There’s probably some naming and shaming rule I’m about to fall foul of.

I could hear an odd noise trundling along the M25 at the weekend. I noticed in the wing mirror something flapping around the base of the door, which turned out to be the rubber door seal. There should be an arc of plastic, 8-10mm wide, that “pins” the door seal to the door via lugs on the arc, along the curve that the door has to accommodate the rear wheel.

It turns out they are side-specific. So I ordered the right hand side one from Island4x4 on Sunday. £40.

It arrived yesterday in a bag with the correct part number on the bag. Except it’s the left hand side piece and the lugs don’t line up. To prove I’m not a complete dummy, it even has “LEFT” stamped on it.

So far so not so abnormal. These things can happen.

However, Island don’t pick up the phone. And don’t have a sales counter or a telesales operation any more. And aren’t responding to the only means of communication they have: emails (for which, I now discover, they have a bit of a rep for in after sales when things go wrong).

So what to do?

Option 1. Write it off and get the right (haha) part from elsewhere.
Option 2. Drive the 50 miles to them and the 50 miles back and hope that I can find someone at their warehouse who will swap it.
Option 3. [your suggestion here]

Views? Range Rover 4.2 SC
AM V12VS
Porsche 991.1 Turbo S
Mini JCW conv

Island 4x4's lack of customer service is legendary amongst the D2 community.

Option 1 is probably your best bet.

Option 2 is likely to be fruitless and will do your blood pressure no good whatsoever.

I don't have a suggestion for Option 3. Sorry.

Dunc. The life you have is the only one you'll get; make the most of it.
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2012 4.4 TDV8 L322 Autobiography
2003 TD5 Oslo Blue D2 ES Premium Auto (with mods!)

They won't let you in even if you drive there.

Thanks. Option 2 - well, yes, that was really the move of a desperate man so thanks for the heads up that it would be both pointless and frustrating.

One ray of light: I remembered that I paid via PayPal. I raised a dispute via PayPal. In the first instance that just relays a message from me to Island via PayPal but I had a response within minutes from Island to say they are checking stock with LR. Maybe a fob off, maybe genuine, don’t know. But I have the option to engage PayPal and try to reverse the payment should Island play dumb. We’ll see (something I usually say to the kids when I mean “no” ). Range Rover 4.2 SC
AM V12VS
Porsche 991.1 Turbo S
Mini JCW conv

Keep pushing but don't expect a quick, or polite resolution. I wont use them anymore. They are cheaper than most but appalling when there is an issue.

Advanced Factors have been good recently. LRDIRECT are good but their website rejig has meant a lot of manufacturer details have disappeared. Britcar were great but have shut unfortunately.

Britcar are coming back.

Copied this from the D2BC forum; It was written on 25th January.

just to update you on the current situation at Britcar.

I have now taken back control of the company from the Liquidators and now own Britcar once more, lock stock and barrel, the only change will be the company name, which will change to Britcar Global, all email addresses and telephone numbers remain the same.

As you may be aware the cause of the closure was the website, having been forced to close our original one and come up with a new one in 30 days, this proved a disaster. The good news is that we have gone back to the original designers of our previous website, they have been able to overcome all of the problems we were experiencing, and are now in the process of overhauling it and making it fit for purpose once more.

We are hoping to have the original site up and running in the next 30 days or so all being well, we have been able to get all of our old suppliers back on board once more and are in a position to supply and ship parts again, so whilst waiting for the new website, if there is anything I can help you with, please do not hesitate to contact me with the part numbers you are interested in, and I will happily quote you.


Best Regards

Duncan Mansfield
Managing Director


Britcar (UK) Ltd
Independent Parts Specialists

Unit 2 Riverside Industrial Park
Rapier Street
Ipswich
Suffolk
England IP2 8JX

t: +44 (0)1473 907444
e: duncan@britcar.com
w: www.britcar.com The life you have is the only one you'll get; make the most of it.
--------‐--‐-----------------‐------------------‐---------------------------------------------------
2012 4.4 TDV8 L322 Autobiography
2003 TD5 Oslo Blue D2 ES Premium Auto (with mods!)

That's excellent news Dunc. Thanks for sharing.

Is option 3 maybe having a chat with trading standards?

To close this out: credit where credit is due. Island 4x4 came good.

Within minutes of raising an issue with PayPal I had a message from them saying they were looking into it. Then another one to say they were checking stock with LR U.K.

Then today a nice man from DPD arrived with to the correct part, and took the old part away.

Given where my expectations were, this is by any measure an excellent outcome. Range Rover 4.2 SC
AM V12VS
Porsche 991.1 Turbo S
Mini JCW conv

I'm glad you got it sorted but there's no credit to be given here imo, you shouldn't have to go as far as raising a dispute with the payment gateway provider to get a resolution on something like this. Just my opinion of course 🙂

Agree completely. ^^^ You should never have had to resort to a dispute through paypal.

To be clear - and this isn’t something I knew before this - when you raise a dispute on a transaction from within your PayPal account, the first round of messaging is nothing more than PayPal sending the seller a copy of the report that you’ve typed out and sent to PayPal. IOW PayPal just operates as a conduit for you to message the seller.

There’s a second layer which I didn’t get to, if the first layer doesn’t give a resolution, which is the buyer punting the dispute to PayPal. Then PayPal investigates and gets the seller’s side - ie this is PayPal messaging the seller in its own name rather than being the message deliverer.

I’d assumed before doing this that I’d go straight to the second layer by raising a dispute, but no. You get bogged down in the first layer to begin with.

Anyway, as I said, it’s sorted now, which is the outcome I wanted. Range Rover 4.2 SC
AM V12VS
Porsche 991.1 Turbo S
Mini JCW conv