For reference the car is a 71 plate L405 Autobiography D350 (owned from new) with 36k miles (majority motorway).

I was driving home last night when the engine management light flickered then stayed permanently on. There were no warnings that come up and the car still drove fine so I continued driving it home. I left it overnight and started the car up again this morning and light was still on. The warning on the Land Rover remote app says it’s ok to continue driving but to get it checked asap. I needed to get my kids prescription so I drove to the pharmacy and back as it was only a 10 mile round trip.

On the way back the car starting jerking badly as I pulled away from a roundabout and a restricted performance message came up. Obviously the car barely wanted to move after this so I limped it home and called Land Rover assist.

A Land Rover technician (not the AA) came out and plugged his laptop into the car. Even he looked confused as it threw up tonnes of different errors and he said himself there’s so many I don’t know where to start. One error was saying that there was a software mismatch with the engine so he tried updating the software. This cleared the engine management light but now it made the car completely undriveable.

With his laptop plugged in he tried reviving the engine. There was a horrible burning smell with white smoke coming from the exhausts, car didn’t want to rev past 1,250 rpm and it kept stalling once he took his foot off the accelerator. He continued to spend another hour under the bonnet taking bits apart to find the issue but couldn’t fix it.

I asked what he thinks is wrong and he reckons it could be something to do with the EGR but can’t know for sure until it’s properly looked at. As the car is now basically undriveable he said he needs to get the car recovered but can’t be done until tomorrow due to the bank holiday.

Now I understand cars can go wrong all the time but this is the first car that I’ve ever had in 15 years of driving that has actually broken down on me (and we’ve had a lot of different cars over the years). I’ve had various electrical issue and bits breaking etc but nothing that’s effectively left the car stranded. For a £120k+ car that we’ve had from new and is less than 2 years old I find it unacceptable to be honest and leaves me with no confidence with it going forward. It’s also had a tonne of other issues from suspension fault warnings, to the constant oil changes due to the car saying there is oil dilution, to the massage motor needing replacing, to the multimedia screen completely freezing due to grounding issues amongst other small issues like broken plastic seat trim etc. it just makes me think what’s the next thing that’s going to break.

Now onto the poor service. The technician said that we can’t get a courtesy car today because it is bank holiday and he is not sure when we are likely to get one as there are no courtesy cars available through Land Rover assist in the vicinity of London. He also said there are lots of parts on back order that can take up to 6 weeks to be delivered so he doesn’t know how long the car will be at the dealer for.

We phoned up Land Rover assist to clarify this and they said the same thing. They said the only way to get a courtesy car at the moment is to do it through them with enterprise, however enterprise also have no courtesy cars available in our area. After phoning enterprise and Land Rover assist all day we have ended up with no courtesy car and don’t know if or when we will get one so currently have no working car at all at the moment.

I can’t believe that we are paying north of £1,400 per month for a car that’s let us down and Land Rover can’t even provide us with a courtesy car while it’s broken. Complete and utter awful service.

I turned the ignition on the car just to see if by some miracle it might have cleared itself and now there are other warnings. Engine light is back on again, tyre pressure monitor no longer works, and there’s a red warning for a full dpf filter which was never there before so the technician has actually created more issues than what was showing before he tried fixing it.

At this point I have given up hope of this company ever being capable of providing a reliable car or good customer service and as much I love the cars I can not be bothered with the constant doubt in my mind about when the next error is going to show up and the lottery of being able to secure a courtesy car when it eventually does happen. Especially for the amount of money these cars cost.

Ouch! A story we here over & over im afraid sir...

When these things happen we wonder why we ever bought a car in the first place.
What with problems and Insurance things are getting worse. Hope you get it sorted ASAP Hoy and let us know what the problem is please. overfinch modified

Sorry to hear you're having issues.

You mention paying £1400 per month for the car, have you tried contacting the finance company to see what they can do?

Also, as you've had so many separate issues and yes it's not acceptable and its what tipped me over the edge after 20 years continuous LR ownership, have you contacted LR customer services and raised a case to try and get it into the LR Exec Office. They tend to be pretty useless but always worth a try.

The other thing is, have you spoken to the Head of Business at the supplying dealer, sometimes they can be sympathetic even at the two year mark. They may put you in a demonstrator as long as the car is with them.

