"WHAT CAR?" SURVEY:-

" The Land Rover Range Rover is one of the UK’s least reliable cars, according to a new report.

Some 18,284 motorists who own cars less than four years old were surveyed for the What Car? research.

A reliability rating of up to 100% was awarded to 159 models, taking into account the cost of repairs and how long they were off the road after suffering faults.

Japanese models continue to dominate the top of the reliability rankings, both for car model and brand rankings

What Car?
The Land Rover brand occupied three of the bottom five places on the ranking.

This includes the Range Rover (67%), Range Rover Evoque (73%) and Discovery Sport (75%).

The lowest ranked car was the Tesla Model S with just 51%.

A rating of 100% was given to the Toyota Yaris, Suzuki Sx4 S-Cross and Nissan Leaf (2011-2017).

What Car? editor Steve Huntingford said: “Reliability is a huge consideration for any prospective car buyer, as your car is likely to be your second biggest monthly expense after mortgage or rent payments.

“You want your car to last and you don’t want to have to fork out huge amounts to fix faults and keep it running.

“Our annual survey has shown that it is Japanese models that continue to dominate the top of the reliability rankings, both for car model and brand rankings.”

A Jaguar Land Rover spokesman said: “’Quality is our number one priority at Jaguar Land Rover. We are dedicated to delivering the finest vehicles to our customers, therefore we are disappointed with these results.

“We will learn from this data, we have instigated a number of quality measures and product updates in our business that have led to improvements in our award-winning vehicles.

“These new systems and customer focus will lead to improved vehicle quality and customer satisfaction going forward.”

Who Knew ?

https://www.whatcar.com/news/reliability-survey-2018/

I've looked at these surveys before and they aren't representative. The sort of person that buys a Toyota Yaris or a Nissan Leaf regards reliability as does it start, does it go, does it stop. They will ignore the niggly things like leaking door seals, wind noise, strange noises, etc that someone who has bought a Range Rover wouldn't put up with. It's always the cheaper cars that come out on top as people accept that the car was cheap so isn't going to be perfect. Although I did see an L405 with the rear 3/4 panel held on with parcel tape the other day.

Amused that the Tesla came out bottom though.......

Gilbertd wrote:

Amused that the Tesla came out bottom though.......

Not just bottom, but a long way behind everyone else by the looks of things too. Mind you even if it was in working order, you'd still be dissappointed with the at home charging option - if it takes the quoted 52 hours charging from flat, thats an awful lot of electricity going back into it, suggesting its not anywhere near as efficient as they try to make out.

Ah but that's if you plug it in to a standard 13A socket, if you have their charging station installed, it only takes 9 hours for a full charge. What they don't tell you is that you have to have a 3 phase supply installed in your house to power it. Like that's going to be possible in a modern housing estate.

Has anyone else noticed the irony of the ads encouraging people to have a smart meter installed so you can identify where you are wasting electricity and switch stuff off and the fact that they have announced a ban on the sale of halogen replacement lamps now LED technology has caught up, again to save electricity. Then they try to encourage people to buy an electric car.......

Yes Gilbertd I did not really expect it to be very representative with only 18K motors but JLR seem to have taken note.....
but I doubt they care....

I don't think LR expected so many P38s to survive this long ... What would have happened without Fora like this, folks cracking TestBook and EAS software and the like ? (They would all now be beyond economic repair & scrapped of course)..

As for electric cars I suspect the(ir) plan is to get everyone to buy one and then tell them they have to pay to upgrade the mains distribution network in the street (as well as paying Car Tax by then...); No petrol cars by 2040 !! Hilarious.....

Gilbertd wrote:

Ah but that's if you plug it in to a standard 13A socket, if you have their charging station installed, it only takes 9 hours for a full charge. What they don't tell you is that you have to have a 3 phase supply installed in your house to power it. Like that's going to be possible in a modern housing estate.

Has anyone else noticed the irony of the ads encouraging people to have a smart meter installed so you can identify where you are wasting electricity and switch stuff off and the fact that they have announced a ban on the sale of halogen replacement lamps now LED technology has caught up, again to save electricity. Then they try to encourage people to buy an electric car.......

The smart meter is as much about making the supply more complicated to understand - when you look into it, part of what they are supposed to allow doing is variable pricing by time of day, which will end up like Uber and their surge pricing.

And yes, not only the 3 phase aspect there, but would buying into their system even be wise given how unstable the company appears?

