Gents
I wonder if there is anyone on this forum who can help me. I have a 2008 Vogue Se which i bought new and is now 2 months out of warranty.
I have had a numerous problems with the battery going flat which has already been documented on this forum. It has now done in twice in the last 2 months the first time it was still in warranty and had only been serviced the week before. My local stealer took it in and as usual said they could not find anything wrong-what a surprise! It did it again last week, and they had it for 2 days, again nothing found.
They fitted a new battery about 15 months ago and they say that the battery is perfect.
When the problem happens its not a case of a nearly flat battery, its that flat that i struggle even to release the handbrake and the dash lights flash like a christmas tree.
Yesterday a mate of mine, who is in the motor trade visited, an Independent Land rover dealer over Yorkshire way. Talking to one of the guys there he said that he had a mate who was having problems with his FFRR and immediately the guy said is it a flat battery. It seems that to them it is a common problem.
Obviously this info is second hand but from what i can gather there is a ecu behind the dash somewhere near the heating controls. To the left of the air distribution controls there is a small vent and it seems that this is the fan input for this ecu.
What they do to prove if this is the culprit is to get a small piece of paper angled so that normally it falls off and place it over the hole with the engine running. They then switch off and lock the car and wait. After about 10 mins the paper should fall off to show that this ecu has shut down. I,ve just tried it and it works. I know that an amp meter would show the current being drained but it wont show what bit of kit is responsible.
I obviously want LR to sort out the problem but i cannot get them to admit to there being a fault
What i am asking is does anyone know what this ecu is or more about this problem becuse its driving me mad.
The time before last it failed and we were just off to a wedding and my car was the wedding car so SWMBO was not a happy bunny -she has lost all faith in the car and Landrover after having them for the last 15 years.
Help would be gratefully received Ex D1, D2, D3 owner now 2008 TDV8 Vogue SE

I would politely demand a meeting in person with the Dealer Principle, tell him the whole sorry tale, and require that he gets the situation resolved promptly, to your satisfaction, and finally.

This should involve them immediately taking your car back in, investigating and resolving the fault properly, giving you a new FFRR to use in the meantime (demo car/ courtesy car), and then some sort of reasonable goodwill gesture.

There should certainly be no question of any charge to you.

If they do comply I would suggest a letter to Land Rover customer services, and it that does not work then trading standards.

In the meantime perhaps speaking to somebody at Lookers Park Royal may help, they seem to be a dealer who looks after customers properly, so perhaps they could advise what you should do/ say in their opinion?  Range Rover-less at the moment - Pining!

Good luck, if its Brock. They never sorted mine, even though we told them what was wrong. In the end it was LR assistance, who updated the software, that was not shutting things down properly.

It sounds to me that it could be the alternator tese can be problematic on the TDV8. How long before the new battery went flat? Present :2008 TDV8 HSE
Gone Audi A5 2.7TDI
Gone Discovery 3 HSE
Gone Mercedes CLK
Gone Range Rover 2.5 DSE

If you're dealing with Brock speak directly with Dean Liggins and request that Paul (workshop manager/chief mechanic) deal with the car personally. Also it won't hurt to escalate to Hugh Duckworth the DP to get the matter resolved.

Dont ask me how I know their names as well as I do

Simon

bozmandb9 wrote:

I would politely demand a meeting in person with the Dealer Principle, tell him the whole sorry tale, and require that he gets the situation resolved promptly, to your satisfaction, and finally.

This should involve them immediately taking your car back in, investigating and resolving the fault properly, giving you a new FFRR to use in the meantime (demo car/ courtesy car), and then some sort of reasonable goodwill gesture.

There should certainly be no question of any charge to you.

If they don't comply I would suggest a letter to Land Rover customer services, and it that does not work then trading standards.

In the meantime perhaps speaking to somebody at Lookers Park Royal may help, they seem to be a dealer who looks after customers properly, so perhaps they could advise what you should do/ say in their opinion?

Gents
Thanks for all your input
I have spoken to paul already and its him who has said they can find nothing wrong and until they do they can do nothing.
I don't know Hugh personally but my son did work for him in the past and he is known to me on nodding terms as he has friends who know my other son so i think that this will be my next point of call.
Brock used to be a good dealership but even though a lot of the people have not changed the service you get has
I have been dealing with them for the past 15 years and we are on first name terms. This however is not helping me with the problem I have - as far as i am concerned they are letting me down and not looking after their old customers. This could be the end of an era for me when i walk away from LR -we will see!! Ex D1, D2, D3 owner now 2008 TDV8 Vogue SE

I'm sorry but I just don't understand.

I would never let a dealership get away with this for 5 minutes, and it bugs me when people do. It is simply not good enough, and ultimately anybody who let's them get away with it is doing a disservice to everybody else, since it allows standards to drop.

Hold them to account, you know what is acceptable and what's not. Don't walk away until you are satisfied, if you have to assert yourself do so. By all means choose to buy your next car elsewhere, but not until you've got this car sorted out properly by the people responsible (Brock).

