What do you expect for £50,000 ?

I've done a lot of work on the rangie (p38 4.0 year 2000) and to be honest I'm a bit agog at some of the short sighted nature of the machine.
I have a 98 volvo V70 and every part of the car from top to bottom is like the day it came out of the factory. not a smig of rust and evey bolt comes off easy with nothing seized. Copper brake pipes and total zinc dipped.
Now the rangie. Took the back bumper off a few weeks ago to put the tow bar on. Flakey rust everywhere. In fact I had to power wash it and paint it with red oxide to make it last a few years as I dont want to pull the rear end off one day pulling a good load. All the brake pipes are bog standard steel. Its an OFF ROADER. Basic engineering I think. Wheres the zinc dip on the main frame. Ally boot skin on steel sheel. DRRR Yes anodic reaction and ally rot. Wheres the tiger seal to make sure the air and water dont get to it ? Its alredy overweight so whats a few kg to keep it looking like new. We all know about the engines, bu you must remember back then hardly any good internet sights so manufacturers could keep quiet about troubles. I love the car but when you strip off the range rover badge its a poorly made rover with all the troubles you expect from a rover car. I'm not going to spend a lot of money now to keep it on the road as the P38 has a life span of 15 years at most.
The quality of Indian engineering is poor at best so whats going to be the norm over the next few years at Land Rover is questionable.
A L332 may be my next purchase as BMW would hopefully have cured the rot and poor quality componants

hello willows.i,ve got to say mate that having worked at l/r for the last 17 yrs and seeing various owners i,e bmw,ford and now tata running the company its only been the last couple of years since tata took over that theres been significant quality improvements infact i,ve read recently about l/r garages struggling for business because the quality and reliability of our recent vehicles are so good.if buying a £2000 tata nano yes you,ll get what you pay for but when forking out £50,000+ the indians are trying they,re very best to make our customers happy.cheers

i really am starting to think that the newer range rovers are alot more reliable nowadays and i would prob plump for an l322 if her indoors lets me!! i do think that in the 90's land rover thought they could get away with producing the p38 with cheap materials and poor aftercare simply because of the badge on the bonnet, plus all the yuppies they buying them up!!! But i do still love my p38! just my 10p worth!

tommo138 said:

i really am starting to think that the newer range rovers are alot more reliable nowadays and i would prob plump for an l322 if her indoors lets me!! i do think that in the 90's land rover thought they could get away with producing the p38 with cheap materials and poor aftercare simply because of the badge on the bonnet, plus all the yuppies they buying them up!!! But i do still love my p38! just my 10p worth!

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i love mine too matey even though its a untrustworthy bag of unreliable ****e

As a thought maybe Volvo buyers are lookiing for a car that lasts 50 years, an` maybe typical buyers of Rangies (new-ones) are gonna get another one in 3 years so couldn`t care about longevity?? Maybe L-R do know their market??

Yep, I bet most RR are leased for the first 3 years to businesses. After that they dont care

Haveto agree with all the above, love my 4.6 to death, but still havnt sold the volvo 850 it was supposed to replace.... i might need to get somewhere one day and i know that the volvo will start evrytime get me there and get me home again. Plus being a T5 it does it quite quickly.

l322 is pos like p38-ie no more reliable and expensive pile of ****.

I'd recommend looking at other options

I think you're either lucky or you ain't. I've had brand spanky new cars that have been a nightmare from day one and creaking old gates which haven't missed a beat. My 5 year old XK8 with only 30K miles on it was fab, but then the suspension fell apart at the first sign of a pothole and the throttle housing died just before that. My wife's 2008 XJ with only 7K miles let us down twice, both times with different faults and both times we were on our way out to a meeting. My "bullet proof" 330D sport had alarm and throttle problems. My ex's Rover, well you can imagine the story with that.

(Touch wood) my Disco 4, apart from the rear windows being possessed, has done 6.5K miles in less than 3 months and been utterly superb. My 16 year old weekend warrior Rangey with over 100K miles on it, this weekend had it's backside humped and thumped up and down rocks, ruts and rivers and didn't utter a murmur of complaint. The Jag fell apart after a couple of pot holes.

