I got a call back from the service rep here at the Houston LR dealer and he told me that he had faxed my warranty claim to the National office to see if they would authorize my re-repair. He also said that they could fix my torn up O2 sensor and faulty exhaust pipe gasket leak but I would have to pay and get reimbursed from the dealer in NM. I asked him if he had spoken with the dealer in NM who had assured me that my repair issues would be taken care of and he said that he had spoken with him yesterday late and the guy was sort of rude and not very helpful. All of this did not make much sense so I phoned up a service rep in Atlanta at the Gwinett dealer who I had dealt with in the past and asked his opinion of what I was going through. He said it was ridiculous and that this was a warranty repair and that gaskets and seals were not excluded and any re-repair would be covered. He said my other issues caused by the work should be covered as a labor warranty issue an the dealer in NM might have to supply the parts. Both the guy in NM and Atlanta said I really needed to talk to the local service manager and get him working with his counterpart in NM.

I got in my other car and drove straight to the dealer (15 miles away or so) and asked to see the service manager and was informed that he was out for an hour or so and would I care to see the General Manager. I agreed and met with him and explained my issue. He was visibly upset at my lack of service encountered and immediate took me to see my service rep there who looked like a deer in the headlights when we walked up. The GM instructed my rep to get with the SM when he returned and get on the phone to NM and get this all straightened out. He assured me I would have a call back in about 2 hour.

I appreciated his help but it is sad that I had to go to the trouble to go over there and go to the man at the top to solve this issue. I am waiting to hear back on what the outcome is but will advise later.

 

Good luck with it, and by all means: the thing you're paying extra for is the luxury of calling LRNA when you can't get the 2 dealers to cooperated, so if the GM's intervention proves not to be enough, call them up.

Tape the call; we like listening to "people at corporate" getting read off. :-)

 

tell them you will forget it all if they get you an LR4 and start lobbying congress to lax the restrictions on imports thru customs

 

Just got a call from the service manager at the local Houston dealer. He informed me that they would be happy to repair my car free of any charges. He said the only hangup was that the service rep in New Mexico said he wanted to overnight the parts instead of paying the Houston shop for their parts so it will be tomorrow afternoon before he can start the repair. The parts being sent from NM are a rear O2 sensor and new exhaust flange gaskets so we aren't even talking about expensive parts!

And it turns out that the seals on the transfer case are not leaking but one of the RTV sealed plates is leaking so there was really no part involved, it's more of a labor issue. I personally don't like RTV cement and have always had better luck with paper or cork gaskets and copper based gasket cement!

It just seems stupid that a customer would have to resort to this to get the job done. I mean, these guys sell cars that routinely go for $50,000 to $90,000! Do they get the same level of service? Very sad...

 

Cant they use their parts and just put the parts that come from New Mexico in their stock?

 

No! What if that other dealer reneged? We are talking one O2 sensor here and one or two exhaust gaskets! Millions of dollar in parts!

And isn't it funny that the guys in NM would pay overnight shipping charges rather then just trade parts with the guys here in Houston?

Is this like some kind of Rocket Science???

 

Wow, what a huge mess.
It should not have been such a issue.
I understand that they are all independent dealerships but damn man.
And pay for overnight shipping? That alone is going to be $40 easy.
I am glad that it is getting covered but it really sucks that you had to put so much work into it.
It should have been a "I had repairs..."
"No problem let us look..."
They look for free.
"Show us the receipt and we will fix it."

 

You gloss, here, over a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

My Disco, as a daily driver, is replacing my last DD, which was a 1987 BMW 635. We had the same sort of problem, but in the opposite direction: the dealer tended to want to treat everyone as if they'd paid $40-60k for the car... but lots of classic e24's change hands in the $3-10k range. What you think reasonable to pay for car repairs and parts is different if you bought the car for $3000 than if you paid $75,000 for it.

Worse, though: the dealers tend to *treat* you differently in that case, and -- in the long run -- I think that's amazingly short sighted. Someone who's willing to put up with the hassles of a used car just to join your marque seems like they'd be a good customer to encourage, rather than spurn, don't you think?

(Hint: if you work at -- or better, run -- an LR dealer service shop, I'm talking to you. And if you do, and you're not here reading this... why the hell not?)

 

Glad to report that this story finally has a happy ending.

Picked up my Disco from the local dealer at 5 pm on Friday. There were no charges for me but I had to sign some papers so they could get the warranty to cover their labor costs. The ticket said the total was costs for labor were $460. They installed the new O2 sensor, reset the OBDII, installed 6 new exhaust studs, nuts and 2 gaskets. Wow all of that for a mere $460!

The best thing is they did a really good car wash and got all the dirt and dust from my New Mexico trip off. They even vacuumed the carpets and Armoralled my tires!