for the day.

Yet another negative LR dealer experience. In brevity I would realise a couple of days after the car was in that Rex Gorell's failed to complete the required service schedule in full. This is now the third service in a row, by a third different LR dealer that has not been completed fully to the manufacturers requirements.

I'm beyond belief, and am obvioulsy now sceptical about any of the cars earlier services being completed in full per the service schedules. Particularly as I seem to recall that the when the independent inspector first called (having found the issues with the air filter not being replaced) he commented that my car looked like it had never been serviced, and that further he was surprised to find a log book with a full set of main dealer service stamps.

I'll be providing an update based on this recent experience to my VCAT documentation already submitted ahead of the compulsory conference in September..

Earlier this afternoon I had a phone call from the Service Manager at Rex Gorell Land Rover in Geelong.

In brevity again: He stated that he would be refunding me for the new indicator bulb and the loan car I paid for on the day my car was serviced, and went on further to clearly state that my car was not welcome back at Rex Gorell's and that I should use the Melbourne based dealers or the selling dealer for any future requirements.

I've emailed Land Rover Australia to check and clarify, as towards the end of the conversation he inferred by statements that this was "authorised by Land Rover Australia".