Nor do I really think things will get worse now that Tata have their hands on us. Lets face it, could they do any worse than the reliability record we've had up until now? Also, to be honest, It wouldn't matter how bad they are anyway and Land Rover know that. You will always have thousands of willing daft sods queueing up to buy an ageing old banger with the reliability record of a wet paper bag, simply because they are Land Rovers. And we love them.

tommo138 said:

i really am starting to think that the newer range rovers are alot more reliable nowadays and i would prob plump for an l322 if her indoors lets me!! i do think that in the 90's land rover thought they could get away with producing the p38 with cheap materials and poor aftercare simply because of the badge on the bonnet.

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That pretty much hits the nail on the head.

It's not just Land Rover that have the **** poor attitude though. Plenty of other so called premium brands also seem to think that they can do the same. Rolex, (never owned one but heard storys from others). Cartier, (had to send one of my watches back to them twice due to bodges on repair work). Mappin & Webb, (just had a braclet back from them that had been re-pearled. it now looks so cheap you'd think it had come out of a cracker). The Monte Carlo Grand, (awfull customer service, won't be staying there again). Louis Vuitton, (awful customer service, but at least their stuff is built to last).

The sad fact is chaps, that whilstever folk don't vote with their feet, most manufactorers will continue to offer us the cheapest overall product that they can get away with. Land Rover is no exception to this.

was shooting with a mate on sunday who has just got rid of his L322 for an A5

got fed up opening the door to it every day and a new fault appearing, had 2 gearboxes in it and loads of other electrical stuff

Poor quality seems to be a British disease when it come to cars, it's not just expensive Land Rover products that are full of rust, my 6.5 year old Transit has already rusted through on the wheel arches. No wonder Transit sales are down.

its not just the british though,now it may only have two wheels but i thought i,d buy meself a bit of german quality to last me a few years,after one winters riding on my bmw gs the paints flaking off the engine fins,the spoked alloy wheels are foooked,and the tanks gone rusty.i never had that with me old BRITISH triumph.

BMW bikes are ****. My Yamaha FJR & Honda VFR were faultless.

Datatek said:

BMW bikes are ****. My Yamaha FJR & Honda VFR were faultless.

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My FJ was bullet proof as well, until a lorry reversed over it, the TDM is not a 'robust' though...

Datatek said:

Poor quality seems to be a British disease when it come to cars, it's not just expensive Land Rover products that are full of rust, my 6.5 year old Transit has already rusted through on the wheel arches. No wonder Transit sales are down.

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In his infinate wisdom Peter Wheeler used to buy his steel in bulk, fab up loads of chassis, then leave them outside the plant at Blackpool in all weathers before the were brought inside for assembly.

I've heard of 2-3 year old TVRs requiring chassis refurbs. Spring built cars were often the worse due to the bare chassis being sat outside in the salty air all winter. Oh, and it's often a body off job, so you can imagine how large the labour rates would be. **** poor powdercoating over already oxidizing metal didn't help much either.

Hi Willos.
All very interesting and revealing replies, especially as I'm going to add that, because of high mileage to work (500 a week) I bought an old volvo 940 estate (non turbo) for 600 quids and it ran superbly and virtually trouble free for three years before I was daft enough to sell it on. Rust free of course, but they are ugly bastard bricks. Must be something in this latent tendancy for safe reliability when you own a P38, but still prefering the attraction of unpredictability!
I think that the irony of saving all that mileage from my P38 was probably that the air suspension packed up through lack of use (rust in valve blocks?). Why no drain tap on the compressed air tank to release condensation, if we're talking quality finnishing?
Any way, you've clearly touched a nerve.

DougK

Here Here for the old Volvos. Had two. The last was a 740 estate that had done 240,000 miles and still went like a train. Most comfortable old bus I've ever had and not one problem with it. 'Er indoors on the other hand has a newish C70 convertible that shakes like a wet dog over any sort of pot-hole and has various intermittent electrical gremlins.
Old cars used to be over -engineered. Now it's all about production costs. Unless it hits insurance costs, longevity and ease of repair don't usually come into it.

at the end of the day they make fook all to last, old cars you could fix with a hammer screw driver and a set of fellar guagers. now you need a fecking lap top.. rant over..