I took my 03 SE in for it's free 45,000 mile service, the dull knocking in the engine, and a laundry list of other things this morning.

Apparently you have 44 months to get the 45k service done, it's been 46 months for me so I'd have to pay for it: $300 to change the oil, accessory belt, and inspect everything. Or just $90 to change the oil.

I don't want to pay that and I want to make sure there isa paper trail should my motor die after warranty...here are my thoughts:

I could buy a LR oil filter from the dealer, and go buy oil somewhere else and change it myslelf, keeping the receipt to prove it.

What is LR's favorite oil - the one they are least likely to question should I have a problem.
Would notes in my maintainence log be sufficient to satisy the "inspection" part of the service?

Any other thoughts? Should I go ahead and do the engine flush, or wait 'til 50k?

 

Just my opinion, but I would have the dealer do the service. If you think there is a problem with your engine, I would rather pay $250 more to know that they couldn't come back and say the 45K service was not done correctly and your engine failed beacuse of that. Did they say anything about the knock?

 

They haven't looked at it yet - I told them to hold off on the service since any oil pump work would require an oil change.
The service guy said there are certain VINs that fall into the bad oil pump category.

And they gave me an LR3 to drive - it's fun, but the rear sunroof doesn't open.

 

For how many months are you able to get the 60 month? Anyone, ..Mike?

My '03 Disco II has 40K miles and I'd run in to the same thing as Aqua.

 

I wonder if you can get extended manufacturer's warranty - you should be able to, and it should cover you up to 75K / 6 yrs, with some deductible ($100 if I'm not mistaken), but your truck has to go through their 140-point inspection. I can give you some more details about the inspection if you want, but I'm sure you can get that from the dealer as well. I don't know how much it costs to buy this extended one, I bought my used '03 D2 with it from a dealership. Your scheduled maintenance has to be up to date obviously.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how good this warranty is. It probably covers things that can't break down anyway, and if something fails they will always find a reason to have you pay for the repair. I just had my own "laundry list" of little things that I brought my Rover to the dealership with, along with a scheduled 45K maintenance, they ended up replacing onecoolant hose and tightening some bolts on exhaust manifold plus some other little things, but I had to pay for everything. Obviously I could have done these things myself and saved myself couple hundreds, but I'm still too stupid for this.
Hopefully getting smarter as I age :-)

 

Don't play their game. First go read you owners manual, see what the terms are for your coverage. Then if need be call Rovers local zone office and ask to speak with the Service rep, tell them what is going on.
As for the noise have it written up on a warranty work order and tell them to fix it.
Let me know what happens.
Mike

 

I'm off to pick up the Disco, they had the shop foreman do the work on my truck:

Here's what they said:
Light knock at start up is normal.
Diver's seat is supposed to be loose, my slack is not unnormal.
...among other things.

 

The knock is not normal. You need to do two things to protect your self, have your dealer give you whatever paper work they have from Rover stating this is normal and you need to take it back one more time before going out of warranty and have them write it up for internal engine noise. You want to have a good paper trail to protect yourself.
Mike

 

I asked for paperwork from Land Rover stating that the engine knock and the seat being loose are normal and he said it would be with my documents I would get from the lady who gave me all my papers...but all that's there is the tech's comments about it being normal.

I'm going to follow up with him that I want to see something from land rover that says it's normal.

 

Spoke with LR today - turns out they only let the car sit for 2 hrs before doing a "cold start" so we're escalating the complaint, the tech at the dealer is being very helpful.