It sounds like many more people are specifying the pano roof than they expected and they cannot just turn on the tap for extra supply. It shouldn't come as a surprise as the Evoque was held up for precisely the same reason. Still, at least they are not having to resort to erecting temporary marquees to store cars waiting for parts as they did in Halewood in autumn 2011.

BlackGT3, did you enjoy the factory tour? I was there with 3 friends and to have one ex-LR engineer to show us around was good, a far cry from the largely clueless interns at Porsche in Stuttgart for example. Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue

Mark,

I did enjoy the factory trip and it was good to see both the new RRS and Defender production lines on the same day. One of the friends who I was with has also been on the Bentley, Aston and Nissan factory tours. He does some consulting work for the Auto Industry and was very impressed with the production process and quality assurance steps. In addition, they operate a full traceability process across all parts (even down to each rivet), and build stage (robot and human intervention). Therefore, each operative has to be accountable for their part of the production cycle.


After seeing the end to end build process, I am struggling to believe some of the stories owners are being told by their dealers about particular delivery delays. I can't imagine the production process would allow LR to start the build of a car that is specified to have a Pano roof, if they don't have one available. Cars were rolling off the production lines with Pano roofs, so they do have enough supply to keep the production lines busy 3 shifts per day, 5 shifts per week.

With any new production line, there are going to be teething problems (the techies from the SW supplier for the automated production line were on site as they are still under post golive support). There were a number of new RRS's awaiting damage rectification or issue resolution. Some had doors missing or the interiors partly dismantled etc etc. This is standard practise across all motor manufacturers and to be fair, it is better for the factory to do this work rather than dealer techies however, I just hope my car is not subject to this type of invasive surgery. Current:
2014 RRS HSE - Causeway Grey, Ebony with Ivory seats, Ebony roof lining, Black Piano wood, Panoramic Roof, Heated Exterior Mirrors, Heated Steering Wheel, Privacy Glass, 21" Wheels, Electric Tow Bar, Full Size Spare, Load through & Black Badges. 5 yr service pack
997 GT3
Golf R DSG
Past
2010 Discovery 4 HSE
2006 Discovery 3 HSE

Yes, I agree, if you have a new car coming off the line every 100 seconds, you don't start building it if you haven't go the parts. The fact there were some cars - by no means all - being built with pano roofs is good news because it shows there isn't a fundamental design problem with it, it may just be cars without pano roofs are being prioritised in the build sequence while the volume of pano roofs from the (reputedly) Chinese supplier is ramped up. Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue

Vin number allocated which must mean its on its way? On order Corris Grey New HSE 5+2 with Santorini contrast roof , ebony/cirrus interior and panoramic roof.

If they are coming over on a slow boat from China..... They sure aren´t going to arrive quickly....... lets hope they are air freighted to make up for LR´s monumental up !! 2014.5 SDV6 AB Dynamic ... Fuji /Santorini Pan roof and 22's
2013 Porsche Boxster S 3.4
2014 Audi A3 S line Quattro
---------------------------------

My dealer called today to confirm our car completed build on Tuesday and left for the distribution centre that day. It is due into the dealer tomorrow and will be ready for collection on Tuesday morning. To be fair, this is exactly the ETA they gave me when I confirmed the spec. Fingers Crossed.

HSE in Causeway Grey with Ebony/Ivory seats. Black Piano Wood, Load through, Panoramic Roof, Ebony Roof Lining, Privacy Glass, Heated/Dimming Mirrors, Heated Steering Wheel, Full Size Spare, 21" Wheels & Electrically deployable tow Bar Current:
2014 RRS HSE - Causeway Grey, Ebony with Ivory seats, Ebony roof lining, Black Piano wood, Panoramic Roof, Heated Exterior Mirrors, Heated Steering Wheel, Privacy Glass, 21" Wheels, Electric Tow Bar, Full Size Spare, Load through & Black Badges. 5 yr service pack
997 GT3
Golf R DSG
Past
2010 Discovery 4 HSE
2006 Discovery 3 HSE