I am back, a little later than anticipated and absolutely furious with the Rover car company!

I had Rovers when I lived in the UK and loved them, so I was quite happy when my fishing buddy bought a Range Rover and suggested we went to Exmouth taking my boat there with us. It isn’t a new one – a ‘97 model I think – but in lovely condition.

One morning as we were towing the boat, something suddenly felt strange in the suspension and then the car just bottomed out. We were towing the boat and the car was so low, we had to get a trolly jack to get it off the tow hitch. It was obvious that the part of the computer that manages the pneumatic suspension had karked it and so we had no suspension what-so-ever. We took the car to an auto electrician and asked him if he could do anything for us but he wasn’t very enthusiastic. Rover will not allow him to have the software that will allow him to get into the on-board computers on Rover cars. He said that he would ‘phone around and see if he could do anything. The dealer he contacted in Perth told him that he couldn’t have the software and that he should get the car to them and they would fix it. Get a car with no suspension the 1300kms they were away? Yeah, right! We contacted a transport company to enquire about the prices of back loading the car and the boat. $1,600 for the car and $2,400 for the boat! It was obvious that neither Rover or the trucking company were going to do us any favours, so John came home to try and organise things from this end.

In the mean time I sat and thought about the possible cause of the problem and I was sure that I had worked it out, but I didn’t know how to do what might be necessary. I went back to the auto electrician and discovered that he had come to the same conclusion, but he figured that he could jury-rig the system so that the car could be driven. I left him to it and when I went back a couple of hours later it was obvious that there was air in the system. The car wasn’t very level but after a test drive I found that it wasn’t bottoming out and that a drive home was looking feasable. I decided to leave it over night and if the air held, I would put the boat onto the back and test drive that too. That was also successful, so yesterday morning at 5:30am I set off for home. I had never done that drive on my own before and I wasn’t really cheerful about doing so when I had a car in that condition.

I soon realised that although the car no longer bottomed out, I didn’t have what you would call a suspension. The car was simply resting on a big air bag, and it was rather like those big rubber ball things that kids used to bounce around on. The short steep bumps weren’t too much of a problem, but those smooth undulations almost undiscernable in a car with prober suspension were a nightmare and made the car difficult to keep on the road. Unfortunately there are a lot of them in the 1300kms between Exmouth and here. By the time I got here, over 14 hours after leaving Exmouth, I was totally exhausted and could hardly move.

To think that the policy of a car manufacturer can allow people in a country as thinly populated with such vast distances between towns to own theior cars and yet deny them the facilities to have problems serviced is disgusting and I will never miss an opportunity to warn people about Rover or any other company who utilise similar opportunities to force people to go to their dealerships which might be hundreds or thousands of kms away. However I think perhaps that it will not be necessary with Rover because they have folded haven’t they?

Incidentally, while asking about the problem today, I discovered that the problem is a common one on that car and the whole suspension system was abandoned. In fact a proper suspension system can be bought and fitted to the car in place of the pneumatic one. Rover know that, and yet they stll abandon their customers in that way.

The reality is, LR refuse to sell/give extended warranty (after three years new car warranty)for both new and used cars. If it fears to lose money on warranty it’s own products, well, it speaks out itself!

…. everyone… you wont belive this now. but the international space stations toilet will break!

…SERIOUSLY…. i wonder if jaguar/landrovers customer service gets better.. or worse?
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