 | Home > General & Technical (L663) > If you want to go into the Australian Outback... |
 
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| Supacat Member Since: 16 Oct 2012 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 11018   
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As the saying goes, “If you want to go into the Australian Outback, take a Land Rover. But if you want to come back again, take a Land Cruiser.”
Best vehicle to get you to the tip of Australia… maybe not back again! 😥😂 This is the first day on the Old Telegraph Track finishing up at Eliot/Twin Falls. I would like to thank my co-creator, assistant videographer and off-road navigator Mahala Summers. Enjoy and follow us on the Insta for more @mahla_does_miles and @defender_journeys https://www.facebook.com/groups/6862732818...549106431/  Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge "I sold my house last year and bought a Defender D300 SE so I could hit the road, live out of my car and work on a landscape photography book since covid had decimated my work as a music photographer and tour manager. I made it all the way from Traralgon through the Victorian high country before breaking down for the first time 40 mins outside Byron Bay with error code P034. The car was towed to Gold Coast Land Rover who took TWO weeks to tell me there was nothing wrong with it. Land Rover provided me a replacement car that couldn't even handle the potholes on the road we lived on. A couple of months later a loss of power again, this time with no error codes. The car was taken to the Sunshine Coast to Pacific Motors. Over the course of 6 weeks they misdiagnosed it TWICE and then trucked the car back to me with a new error code after fixing the wrong part. During this time LR put us in cars not large enough to carry the camping gear etc carried in the defender and so cheap that we were left in pain every day after long drives, don’t expect decent replacement cars if you break down in Australia. Not having a 4wd also meant I couldn’t head to the places I needed to go to for the landscape photography, so more lost time and work. Because we couldn’t camp anymore LR had to pay for our cheap accommodation instead of just air freighting the part from Europe to the Sunshine Coast!! It cost them $5,480, took 6 weeks and I’m now a pretty  off customer. By this time my car was shipped to Cairns, I was reunited with it showing a new check engine light error!!
I was meant to head to work in the bush the next day, I took it to Trinity Land Rover who managed to diagnose the issue as the exhaust section of the throttle body and this time LR got the part within 24hours. This time I had to hire a camper van to head up to Cooktown so I could at least do some music photography work. When we got back to Cairns, after repairing the car, they turned it back on and the ECU was dead. Basically LR gave the dealer a long list of things to restart the ECU but in the end they just disconnected the battery and it came back to life. After taking the car out for short drives LR signed off on it and we proceeded to take the car up to Cape York on the Old Telegraph Track. The car did amazingly on the corrugated roads, allowed us to cover vast distances in comfort, and performed really well on the OTT, leaving people watching in awe at how it could slowly crawl over any rutted out track or through Nolan’s Creek Crossing with ease. BUT the day after making it through all of that, across the Jardine River and setting up camp at the Punsand Bay Resort, we drove a standard gravel road 14kms to the Tip and just before the carpark at the most northerly part of Australia the car started overheating, spewing coolant everywhere and lit up with a seperate Electrical error. We limped to the car park as the road was narrow and we needed to safely park. We decided to walk to the tip and leave the car to rest, when we got back and turned it on a Low Coolant warning, battery not charging turn on car warning appeared. I opened the bonnet to find all the coolant gone. Phoned LR for assistance and was told our only option was to have the car towed 1000kms to Cairns and for us to ride along in the tow truck on a 3-day drive across corrugated roads. When the truck arrived 4 hours later the car didn’t have enough power to start the engine and be able to get the car into neutral and hand break off. Also every warning light came on from suspension to sos system. The tow truck driver also told me, they don’t tow cars back to Cairns, they put them on a barge, so I guess riding along in the cabin was never an option after all. After calling Melbourne LR for help, no one could tell roadside assistance how to bypass the electrical parking brake or put the car into neutral, so my car had to be dragged onto the truck with the wheels locked up, trashing my new and very expensive tyres, burning rubber and ruining my brake pads I’m sure!! Now, we’re stuck at the tip with no car, no call back from LR, what seems like zero customer service, nowhere to live once our campsite, which is fully booked expires on Saturday and a whole lot of stress and upset, for what??? If anyone from LR head office sees this, feel free to call me because I’ve been waiting over 24hrs for a call back and a solution." https://www.facebook.com/groups/6862732818...112774808/ |
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15th Sep 2021 7:41am |
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| markb110 Member Since: 22 May 2010 Location: Guildford Posts: 2520  
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This explains why JLR wouldn’t test the vehicle in Australia.