7kw Max for single phase, you really can't change the laws of physics. If rural broadband caused a ballache, three phase charging in the countryside is going to be a nightmare!

I’m led to believe it’s the EU that have banned halogen bulbs, as were leaving why are we still listening to there crap.
On the up side, swmbo came in with a carrier bag full of bulbs, 20p per pack, joy of working for a large supermarket chain.. 😁
So I won’t be worried if a bulb goes for a while, on the led front, I bought a fridge bulb, wasn’t cheap, had a hell of a job to get it to work, only lasted 3 months till it died, at nearly 4 quid I won’t be using again, 2 for 79p (normal bulbs) in home bargains, so guess which I’ll be using in the future, lol.
As for electric cars, no comment, but it’s got my brain whirring, a Toyota that looks like an hybrid, but with a v8 under the hood 🤫

The incandescent bulb issue is a Global phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs

The theory is a typical incandescent bulb lasts 2 years, LED perhaps 15-20 years (with less consumption of course)
.
When the first (expensive) tiny florescent bulbs arrived some years back I found they did not last long at all so I started to collect the receipts, leading to some 'interesting conversations' when I returned them within a 12-month period.....!

Just like the inevitable Car Tax on Electric Vehicles if/when we all change to LEDs the Electricity Utilities will find ways to maintain their profits and Smart Meters / Variable Pricing are part of that strategy too. As it always involves the usual 'Supply/Demand' Model all the excuses to raise prices (regardless) will not change much either.

Suppose I could convert my P38 though: At least Electric Motors have "one moving part"... apparently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGjOY4JBmy4

Seems to help the reliability issues too !

Will Landrover ever learn?
Not surprised at all by the survey results, only really news about the newer models
Most of us here already know about the " problems" but maybe we all buy old land-rovers because we like the adventure, the passion, the enjoyment of fixing our own cars, the bond?
Quick opinion of my car history, usual selection of bangers, then:
Suzuki SJ, rugged, reliable, cheap, uncomfortable, noisy, rusted out
Suzuki Vitara, Nice to drive, 200K on the clock, a bit girly
LR Freelander Petrol, The most expensive car I ever purchased! Nice to drive, great for family, everything seemed quality, one of my favourite cars, reliability an absolute nightmare, head gaskets a service item, clutch hydraulics, drive train, ABS, even the Japanese electrics all rubbish! Sold it on EBAY for scrap! Broke my heart and wallet LR dealers in denial about everything
Nissan X-Trail 2L Petrol, Reliable, comfy, practical, I drove 60K not a hiccup, but made from cheap materials, very boring…..
What to get next?
After looking at rusted out or high mileage Discovery’s and then RR L322s with lots of faults, well I stumbled upon…
RR P38s, instant car match, ticked all the boxes, cheap to buy, cheap to run 34MPG diesel manual, practical, comfy, easy to get parts for and work on nice to drive, slightly complicated suspension and electrics but lots of knowledge out there, fingers crossed on reliability☺
So then, a twenty year car with a few odd quirks and niggly problems is my perfect car am I mad?, maybe it’s just me? But you are reading this so it’s probably you as well!
Will Landrover learn from any of this? Probably not, Landrover are a premium brand (don’t laugh), people like us (?) on forums are enthusiasts
The sad thing is I had the money to purchase a new car, would not even go close to a Landrover dealer, our other car is a VW
Thanks for sticking with this rant
Whiskey

At least they're staying somewhat true to their roots in producing a genuinely capable offroader in the Full Fat - even if going off road isn't the point any more. The last great Jeep was the XJ and that finished in 2001. Everything since then has either been a shopping trolley or something that you'd half expect to be driven by Siegfried & Roy.

The cheaper, "reliable" cars that are often bought by retirees or to be used as grocery getters will usually do far fewer miles and not be worked as hard as the larger, more expensive and "unreliable" ones that are likely bought by companies as company cars for their employees to plough up and down motorways endlessly.

Morat wrote:

The last great Jeep was the XJ and that finished in 2001. Everything since then has either been a shopping trolley or something that you'd half expect to be driven by Siegfried & Roy.

The Wrangler Rubicon looks to be a pretty damn good bit of kit. I've been following a YouTube channel recently where a husband and wife have bought one and are doing all sorts of serious offroading in it - things I never thought would be possible for a standard/near standard vehicle of any kind.