We made a complaint to Land Rover assist and they magically managed to find a brand new Range Rover sport as a courtesy car so we are waiting for them to get it ready so we can pick up it later. They can’t drop it to us so we have to get a taxi to the dealer (paid for by Land Rover) so we can get to it.

The recovery bloke came this morning to pick up the car. I asked him how he’s going to get the car onto the truck as the car isn’t driveable and he seemed pretty certain he’d be able to drive it onto the truck. Surprise, surprise after trying to start it around 20 times the car just refused to start.

He then had to manually drag the car onto the truck and damaged the driveway in the process. Now got another headache trying to get the driveway sorted. Called Land Rover assist and they’ve created a report but will take 2 weeks for them to get back to me. They asked if the driver took photos which he didn’t but I explained that he was the one who pointed out the damage to me and I have taken photos of it.

Call me pessimistic but I can already see where this is heading where he’ll try refuse that he did it because he didn’t take any photos. I swear if it gets to that stage I will seriously lose it but for now I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it plays out.

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AnotherMutley wrote:

Sorry to hear you're having issues.

You mention paying £1400 per month for the car, have you tried contacting the finance company to see what they can do?

Also, as you've had so many separate issues and yes it's not acceptable and its what tipped me over the edge after 20 years continuous LR ownership, have you contacted LR customer services and raised a case to try and get it into the LR Exec Office. They tend to be pretty useless but always worth a try.

The other thing is, have you spoken to the Head of Business at the supplying dealer, sometimes they can be sympathetic even at the two year mark. They may put you in a demonstrator as long as the car is with them.

caymanblack wrote:

When these things happen we wonder why we ever bought a car in the first place.
What with problems and Insurance things are getting worse. Hope you get it sorted ASAP Hoy and let us know what the problem is please.

Don't be fobbed off, ask to raise a case as this isn't acceptable on a £100k+ car and that you want a call from Exec Office, it normally takes 48 hours.

They have the power to do things if you get them on your side, but I always found the supplying dealer more sympathetic even though I'd had two services and remedial work done at other local dealers.

So just a quick update. It’s been 9 weeks. They’ve fitted a new throttle body assembly and a new DPF. Cleared all the error codes and the car still won’t start. The technician called me to ask what exactly happened. Told him the story. At first thought it could be dodgy fuel but I told him I filled up the tank and used half of it before any issues occurred. He admitted doesn’t really know what’s wrong with it and will have to keep looking at it.

Has this happened to anyone else where the technician can’t work out what’s wrong with the car?

It is astonishing that as cars become more complex, dealers seem to be increasingly less able to diagnose problems. A friend has been without his X7 for 3 months while the dealer tries to resolve a fault with the fans which are either full on or off. The other speeds don't work. Dash has been removed and controllers etc changed but still not sorted. In a 12 month old car, the last thing I would want is the dash being stripped. I can imagine the squeaks after it is refitted.
Dealers need to do better.

Dealers rely upon manufacturers to supply them with the information on how the systems operate and the correct diagnostic processes.
The biggest issue is that multiple systems interact, so it's not always clear which control system (say, over the HVAC blower) has primacy, and how the various systems co-exist. It's possible to update one module's software and coding for a specific issue but negatively impact another system in a combination that hasn't been modelled by the third party diagnostics supplier or OEM of the control equipment or OEM of the actuators.
Dealers can only see and act on what they are allowed to see - with good reasons. Safety & compliance being the main ones.

In complex diagnostic situations, the technician is often just the remote 'eyes and ears' of the manufacturers diagnostic provider, so they won't 'do' the diagnosing, just carry out the tests and actions requested of them, the information and recorded diag. sessions are passed back to the diagnostic provider for analysis, who then instruct the technician of the next actions. Repeat as required.

Sorry to hear the issues you are having, it is certainly not acceptable.
Not with a FF but I had my 2016 D4 with LR for a month and they couldn’t work out what the issue was.
Car cut out with lots of warning lights and then wouldn’t start.
Turned out to be a failed restraint control module that was affecting the canbus network and had corrupted the software in the ecu.
Hope you get it sorted quickly. 2012 TDV8 4.4 Westminster Santorini black
2016 Discovery 4 Landmark
2002 Defender TD5

Probably all work itself out by the next service due in 20,000 miles time