I just bought my DII and on the advice of several here (thanks DiscoMike) I rebuild the prop shaft this weekend.

This was a one owner truck that had everything done at the local dealership, and I could not believe what I found.

I could see on the propshaft side of the transmission where it had broken once before and made some light dents in the cover, it had a new propshaft still with the dealer sticker on it and no greaseable U's....WTF?

I just couldn't believe they would repalce it without the greasable u's, what a bunch of morons/thiefs!

 

They just used a oem part from Land Rover, which is non-greaseable shaft. That's a very 'dealership' move to make - selling a weak oem part instead of a superior aftermarket part.

That said, unless a vehicle is under warranty, it's never a good idea to have a dealership work on your car. They're always overpriced and often the techs are surprisingly bad at what they do.

 

Dealers don't install aftermarket replacement parts if OEM are available. LRNA warrants parts, not the dealer. If they installed an aftermarket part they couldn't get reimbursed by LRNA if there's a problem.

 

Well...I didn't mean to bag so hard on the dealers, it's just a shame really for owners that have to spend thousands on new transmissions, all the while paying thousands at the dealer if they get lucky the first time thinking they are doing everthing they can....what a bummer.

 

Land Rover has shown that they don't want to fix known issues with there older vehicles and I think there high prices are trying to push you away, not rip you off.

 

This is a more clear and less negative way to say what I was trying to say - it makes some sense that Land Rover installs oem parts, even if they are inferior. If they install an aftermarket part and it fails, I bet they would be in serious **** with LRNA.

Also, I didn't mean to be quite so harsh about dealership techs. Nobody's perfect, mis-diagnoses do happen, and it's not a tech's fault the dealership's prices are high.

 

Why would TaTa want to take care of a 14 year old Rover issue caused by either Ford or BMW? They are not responsible for any old screw ups.

 

And as each truck ages, it slips into the world of "I a'int never seen one of them" with younger dealer techs. Same way with Mercedes, you can by a 1990 one cheap, but at the dealer you end up paying for the on-the-job training the younger tech needs to get up to speed on the vehicle. Dealer won't be installing a 180F thermostat either without some arm twisting.

 

A Tech at the Carlsbad Dealership called my '01 a freelander. So I second Buzz's point.

 

Actually they would, that's the OEM thermostat setting, begin opening at 179. However, it might not be the soft spring Freelander/later DII thermostat.