Well yes it is, although the XJ has it beaten on Approach Angle (38 vs 35 Degrees) Departure Angle (31 vs 28 Degress) and for Breakover Angle it's a wash with 21 degrees for the XJ and 18 for the 4 door and 22 for the two door Rubi.

The Rubicon does have locking axles and beefier diffs - but the Rubicon weighs as much as a P38 so it needs the beef! XJ is about 1500kg and does fine on stock axles unless you're a moron and/or have 32"+ tyres. Locking diffs are a nice addition, but you can add them to an XJ too.

Not sure if this is about Reliability, Electric cars... or both:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/dyson-plans-premium-electric-car-2020/

Now will building them in SINGAPORE. Wonder if like the 'bladeless' (the're in the stand) fan he will call them 'motorless' - because it's under the bonnet ? Hope they are better quality than his other stuff then and not three times the price of (equally capable) equivalents too....

Do you think he knows (or cares) that you can B/S ladies into buying overpriced vacuum cleaners/hair driers/fans but that men buy the cars ?!?

Don't think this will help much either:

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/10/changes-to-electric-and-hybrid-car-grant-means-owners-will-pay-more/

Wait ! here's the answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai

'Only' £60K (and only 10 filling stations in the UK) too; Buy one soon and don't forget to claim that £3.5K 'grant' back from the Government !
Don't forget new Petrol/Diesel cars will be banned here from 2032..../rant off

Whiskey how on earth do you get 34mpg? You need to teach me your tricks! Hahahaha

I have just done 750 miles@ 60mph and got 27.7 mpg average. It is an auto doozle mind you.

Re smart meters - remote disconnect is also built in. IIRC 63amp breaker, my mate is industrial sparky.
I also heard that we will never be able to do variable spot tariff swaps as they only send data in arrears ( best is 30 minute intervals apparently ) as the Comms networks can't take an the live traffic.

If anyone knows different please update as my info is probably 4 years old now.

Mine is a dumb meter, I removed the sim

I've not heard of anyone manage to get close to 30 mpg from a diesel no matter how carefully they drive it.. The guy I bought my Classic LSE from replaced it with a P38 DSE and never got better than 24 mpg. He'd got so used to the power of a 4.2 litre V8 on LPG doing about 15mpg but with the cost equivalent of twice that, he found he was thrashing the DSE mercilessly to try to achieve the same performance so it was costing him more to run.

Mukiwa, yes indeed the whole Smart Metering market is in a mess, not helped by their claiming that having a Smart Meter would "save you money", which was why their ads. stating this were pulled - but at one time they said they planned for everyone to have such a meter by 2020 (at a cost of - £17bn...) Similarly with 'Variable Time Pricing', being removed/re-considered but I could see it all coming back with Electric Cars - if they were popular enough - (and they would just make you have a web connection rather than mobile one to get around the Data Traffic problems - Currently (sorry) Smart Meter communications is quite limited.)

It is all rather academic though, I seriously doubt substations/infrastructure could carry the extra demand if (say) 20% of a road actually had EVs with fast(er) charging... Had a chat with a man in a hole the other day who showed me the state of 80-year-old cables. He was adding a second phase to a house due to demand (at a cost of £2k + £500 to the Council to suspend parking spaces for 5 days to do the job....etc)

Yet still new diesels/petrol are to be banned from 2032..... any bets that it still won't have happened by 2042 ?

davew wrote:

Yet still new diesels/petrol are to be banned from 2032..... any bets that it still won't have happened by 2042 ?

I'd be willing to put £100 on it not happening. A recent article in the Institute of Engineers and Technologists magazine said that the power infrastructure will collapse by 2025 if take up of EVs is even close to the Governments figures. Amuses me that they are plugging smart meters and saving electricity to reduce the CO2 released into the atmosphere but at the same time encouraging people to use a lot more......

I found that my dse liked 75-80, it seems to be a speed where the engine was happy, no drop when you got to slight uphills.
And the same mpg as you got poodling along.
But being honest, I wouldn’t get another dse, that one was a bargain buy, I let my other half get used to size, and she’d never driven auto, now she’s always pinching my car over her Clio.
It’s nice to have the V8 burbling away, and go like a scalded cat when you need it.
And of course running lpg makes it no more expensive than the dse

So Mr. Dyson sees a huge market in the far east? Of the three countries I have the most experience of, not one of them has a reliable power source, with failures and blackouts bring regular occurrences.

Although could a half charged Dyson backfeed into the house? Then it may be of some use!