They should be very ashamed. I remember seeing the pre production car when it did the rounds, the one that Kendle Mint Cake allegedly drove from Whereeverstan to a motor show. When I asked the staff if they would turn it on so I could see it in standard and off road height they said that they couldn’t as they weren’t allowed………???? Even the winch wasn’t wired in for such a long and arduous journey (allegedly). And Land Rovers response…….let’s make a Land Rover Range Defender and stick on a huuuuuge price tag so the peasants can’t afford it, it will never go off-road and we the management team won’t get blamed for producing a white elephant….. |
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15th Sep 2021 8:50am |
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| zilch Member Since: 11 Sep 2019 Location: Whitsundays & Sydney Posts: 778 
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LR owners/guinea pigs springs to mind. On the Aussie front many other owners that i am in touch with
are getting out and about without any real mishap.. key issues have been lack of replacement windscreens, the trouble with extended trips on dirt/gravel and bloody great road trains.. getting hold of crappy Goodyear tyres in 19/20" outside of capital cities due to the inherent swiss cheese sidewalls.. hence being stuck in "wolf Creek scenarios for an extended period of time waiting for parts to arrive  .
My beef with LR is having to fork out a whole wad of cash to replace my OEM 19" wheels/tyres for the Tuff Ant 18" alloys, which requires an ADR certified brake conversion (which Tuff Ant have already completed) and fit decent LT based tyres.. apart from that i am reasonably confident in the vehicle and will be getting it "out bush" as are a significant amount of owners in Aus.. remind me to post in 12 months how it is all going  yet another pommie bar steward down under
MY20 110 P400 SE Defender MY10 3.0 RR Sport |
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15th Sep 2021 9:15am |
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| zilch Member Since: 11 Sep 2019 Location: Whitsundays & Sydney Posts: 778
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an update from the Aussie owners group, the owner (justin) was informed the alternator belt failed, (would that be the
electric starter motor belt as part of the MHEV?) it basically fell out from the under vehicle when it got back to the dealers, a mere 1000 km's from the Cape York tip where it broke down. There is a RACQ repair centre less than an hour from the tip, to recover the vehicle there and to allow a fully trained mechanic to change the belt would have no doubt cost LR a few hundred bucks, no, they drag it all the way back to Cairns which will cost many thousands, totally inconvenience the owners and screw up their plans, a great example of how LR policy directly impacts the bottom line, why go for a pragmatic solution when you can fork out a shed full of cash on towing.. and then fix it yet another pommie bar steward down under MY20 110 P400 SE Defender MY10 3.0 RR Sport |
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22nd Sep 2021 4:25am |
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| Supacat Member Since: 16 Oct 2012 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 11018
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I wonder if it's related to this known issue:
Click image to enlarge |
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22nd Sep 2021 9:38am |
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| zilch Member Since: 11 Sep 2019 Location: Whitsundays & Sydney Posts: 778
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The belt has been sent off for analysis yet another pommie bar steward down under
MY20 110 P400 SE Defender MY10 3.0 RR Sport |
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22nd Sep 2021 2:10pm |
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| J77 Member Since: 04 Nov 2019 Location: Fife Posts: 3245 
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Interesting nobody knew how to recover the car, the 42 page recovery guide is available on topix. I thought an LR dealer would know to look there.
Not sure if this will work https://topix.landrover.jlrext.com/topix/s...;view=FitH 24MY 90 D250 HSE, Tasman Blue Last edited by J77 on 22nd Sep 2021 4:54pm. Edited 1 time in total |
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22nd Sep 2021 2:17pm |
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| County V8 Member Since: 07 Jun 2021 Location: UK Posts: 147
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I have had some experience of belts (Goodyear) and if the belt is bent into too tight a radius before fitting it will look ok but fail . If the fitter takes it past this radius i.e to0 tight a bend in it possibly by playing with it or forcing it in it will break.
