Checking the MoT history on our recently acquired P38, at the bottom of the page I noticed it was shown as having an outstanding safety recall. Thinking I would take it down to the LR main dealer once it was on the road, out of interest I checked mine to find the same thing. Both are '98 4.0 litre cars but when I checked the Ascot (a 96, 4.6HSE), it wasn't shown as having one.

Thinking that if this was something serious enough to warrant a recall, I'd better get it done so went to the LR main dealer yesterday. If nothing else it would be amusing to be booking in a 26 year old car into a main dealer for work to be done. Spoke to the service man who looked it up on his system and it showed my car had safety recall D255 outstanding. However, when he clicked on the link, which should have bought up the document showing what needed doing on the car, it said there was no document attached. Gave him the registration number of the new one and that also has D255 recall outstanding. He was that impressed with the idea of a 26 year old car with over half a million miles on it, he left his marble floored showroom full of brand new cars to come outside and have a look at it. He agrees with me that none of the ones currently in the showroom will last that long and said that they currently have 80 broken down new ones, most of which have been towed in, that are waiting for work to be carried out on them!

Back home I realised that I have the full service history from the LR system for the Ascot so checked that to see if there was any mention of it ever having had recall D255 done to it but there wasn't. So the question is, what is it that should have been done to 2 out of 3 of my cars that hasn't?

Could it be the airbags? Theres a massive industry wide recall for 90s/00s cars with Takata airbags. The "explosive" inside changes with heat/age and instead of releasing gas they literally explode and send shrapnel flying. A few folk have been killed from the shrapnel.

Audi replaced the airbag in my 2000 model year A4 last year for the same reason. Theres apparently 100s of millions of these airbags out there.

Both my 1998 P38's shop as having an outstanding recall, but the gov mot site doesn't show any recall number ?

On another Gov page that searches recalls by car model & year it shows cooling system issue ?.

1998 Range Rover

Concern:
Cooling System Leaks

Defect:
There is a possibility of premature failure of the cooling system hoses and throttle body heater gasket. Expelled coolant allowed to remain on hot engine components can result in the evaporation of the water content and leave an artificially high concentration level of anti - freeze which is in extreme circumstances both corrosive and inflammable.

Remedy:
Recall affected vehicles to replace cooling system hoses / throttle body heater gasket with quality assured parts.

That would make sense, we all know that the throttle body heater starts to leak after a while. I also thought maybe airbags as the other half's Merc has had a recall for a replacement driver's airbag but the guy I was speaking to at LR checked with a colleague to be told that serious, safety related recalls never expire whereas others do after a certain period. If it is the cooling system one, which seems most likely, then it has probably expired as they realise we'll all have found it by now.....

I wonder how many of the 17,603 affected cars actually had the work done? The 96 and 97 ones both had a recall for airbags but not the 98, so presumably they changed supplier for 98 model year.

Out of curiosity, I checked the german vehicle register offices website to check which recalls are notes there for a Land Rover Range Rover 1998 Model and it only lists recall D156, which is that "cracks in the petrol tank can lead to loss of petrol" (only Petrol models, 1993-1998, Discovery and Range Rover, 384 cars in Germany).
Where would these cracks be, has anyone heard of this ?

That one comes up on the UK site for a 1996 Range Rover https://www.check-vehicle-recalls.service.gov.uk/recall-type/vehicle/make/LAND%20ROVER/model/RANGE%20ROVER/year/1996/recalls

Looks like it is cracks at the plastic welds.