Indeed. I do have to say in four years of ownership had only had two "unplanned" visits and in both cases I could have waited and still drive my car, I'm just too OCD. Woohoo!

 

Thanks all, truly a crazy situation.

We seem to be making some progress with corporate....they contacted me for some very specific details (outside temperature at time of failure, climate control settings, etc) this afternoon and assured me that the case has been elevated to the executive level. I also got a rather sincere sounding apology and gift card offer (which I declined) from the roadside folks for the experience we had with that.

I still don’t have a loaner car. The dealership I purchased the vehicle from (NOT the dealer that has it for service) said to go ahead and rent a car and send them a bill; a nice gesture, but a bit of a pain. Corporate is also trying to sort a loaner/rental for me.

This is my 4th Rover over about 15 years. I’ve never been stranded by one before, and any services I’ve needed have been relatively painless. Especially when my older rovers were new-ish, I always received a Land Rover loaner car...typically of lesser model, unless I was due for a new vehicle, in which case my dealer would (smartly) put me into something I might be interested in purchasing next. I’ve also been driving Audis for about a decade....again, there’s never any been any question as to whether I’d have an Audi to drive if mine was in the shop for some reason. This current loaner car situation seems to be related to supply shortages, particularly with European/UK brands...the new inventory is selling faster than it can be produced, and there just aren’t many vehicles available to put into the service loaner program. Hopefully this won’t continue forever, and we will see service loaner availability come back to normal in the future.

 

Update -

I did end up getting a loaner car from the dealership after some further discussion with corporate...suddenly they had one available.

There has been no update specific to my vehicle since I dropped it off. Corporate most recently told me that the engineers and executives are reviewing both photos and videos sent in by the dealership techs in order to determine what the next steps should be. They are hoping to have some answers for me ‘by the end of the week’.

 

For the sake of closure for anyone still paying attention...

JLR has agreed to replace the vehicle, and we have located a similar unit in dealer stock. Surprisingly, the seemingly most difficult option to locate was off-road tires...go figure. It's almost exactly the same truck, with a few differences:

- Old one had 3 zone climate control, new one doesn't (not a big deal, only my 2 year old really rides in the back, and it still has heated rear seats)
- Old one had the 11 speaker Meridian sound system, this one just has the standard one (this is the thing I'm most concerned about at the moment)
- Old one had ebony morzine headliner, this one does not (kind of bummed about this, but the lighter color does make the cabin feel more open)
- New truck has a tow hitch and plug, old one did not (score!)
- New truck has the black contrast roof, old one did not (I suppose this is cool, because it has the black pack and black wheels...and fortunately its not very sunny where I live)

Overall, sticker price of the new vehicle is just slightly higher than the old one, but very comparable.

Hopefully the standard stereo isn't absolutely terrible...I'm coming from an A6 with B&O (and an LR3 with HK) and I never expected even the Meridian to be as good as that, but this will be the first vehicle I've ever owned with a 'standard' stereo. Addition of the tow hitch is a big bonus for carting mountain bikes around, so I guess it's a decent trade for the stereo (at least that's what I keep telling myself). I'm only leasing this one anyway, to determine if the Defender will become my next long term truck purchase, so I can probably live with it for the fairly short period of time I'll have the vehicle.

I don't have a timeline for when I will receive the new vehicle just yet, but my guess is that it should happen within a week or so...the new vehicle is only about 6 hours away from me, and I'm sure the dealership would like to have their loaner car back. Here's hoping this one makes it more than ~300 miles before anything breaks.

 

Well...At least LRJ stepped up and took care of you.

 

Did you buy off the lot or factory order the first one?

 

I picked a unit off the lot, but I did drive ~3.5 hours away for the specific vehicle. Like I mentioned, this is sort of a 'tester' vehicle for me...if I like the Defender half as much as I loved my LR3(s) after the lease is up, I'll purchase one to keep long term (10+ years). That's when I'll really care about making sure the vehicle has every single thing that I want/need.

 

Did they offer to give you a new vehicle initially or did you have to push for that?

 

At first, it seemed like they just wanted to fix the vehicle. I pointed out that it was a potential health hazard, that I didn’t feel safe putting my child back into that vehicle, and that I thought they should replace it with a new one. There wasn’t much back and forth after I made the suggestion; it seems like it just took a couple of days for the request to make its way through the necessary channels and be approved. They did review both photos and video of the vehicle sent in by the dealership techs as well. I’m assuming this particular case was a ‘better safe than sorry’ scenario for them.

They also offered me the opportunity to custom build a vehicle for June delivery (I guess they were going to allow me to modify an existing build slot?), but that just doesn’t make sense for my current situation. When I let them know, and suggested a specific vehicle, they made it happen for me. I’m not sure if this is how it would go for everyone (we have a personal friend with the brand, and my wife works for another luxury manufacturer), but I will say that I’m satisfied with their response and desire to make things right.

 

Glad to hear you are happy with their solution.