Hi All,

Just been to a garage which I won't name and they have quote me £5,000 plus VAT after inspecting my vehicle (2001) with 117,000 on the clock.

1. Radiator top hose leaking
2. Gearbox Cooler Pipe Leaking
3. Front Radius arm bushes worn to excess
4. Passenger side front axle top and bottom swivel ball joints worn to excess
   5.Exhuast down pipe flexi joint rusted and hanging off
5. Rear exhaust hitting chassis
6. Driver rear wheel hub leaking oil
7. Air suspension leaking
8. Front brake new on one side and not on the other. Rear brake carrier changed but not caliper
9. Front airbag badly perished
10. Steering drop arm ball joint worn to excess
11. Heigh sensor out of range
12. Engine has exhaust emissions in cooling system.

My questions are:

1. Is 5k a fair quote? What is the rough cost of parts vs labour?
2. Are any of these serious enough to not drive the car?
3. Should calipers be replaced in pairs?
4. Engine has had head skimmed, could the engine exhaust fumes be related to when the head gasket went? Is there any tests I can do?
5. What priority would people say these need to be done?
6. Which would fail an MOT?

A friend has suggested waiting until Feb when the MOT is due and then addressing those that fail.

Having paid good money for the car in September, I was shocked by this estimate! It is more than the car is worth?

Thanks in advance,

Tom

I think no 12 has the most potential for expensive repair and is the one I'd investigate (or have investigated) first. It could very well be related to Head Gasket woes and if the coolant hasn't been flushed since the HG change then I guess the coolant test could still show a leak. A pressure test on the coolant system would tell you if there's still a leak. If not, you're good to go - although I'd get the coolant flushed and replaced.

The rest is pretty standard stuff. The balljoints and radius arm bushes can be a pig without the correct tools but there are hardy souls on here who have DIYd them.

Don't get your leg lifted for EAS faults, even I can replace a height sensor and a leak could just be a pipe that hasn't been installed properly or some old, dry O rings.

I don't understand point 10. Is that a new drag link? or do they mean the Pitman arm?

It sounds like a long list and it's bad luck that they're all coming at once - I'd question the acutal state of the some of the "worn" items if you we happy test-driving the car a few months ago. P38s need their undercarriage to be in good nick or they can become quite a handful. But, click on my username and you'll see what I've had replaced on my 2001 which came with 97k and now shows about 135k

1. Tighten the clip then
2. They often do, or, more likely, an engine oil leak is dripping onto the cooler pipe so it looks like it is leaking when it isn't.
3. Is it impossible to drive it in a straight line? If so, they are worn to excess, otherwise they may need changing in the next 20,000 miles or so.
4. Might need doing for the next MoT but most testers don't know how to check them so don't notice it.
5. It doesn't, or shouldn't, have a flexi joint. Can you hear an exhaust blow?
6. Oil seal, under a tenner, fitting time, under an hour.
7. and how do they know? If the can tell it is leaking, I would have expected them to tell you where from.
8. So? Someone has replaced a faulty calliper, do the brakes pull, if not, not worth mentioning. Carrier replaced almost certainly because the pin had seized but there's no reason to replace the calliper too.
9. Does it leak? If so, it needs replacing, if not, put it on the to-do list.
10. I assume that is the ball joint on the end of the drag link that attaches to the pitman arm. If so and it is bad, replace the drag link, not expensive.
11. Unless the EAS has gone into hard fault and dropped to the bumpstops, they've interrogated the EAS ECU and found a historic fault.
12. Does it pressurise the cooling system, spit all the coolant out and overheat? If no, it's BS.

In fact, I'd say most of it is BS because if it is as bad as they make out it will be almost impossible to drive or stop in a straight line. I reminds me very much of the MoT failure certificate I got with the Ascot when I bought that, it ran to 2 pages of faults. Most of them had appeared on the failures the previous year too. Every year the previous owner had taken it into the garage for the MoT, they'd failed it then charged him an arm and at least one leg to fix the faults and pass it. But it backfired on them and he decided to sell it as it was and cut his losses. I drove it home and it passed the MoT two days later. If I remember right, you're near London somewhere, wasn't a garage in the Battersea area by any chance was it?

Gilbertd..... that was one of the better replies to a post on this site.... it should be a sticky......

No5, there is a flexi as such on the exhaust manifold, as morat says, get a test done on the engine, the rest are doable if your mechanicly minded, nothing that we haven’t encountered before..it’s near on 20 yrs old , so gonna need some tlc, then your good for the next 20yrs..

TKing - I'm just posting to offer moral support!

I was in a vaguely similar position just a few months ago. I'd bought a year 2000 car for £1000, drove it for 5 or 6 months and then really started looking at it as the next MOT loomed.

I had to rebuild much of the front axle because ALL of the balljoints were completely gone, and one of my calipers was more or less jammed on. This wasn't really news I wanted. I'd go as far as to say that I wouldn't have stuck with it without the advice and support I got here - a wealth of expertise, readily offerred.

I think a lot will depend on your circumstances - time, tools, facilities etc but as they real experts have said above, there's not a lot there that can't be done relatively easily.

One thing I would advise is to get the hang of posting pics on this site - that makes things more effective for you, as it allows others to offer much more focussed advice (no pun intended!)

They can be pricey to fix, but what a car to drive. Love it

On point 12...

