SLROC Forum

Spent the last two days driving down to Englandshire and back in a 4 yo Puma 110. It was quieter than my 300 Tdi by a long shot and faster - hard to stop it reaching 80 ( Its got a black-box that reports you ) but the build quality, yea gods. Paint peeling off the mirror arm, headlamp floating loose in a rusted out housing, vibrations and rattles aplenty - and an absolutely awful radio, crackling, hissing and losing reception - This in a motor that costs something close to the average UK salery to buy new. Just not good enough LR. 

Probably because it is built by humans and not robots like the rest of the range.............

Well must admit mine is a year older than the one Gene had and its had a few wee issues.
The hinges on the doors had to be changed, the vaccum pump was replaced last year and all the external bolts have been replaced as they became discoloured by rust.
Oh and the rear door window needs changed, the elements that feed the heated screen and the high level brake light corrode and fail.
The bolts were cosmetic.
I must admit I much prefer it to the TD5 in terms of comfort, power and most importantly the fuel costs.

On another issue I spoke with a lad down in Ayr who had just taken delivery of 2012 vehicle in July and he was so disappointed suffice to say that it was the worst vehicle he had ever had from LR and he had had 14 of them.

Poor engine performance, turbo hoses so thin the were caving in under load, chassis a lot lighter metal, and the bonnet dented when he pushed it down to lock the catch.

Maybe the 2.4TDCi was the last of a semi decent build quality

All this lightness figures - weight reduction is part of getting the CO2 emissions down. Evoque owners also report lots of dented bonnets when closing, the knack is just to left it drop onto the catch from 9-12" and then LIFT it to see if it is latched. Another problem for Evoque due to lightness seeking is rattles, hundreds of them. It seems every bit of electric wiring in the car is just laid in and not secured with clips (no clips, less weight) mine is one of the first off the line and I have only suffered one rattle that is proving impossible to get rid of and to make things worse is it is intermittent but is from the rear offside cabin trim and I suspect it is a wire for one of the 17 speakers in the car! Now that LR is rolling an Evoque off the production line every 29 seconds quality control isn't what it used to be when there was only one every 3 minutes! 

Missing out clips and stuff is not confined to LR.  My neighbour works in a dealership for a certain german marque.  The only reasonable way (this is after much head scratching by university trained engineers and mechanics with 30+yrs service) to stop wiring from rattling in the A pillar of a £35,000 car was to squirt expanding foam up from the glovebox !!

I think every manufacturer (possible except the Japanese ones) have sacrificed build quality to save costs. I know a VW specialist who said that the last properly built VW was the MK3 Golf. He was very scathing about modern ones, describing the components as expensive and nasty as opposed to just cheap and nasty!

....and I was told today that the LR failed its MOT last week "Big time". I'll try to find out from the MT bloke exactly what it failed on - nice to know it was "safe", having driven it Chester and back earlier in the month !