Never bend a cam belt into a radius smaller than the pulley it fits on. |
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22nd Sep 2021 2:56pm |
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| Supacat Member Since: 16 Oct 2012 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 11018
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Has there been any mention of the loss of coolant? |
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22nd Sep 2021 6:07pm |
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| zilch Member Since: 11 Sep 2019 Location: Whitsundays & Sydney Posts: 778
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yes in the report you posted above he mentions it was "spewing coolant" yet another pommie bar steward down under MY20 110 P400 SE Defender MY10 3.0 RR Sport |
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23rd Sep 2021 2:18am |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11240 
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I suspect that Supacat means if there's any mention of the consequences of the coolant loss. Presumably, it overheated because the belt snapped and the water pump was therefore no longer being driven, so what of the engine afterwards? Darren
110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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23rd Sep 2021 6:21am |
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| zilch Member Since: 11 Sep 2019 Location: Whitsundays & Sydney Posts: 778
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Nothing reported so far, just the initial issue yet another pommie bar steward down under
MY20 110 P400 SE Defender MY10 3.0 RR Sport |
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23rd Sep 2021 9:07am |
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| spudfan Member Since: 10 Sep 2007 Location: Co Donegal Posts: 4475 
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I suppose there will always be issues with a newly introduced vehicle. I think part of the problem is that everything is designed and tested on computer and it is hard to envision all problems that can occur in real life. The dealers are as much in the dark as anyone else as they have not had many to work on. When it goes back to JLR HQ they have no idea what is causing these issues. If they had they would not be there in the first place. They are probably working on the next model for release in three or four years so there is not much will or resources to tackle issues with the present one.
The locked on handbrake definately needs looked at. Dragging a vehicle on locked wheels can't really be good for it. Anyway I hope this gets sorted and the owner ends up with the vehicle they wanted and paid for and valuable lessions get learned at JLR H.Q. P.S. I wonder if we will be seeing posts of a similar nature with the Grenadier when it is launched? Maybe if it is not as complicated they might be able to get 99.9% of the bugs out before it is launched. 1982 88" 2.25 diesel 1992 110 200tdi csw -Zikali 2008 110 2.4 tdci csw-Zulu 2011 110 2.4 tdci csw-Masai |
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23rd Sep 2021 10:40pm |
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| Tim in Scotland Member Since: 23 May 2007 Location: The Land that time forgot Posts: 3750 
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Spudfan, electronic park brakes have been around for years and so have their emergency release mechanisms, it wouldn’t have been beyond the wit of someone to have looked in a technical manual or contacted someone at the recovery company HQ to find out? It’s long been a problem recovering illegally/ dangerously parked Range Rovers to try and do it without using the “drag it up a ramp against its will and destroy the transmission” method and use the hydraulic lift method that will only set off the motion alarm if the car is locked. Often there is a wire pull release under the trim of the centre tunnel/ console or in the side trim panels in the boot, near to the fuel filler cover release.
I do agree that it is very poor that JLR no longer supplies a physical hard copy owner’s manual unless you are prepared to pay an absolute fortune for it and to have made the default a app (that surprisingly large numbers of people asking questions on other forums seem to be unaware of). I’m also surprised that someone taking a new model vehicle that few non-brand mechanics know the workings of didn’t take a hard copy manual with them or at least a downloaded one to use offline on a tablet or mobile phone The iGuide section regarding the transmission release is a complete waste of reading time too, maybe LR should edit it with explicit instructions like they used to in the old paper manuals for the other LR vehicles with EPB/ Transmission locks I’ve owned! Click image to enlarge Pangea Green D250 90 HSE with Air Suspension, Off-road Pack, Towing Pack, Black Contrast roof , rear recovery eyes, Front bash plate, Classic flaps all round, extended wheel arch kit and a few bits from PowerfulUK Expel Clear Gloss PPF to come 2020 D240 1st Edition in Pangea Green with Acorn interior. Now gone - old faithful, no mechanical issues whatsoever ever but the leaks and rattles all over the place won’t be missed! |
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24th Sep 2021 8:49am |
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