An old guy once came to me with a P38 that he'd just paid a firm the best part of £3k to change head gaskets on because they'd done a sniffer test, found HC's in the coolant and the cooling system was being over-pressurised. But after they'd replaced the HG's the same thing still happened.

It had been converted to LPG, in fact the firm who diagnosed failed head gaskets was the same firm that had fitted the LPG system. They had incorrectly diagnosed HG's, I found the real problem was the LPG pressure reducer had a fault that caused the cooling system to be pressurised with LPG. They'd charged him the best part of £3k for unneccessary work that didn't fix the real problem, I fixed the real problem by fixing the LPG reducer for around £100.

Interesting! I didn't think of that!

It seems to be the in thing with mot garages,Land Rover Oh we can make a killing here,
I put a Disco 2 into a garage and had several fails,one of which was dangerous accessory side bars not genuine parts,also the brackets holding are in a dangerous condition.
The side steps were dealer fitted and the dangerous bracket was the plastic coating had come adrift and was hanging down .
When I pointed out that several of the faults listed were not even mot items,I was told that it was none of my business as to what they chose to fail it on.
I them informed them that I would lodge an appeal they refused to give me an appeal form( illegal action) took the vehicle to a friends mot garage and they found only one of the items listed warranted attenbtion but not a fail.
Got the appeal form and the official tester said none of the faults listed were genuine and action would be taken.
For the next month they did not do mots,so you can sort out the crooks.

Regarding question 4, I'd also wonder if the HC test is valid - Do you know they replaced the coolant when the skimming was done (not taken it out and put it back in after maybe?). It somewhat ties in to Richard's point about does it pressurise the cooling system really at the same time.

My local garage have just replaced the steering tie bar and top and bottom ball joints on both sides.Total cost Parts and Labour £300
Which knowing the difficulty of the ball joint replacement is good value,too bloody old to do it myself.

sarfarm wrote:

My local garage have just replaced the steering tie bar and top and bottom ball joints on both sides.Total cost Parts and Labour £300
Which knowing the difficulty of the ball joint replacement is good value,too bloody old to do it myself.

Sounds like you got a very good deal there to me. Good work on the MOT post above too, unfortunately some of the testers about seem to think they know what they are doing when they really don't.

Where did you buy this RR from?

Thank you all for your replies and words of encouragement!

To answer a few of the questions:

1. The car drives really well and in a straight line, perhaps then the bushes aren't as bad as stated

2. No exhaust blowing noise that I can hear

3. In terms of the EAS leaking, they said that the front right airbag would try and readjust as if there was a small leak whilst the others held their height. My Nanocom does show some funny reading on the front right so this could well be right

4. The system does pressurise and has been tested. I have been told that one of these head gasket temporary sealing kits such as this:

https://www.halfords.com/tools/garage-equipment/head-gasket-and-exhaust-repairs/steel-seal-head-gasket-repair-276185.html

Might this provide a temporary fix whilst I get it booked into the garage? Are there any downsides?

1. Sadly, I bought the car after the HG was completed and therefore don't have any of the details. Apparently, when they pressure tested the system they found exhaust gasses in the system at that time.

2. I bought the RR privately off carandclassic.co.uk. In hindsight, I should have purchased one from a member of this site. You live and learn.

Many thanks, everyone.

Tom

There's pressurising and over pressurising. When the engine gets hot the coolant expands so the system pressurises. When it cools down again, the pressure is gone. However, if combustion pressure is getting into the cooling system, it will pressurise when hot and remain so when it cools downs. That's your easy check, remove the coolant header tank cap and put it back on to ensure there is no residual pressure in there, squeeze the top hose to confirm no pressure, run it to normal temperature, squeeze the top hose to confirm it is pressurised, switch off and leave the car overnight. By morning, the top hose should be as it was before you started the engine.

If it still has pressure in it, you are getting pressurisation so take the spark plugs out and look at them. If any are cleaner than the others, they are being steam cleaned by coolant. If it is any of the end cylinders (numbers 1, 2, 7 and 8), it is head gasket, if any of the middle ones, it is leaking around a liner. In which case, the stuff you linked to will cure it. However, the active ingredient in Steel Seal is Sodium Silicate, also known as Water Glass and it's much cheaper to buy it without the pretty green dye https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sodium-silicate-Water-Glass-500-ml-Free-Post-in-UK/264718636840

Green dye really is snake oil then?

Not exactly "Snake Oil", usually more like mere Sodium Silicate with £30 "worth" of green dye added......?

The green dye might be more useful if you were trying to locate a leak, though if the sodium silicate did what its supposed to do, you'd have no leak there anymore. Its possibly slightly more useful in other applications in that respect. That said, a pressure tester usually will allow you to locate a water leak used correctly anyway.

I will have to admit.......I have had a bottle of "K Seal" circulating in Bolt since 23k miles and more than a year ago........
As it is now at 168k and I am starting to see the coolant doing it's "Drop about 25mm and stabilize".......
I suspect it is a minor head gasket leak and due to this stupid quarantine, I cannot get my workshop tools here from Hawaii!
Just by mileage, it seems it ~should~ be due to have a new HG fitted. No tools, no shop, and really cannot trust a garage.
Just keeping an eye on coolant for now. No sign of water in oil, oil in water, or pressurization. Running sweet!
The K seal worked well for me. I chose it as it seemed to have the least amount of "smoke and carbon nanofiber mirrors". (no snake oil) Just Sodium Silicate.
Basically, just try it! I mean.....What could possibly go wrong!? ;)
Cheers!