Going to another marque will not help you in the slightest, you get good and bad dealerships of all marques. Walk away from this without satisfaction and what's to say the same thing won't happen in three years at another dealership (another marque).

Why don't you just ask for a meeting with the DP, explain the situation, and ask what he proposes. You can't expect a business to fix a problem which management don't know about! Range Rover-less at the moment - Pining!

Same problem and dealer saying the battery is satis but the test does not reveal how damaged the battery is and so I went to Costco, got a Bosch 100A/h battery and have not had a problem since - forget the dealer and fit a new, bigger battery! £90 or so... '96 Volkswagen Polo 1.4CL - SOLD
'00 Audi A3 1.8T - SOLD
'97 Lotus Esprit V8 - SOLD
'03 BMW M3 - SOLD
'93 Range Rover 3.9 Vogue SE - SOLD
'92 Peugeot 205 GRD - DIED
'99 BMW 540i Touring - SOLD
'94 Peugeot 405 GDRT - SOLD
'00 Peugeot 406 HDI estate - 63mpg! - SOLD
'08 Range Rover TDV8 Vogue SE - SOLD
'11 Skoda Fabia Greenline II - 94.2mpg!- SOLD
'07 E61 BMW 530d msport touring - SOLD
‘20 Tesla Model 3 SR+
‘20 Tesla Model 3 Performance

bozmandb9 wrote:

I'm sorry but I just don't understand.

I would never let a dealership get away with this for 5 minutes, and it bugs me when people do. It is simply not good enough, and ultimately anybody who let's them get away with it is doing a disservice to everybody else, since it allows standards to drop.

Hold them to account, you know what is acceptable and what's not. Don't walk away until you are satisfied, if you have to assert yourself do so. By all means choose to buy your next car elsewhere, but not until you've got this car sorted out properly by the people responsible (Brock).

Going to another marque will not help you in the slightest, you get good and bad dealerships of all marques. Walk away from this without satisfaction and what's to say the same thing won't happen in three years at another dealership (another marque).

Why don't you just ask for a meeting with the DP, explain the situation, and ask what he proposes. You can't expect a business to fix a problem which management don't know about!

wardpg wrote:

bozmandb9 wrote:

I'm sorry but I just don't understand.

I would never let a dealership get away with this for 5 minutes, and it bugs me when people do. It is simply not good enough, and ultimately anybody who let's them get away with it is doing a disservice to everybody else, since it allows standards to drop.

Hold them to account, you know what is acceptable and what's not. Don't walk away until you are satisfied, if you have to assert yourself do so. By all means choose to buy your next car elsewhere, but not until you've got this car sorted out properly by the people responsible (Brock).

Going to another marque will not help you in the slightest, you get good and bad dealerships of all marques. Walk away from this without satisfaction and what's to say the same thing won't happen in three years at another dealership (another marque).

Why don't you just ask for a meeting with the DP, explain the situation, and ask what he proposes. You can't expect a business to fix a problem which management don't know about!

I totally agree with what you have written I am at this moment in the process of sending an email to the DP and I will not be holding anything back. As regards the fitting of a new battery I do not believe that this is the problem, it has already had one new one in its 3 year life and the fault did occur again only 2 months after the last one was fitted.
I will see what reply I get from the DP and take it from there .

Good man, I hope you're asking for a meeting though, it's so much more difficult for somebody to fob you off face to face! E-mail is so impersonal, it enables people to say some ridiculous things which they could never say looking you straight in the eye!  Range Rover-less at the moment - Pining!

Wardpg - how did you get on?

I have heard back from this dealership this week and they have agreed to resolve my final issue with the FFRR which relates to the way it was prepared when I bought it earlier this year. I have dealt with this dealership for the last 4 years and whilst I have been frustrated at times I have to remember that they are there to make money, so in my final email to the dealership regarding my final issue (they have resolved many others already) I made it clear that I was a repeat customer of theirs and that I would appreciate their assistance before I was left with no option but to escalate to Inchcape customer care and JLR customer care. Did feel a bit like a petulant child in making this kind of veiled threat but sometimes you need to push that little bit harder.

Hope they've been as helpful in your case

Simon

I emailed the DP on Sunday night so he should have had it first thing Monday, but as yet I have had no reply.I will give him to the end of the week before chasing - should have put a read receipt on it but forgot so watch this space! Ex D1, D2, D3 owner now 2008 TDV8 Vogue SE

I've had the same recurring flat battery issue now, for almost three years (TDV8, January 2008, now out of warranty). Land Rover deny any issue, and the Dealer has consistently told me that it must be my fault - I think he thinks I sneak out to watch TV in the car in the middle of the night, and then sneak back into the house...)

I have now registered a formal case with Land Rover, who say they will get the Dealer to contact me, and take it from there. I'll keep you posted on progress, and watch this site for your progress.

Interestingly, LR expressed ignorance of any RF or HVAC issues now, or in the past. They also said that they couldn't discuss because of 'Data Protection' reasons - what tosh...