So, I take the truck to the dealership to have a pre purchase inspection and the list of what they found was essentially, tie rods need replacing, control arm clunk at slow brake, recommended brake flush, serpentine belt, air filter and cabin filter replacement, unevenly worn tires and possibly needing rear upper knuckle bolts etc for alignment.


So, we purchase it and now take it to my indy shop to have a safety inspection done and they list: complete front and rear brakes (pads and rotors plus new backing plates for rear), inner tie rods, both rear sway bar links and needing 4 new tires plus alignment... for a total of 4-5 grand to get it safety'd!... and they weren't really keen on doing the work on it because it's not what they normally work on and will require specialty tools (?).


I finally managed to cut through the rhetoric by calling the dealership back and getting their techs measurements on the brake pads which, was well within spec, and then calling back my indy place and confront them on the issue... then the story changed a bit to the brakes not needing to be done right now but they would recommend we don't keep the truck.


So, I'm contacting a friend of mine that used to run an indy shop that does work out of his home garage so hopefully can get the work as it's needed.


I never would have thought the indy shop would end up being the bigger nightmare compared to the dealership... what a day!

 

You are probably fortunate the independent kind of turned you off.

He is probably good with simple vehicles and yes, once you get your "man" trained, you will worked out a good solution.

I have a good independent but I still have to provide a fair bit of input just to make certain the fix or the problem at hand starts out correctly.

These are tough vehicles to figure out; not all that tough to fix once you are heading in the right direction, but finding the real problem can take alot of patience and cooperation.

 

I don't know how much of a DIY'er you are, but some of these things are very easy DIY procedures. Others require getting a bit dirty, but all would probably be common if not necessary at around the 90,000 mile mark. Don't know how many miles your LR3 has. You can always order parts online and take them to your indy to have them installed to save some money. I can certainly recommend some places to get parts and for bushings/links/tie rods, I would highly recommend Lemforder who is the OEM for the Land Rover bushings.

Dealer:
1. Tie Rods - About $120-130 for Lemforder inner rods and rod ends for both sides (Lemforder are the OEM brand). These are pretty simple to do, but if you don't get under the truck, then you'd probably have to pay a mechanic 1-1.5 hours of labor or so.
2. Control Arm Clunk - These are about $250 per side for all new Lemforder arms, then I don't know... 2 hours of labor?
3. Tie Rod and control arm replacement necessitates an alignment - about $175 at dealer and I would only recommend an alignment at the dealer.
4. Serpentine belt - Fairly easy DIY - $40-50 plus $70 in tools to get the fan clutch off. Otherwise, easy and straightforward.
5. Air Filter - Very easy DIY - $30 and 15 mins of time
6. Cabin Filter - Very easy DIY - $20 and 3-4 minutes of time
7. Brake flush - Fairly easy DIY, but requires getting the wheels off and either having a bleeder or a helper to pump the pedal. $30 in fluid (I recommend Pentosin DOT4 LV fluid).

Indy:
1. Complete front and rear brakes - this is usually a lot due to the cost of rotors. I recommend going with the Land Rover rotors due to their anti-corrosion coatings. Pads are up to you though. Some run Textars, some Akebonos, some Ferodo... just depends on what you want. Not sure of cost at the shop because I do these myself, but it certainly takes a while (maybe 3 hours of labor?)
2. Inner tie rods - covered above...
3. Rear sway links - $45 total for Lemforder parts and should be a pretty easy DIY if you can get the car in the air on jack stands (unload the sway bar).