Farewell - so i face the vinyl curtain

To all esteemed RR LZers,

The time has come, as many before me have, to bid farewell to the beloved P38. After 2 years of ownership and 'exciting' those years have been to it's time to let her go.

For those interested I have gone over to the dark side and, on a whim, gone and brought myself a V10 TDI R50 Touareg today. 750 nm torque 350 horses and 0-60 in under 7 seconds - beats the old 97 dse a little. I did toy with an L322 but not going to shell out for a new gearbox anytime soon.

The P38 will be going up for sale shortly - if anyone's interested in good solid and faithful DSE. See my profile for pics.

Of course I will check in from time to time to offer help where I can - return the favors that have been so kindly dealt to me. The P38 has taught me nearly everything i know about cars now!

All the best
Ash

aerofabrique said:

To all esteemed RR LZers,

The time has come, as many before me have, to bid farewell to the beloved P38. After 2 years of ownership and 'exciting' those years have been to it's time to let her go.

For those interested I have gone over to the dark side and, on a whim, gone and brought myself a V10 TDI R50 Touareg today. 750 nm torque 350 horses and 0-60 in under 7 seconds - beats the old 97 dse a little. I did toy with an L322 but not going to shell out for a new gearbox anytime soon.

The P38 will be going up for sale shortly - if anyone's interested in good solid and faithful DSE. See my profile for pics.

Of course I will check in from time to time to offer help where I can - return the favors that have been so kindly dealt to me. The P38 has taught me nearly everything i know about cars now!

All the best
Ash

Click to expand...

You'll be knackered when it snows

good god a toerag,ah well somebodies got to,lol

landowner said:

You'll be knackered when it snows

Click to expand...

I did think that but luckily the R50 has both centre and rear locking diffs and this ones still on its winter treads (and ill have a gear box that will work!)...that or just take the day off work

I would defo buy the roof bars

Good luck with the Toerag I hope you're not expecting "German" levels of reliability coz they go wrong a lot (though not as often as a RR perhaps) and the parts prices are eye watering. Keep us informed of how it turns out - always good to know about real world experiences of other makes.

good luck with the toe rag . they go through tyres at an alarming rate and if you thought the range rover was thirsty

V10 !! Lol

I have heard once they have been remapped its possible to get the front end lifting up when accelerating !! Madness

2.0_hippo said:

V10 !! Lol

I have heard once they have been remapped its possible to get the front end lifting up when accelerating !! Madness

Click to expand...

Put a trailer on the back and it wont need a remap! In factory tune it pushes the airbags considerably down at the back if you floor it. Needless to say with two turbos to nurse now i wont be doing much of that...lead weights incl with P38 sale!

Best keep some funds available for repairs then !! Lol

I can amagine this is going to cost more to repair than a range rover ?!

Well hopefully with only 45k on it repairs will only be minor- by the time it comes to major repairs ill have got bored of it and the novelty would have worn off!

Better to hope and pray for nothing to go wrong than hope and pray theres lots of days left till the gearbox packs up on the 322

Ash
it would be interesting to know how you get on with reliability and costs.

keep us posted if you can..

Best wishes

donp38 said:

Ash
it would be interesting to know how you get on with reliability and costs.

keep us posted if you can..

Best wishes

Click to expand...

With running the risk of turning this into a 'dubbers' forum will do.

Took it for a 45 mins test drive yesterday and tickling it along at 30 ins con showed as 35 when warm. When it was cold it struggled to get out of single figures as any cold diesel would. When it was warm at 50 on the a road 29 and at 60 27/28mpg. Booting it showed 9! And accelerating stop start around town 17. Probs not far of an auto dse!

I think the relatively young engine helps with this but time will tell when i do brim to brims. At 2.7t i suspect brakes and tyres will be a regular purchase.

My tales of a local VW dealer.....

Went to a local VW place looking at a Beetle for the other half, whilst we chatted with the salesman he noted my, then, 97 P38 and started laying into it and proclaiming the virtues of the Tourag and that Range Rovers are complete crap, driven by prats, nothing but ****e on wheels etc etc....not exactly the way to endear me to buy a car from him.

He then told me, and this is no word of a lie, that the Tourag can wade in 2m of water whereas the Range Rover can only do a foot or so.

