PS Guy Salmon Portsmouth were great in terms of sales experience, service and warranty work on the D4. Shame about LR QA!

Red Merle wrote:

It's great to have such happy memories, I'll always have a soft spot for my......and the Citroen XM's of old

.

Cobstar wrote:

@Red Merle just been browsing a Velar Forum outside Martin's empire. Quite a lot of Velars sitting with dealers for significant periods of time waiting various fixes or for LR CS and the dealer to agree the way forward. It seems that many have had a loan car and negotiated additional compensation for the inconvenience associated with their own car being off the road.

I wish LR hadn't replaced the D4 - I just love the shape and the look. Now if they'd put a petrol engine in that, I'd probably have bought that instead of the diesel and she would still be on my drive!

If I was being selfish I'd like to see you in a Velar for a week before LR give you a loan FFRR to get your trusted opinion on the Veloar as a possible way for me to get back into an LR product in the future. I was toying with the idea of a 4.2 SC L322 but remembering my RS2 reminded me of the problems of maintaining an older vehicle unless you have a trusted mechanic.

@Martin you really need to set up a Velar Forum as part of your LR Forum empire

Thanks for trusting my potential opinion on the Velar but, if I'd chosen it, I'd have been stuck with it and even the dealer said that it would have been smaller inside than the Jaguar!

I agree with you on the D4; I'd still be driving one now if they were still available new

I shall remember your compensation suggestion

Bill wrote:

I didn’t know anyone else liked the XM, I had three XM estates in a row... two caught fire, but survived, as did I . Fantastic car, great value with all the toys of the day.

Ps fires were small in the front wheel arches/ brakes.

Oddly enough, it was the stories of fires that first got my attention. It was down to a convenient new system for attaching earth cables to the inside of the engine bay, using push to fit connectors. They corroded quickly and caught fire

All of them had to be recalled to remove the connectors and refit old fashioned ring connectors!

I used to deal with a great XM specialist in Oxford, Paul Johnson, who was a mine of information - except on just one occasion, when I was able to tell him something he didn't know!!

Thanks FatWolfie. It looks like we're both D4 refugees!

The FF is the last remaining new LR that I would consider, but I expect Jerri McGoverness is working on co*king that right up as I write!

Really should have kept the RS2 as a garage queen Today I've been in email correspondence with someone trying to sell one - I did say I wasn't in a position to buy. He doesn't really want to sell, just wants space for a track day car. I told him he would regret selling!

And probably should have kept the D4 and kept paying the PCP . Whoever has the D4 got a real bargain given she was low mileage and well looked after. I could even have put up with the irritating rattle from around the seatbelt area which returned despite the first bodyshop fix as per the TSB. Can't bear to go on the D3 Forum yet - and it is another great community - friendly and informative.

One reason im keeping my D4 commercial. They are officially doing a D5 commercial now but it would break under the strain.

costs me £ each year to mend, but hasn't actually broken down for a while. and as a commercial it has a proper boot..... and as there is never more than me and the oppo in it it fits the bill perfectly. There is nothing that can't be fixed with a hammer😜😜
FFRR 4.4 SDV8 Autobiography Santorini Black.
KIA E-Niro 4+
2021 Discovery 5 D300 MHEV commercial

Cobstar wrote:

@Fat Wolfie thank you for the feedback
Glad you have a well behaved Velar.
So what would you replace your Velar with?

That’s the million £ question @Cobstar. And a big part of the reason behind currently not being in any rush to do anything!

Toyed with the idea of a Cayenne S petrol. Or maybe a Volvo V70. Mercedes E class estate.

I don’t really need the off road capability of the Land Rover, tend to only do soft off reading (forest tracks etc - and I’ve not yet gone down one where a normal car would struggle...)

Having retired I don’t do mega mileage, maybe 8,000 a year but this tends to get done in “lumps” as opposed to 5 miles a day if you see what I mean.

The other part of me says to go for something much cheaper, and have another Sunday car with the balance. You know, spend maybe £20-£25k on something like a Fiat Tipo estate (estate type of car being a requirement for taking our retired greyhound around with us) or maybe a VR Skoda Octavia , then “investing” the other £50 odd in a used DB9, V8 Vantage, or similar.

Guess in the end I’ll just do what Swmbo tells me

Too much choice!

Day 34:

Some progress After 34 days LR have.... have..., found an actual Land Rover to lend to me! Well, a D5, but these are desperate times

I never thought I’d rejoice at the prospect of having a D5 to drive, but there’s a D5 td6, with a tow bar, heading this way! They aren’t sure where it is at the moment but, as soon as they find it again, they’ll let me know!

We're in the lap of the LR gods as to when it might turn up.

Last edited by Red Merle on 24th Sep 2018 5:16pm. Edited 1 time in total

Is that a dim light at the end of the tunnell RM ? Filters are in fact so good that in certain circumstances, when the ambient air is already polluted, a diesel car will tend to extract more particles from the air than it emits. Emissions Analytics worked with........etc etc

He who dies with the most toys wins...

A dim light on the loaner front anyway, though the genuinely helpful Service Manager has just confirmed that it's all down to how quickly LR can find it and get it to them. Probably sometime late during this week, or early next I expect, but at least I'll have something sensible to go on holiday with in a month's time now

I'm coming up to its first birthday on the 30th. It got me wondering, do you think they'll want their loan car back when the warranty runs out in another two years?

Bill wrote:

Is that a dim light at the end of the tunnell RM ?

Pray God its not the lights of the train coming the other way

@Red Merle - well that's definitely progress of sorts. Hopefully the D5 turns up sooner rather than later. Not quite a FFRR but at least reasonably spacious.

@Fat Wolfie - We don't really need the full on LR experience either.

An Aston Martin as a weekend car sounds fun and you already know I'm a fan of fast all wheel drive estates

In 2010 Him Indoors bought a 4x4 after his BMW 123d got stuck in the snow. A lovely guy in a Defender stopped and tried to tow us up the hill but even the Defender couldn't get the car up the hill. Had to leave her parked in a local GP's car park until the snow cleared. I hoped he'd go for a Freelander but he was worried about reliability and decided to go for a SWB Shogun. Fab car, if a little agricultural. She joined the fleet at 3 months old and the plan was to keep her until she wouldn't run anymore. But unfortunately we had to make a total loss claim against the insurance 3 years ago. Cue mad rush to find another car and he bought a 2011 X3 20d. He's really happy with the X3, she's easy to drive, a perfect size for us, was well specced and copes with the soft roading to get to and fro my horses. With a lovely 8 speed ZF automatic gearbox.

The new M40i X3 sounds quite fun.

@northern monkeyjones - I like your garage and your philosophy on running costs.

Day 37:

At last! Back in a Land Rover loaner and very grateful for that

It's a D5 HSE V6 with a tow bar! Thank %!*$ for that

It's pretty typical D5 really, but at least it's got a proper boot and I can see where I'm going.:

Nice job RM
It is common for management to lose their free cars once in a while. A friend of mine works for BMW and has a free car. Only down side is he cannot keep it beyond 6 months old, and has a limited selection to choose from which may be different each time.

By the way, i like the comment regarding them wanting it back when the warranty is up

@fat wolfie, remember it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission  Too many toys, not enough time

2011 4.4 TDV8 AB Black