I looked at him blankly...then asked him to lift the bonnet of the Tourag in the showroom....which he did, I then asked him to show me where the Air box was, he looked a little confused and then pointed out a small box in the rear of the engine bay, I kindly let him now that was a fuse box, he said he thought thats what I asked him to show me...I pointed out the air box, and told him that I stand just under 2m tall and that an engine needs air to function properly, so if the air box which was just above hip height was still 1m under water, how was it going to get any air to burn??

He looked at me blankly again going a little red faced....I said to the girlfriend 'I think we'll go now' so although he had done the paperwork to order a brand new 2.7 Beetle Sport and was just waiting for my signature to confirm the order I just walked out and told the Sales manager that the guy needs to be more familar with the products he sells...

Went a few miles up the road to the other VW dealer - was given a coffee, wax lyrical about Range Rovers and the sales man was a fan, so I bought there and then the 2.7 Beetle Ex Demo model he had on the forecourt.....

So I am keen to know - when you get yours does it wade in 2m of water or not??

I had a '09 2.5 TD Touareg (company car) before i set up my own business & got my P38.
TBH, the trim quality in the Touareg (Altitude spec with 'upgraded leather') was not a patch on the quality of my P38. It also got through tyres quicker than my wife gets through shoes
The rear seats folding was a real faff too - hope they have re-designed this?
Had an embarrasing moment when i got stuck on a muddy farm field looking at a P38 for sale at Doug Dransfields in Stocksbridge.
T'was a nice drive though.

did you fix your leaking FIP??

aerofabrique said:

I did think that but luckily the R50 has both centre and rear locking diffs and this ones still on its winter treads (and ill have a gear box that will work!)...that or just take the day off work

Click to expand...

They are poopy offroad though, I mean really poopy. There is a review (in German so might as well moot the audio) of a Disco vs a Toerag and although they felt the Toerag was sportier to drive it was less comfortable both on sealed and unsealed roads and when things got muddy the Toerag kept getting stuck where as the Disco carried on without thinking about it. The lack of ground clearance was also a constant issue, even at full hight it was almost dragging it's balls across the carpet.

The Toerag has nothing in common with its Dakar cousin other than a family name. They are poop at offroad. So you might want to keep LZIR on speed dial should the predicted snow (due mid to late this month) ever actually land.

aerofabrique said:

Well hopefully with only 45k on it repairs will only be minor- by the time it comes to major repairs ill have got bored of it and the novelty would have worn off!

Better to hope and pray for nothing to go wrong than hope and pray theres lots of days left till the gearbox packs up on the 322

Click to expand...

45k? You could've got a 1-2 year old L322 for that price. There is no gearbox issue at this point. You mentalist. Bloody hell, now you can order the new disgusting RR dealers will sell the "old" ones at startlingly low prices, push hard enough and you could probably get a new one, although dealer registered.

martynv8 said:

TBH, the trim quality in the Touareg (Altitude spec with 'upgraded leather') was not a patch on the quality of my P38.

Click to expand...

A lot of people talk about the trim quality on P38s. I've found it to be typical 1990s plastic. Taking it apart, most bits are very brittle with fastners, etc breaking easily. Certainly a modern luxury car is a much nicer place to sit and the feel of materials used is much better. I'm not saying a P38 is crap, it's just that the game has moved on a lot since the 90s.

Bix said:

They are poopy offroad though, I mean really poopy. There is a review (in German so might as well moot the audio) of a Disco vs a Toerag and although they felt the Toerag was sportier to drive it was less comfortable both on sealed and unsealed roads and when things got muddy the Toerag kept getting stuck where as the Disco carried on without thinking about it. The lack of ground clearance was also a constant issue, even at full hight it was almost dragging it's balls across the carpet.

The Toerag has nothing in common with its Dakar cousin other than a family name. They are poop at offroad. So you might want to keep LZIR on speed dial should the predicted snow (due mid to late this month) ever actually land.



45k? You could've got a 1-2 year old L322 for that price. There is no gearbox issue at this point. You mentalist. Bloody hell, now you can order the new disgusting RR dealers will sell the "old" ones at startlingly low prices, push hard enough and you could probably get a new one, although dealer registered.

Click to expand...

45k miles

aerofabrique said:

45k miles

Click to expand...

Ohhhhhh, yeah, that makes more sense. Carry on, nothing more to see here.