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Two year, 32,000 mile review (D300)

12K views 18 replies 10 participants last post by  Arianne 
#1 ·
Dear All,

Long time no posting! Arianne here with an honest, two year and 32,000 mile review of our Range Rover Velar, R-dynamic, D300 V6.

First, some background for those of you completely bewildered as to how we ended up retaining our Velar when, in early 2018, we had told JLR that the car was finally being rejected.

Background
As some of you may know, we took delivery of an F-pace in March 2017. It had a fault with the OSF half shaft resulting in a noise from the wheel due to the load of the 22" alloy wheel. JLR had no fix, no understanding of causation and our car was one of several on the forum with this symptom. Result: car rejected after a few weeks.

The dealer's courtesy car, another lovely F-pace on smaller alloys, needed to be handed back. Dealers take the financial hit on most rejections. Since JLR couldn't promise that a replacement F-pace would not suffer the same fault we chose to place an order for the then 'yet to be released' Velar.

In return for this brand loyalty, JLR Customer Services offered us a choice of their own courtesy cars and we opted for a wonderful XJ 3.0d V6 at no cost to ourselves other than the diesel in the tank. We even took it to Chamonix for our Summer holiday and JLR provided all the paperwork for foreign travel with their car. Meanwhile, the local dealer kindly matched all of the terms of our original deal (free service pack etc etc) for the new Velar order.

So far so good. Come September 2017, our Velar was delivered. Despite assurances that the shared production line of Velar and F-pace didn't mean shared problems....... our Velar had the same issue with the OSF wheel, albeit now on smaller 21" rims.

As you can imagine, the local dealer was incandescent. This time, JLR promised a fix. This was because they had isolated the issue on the Jaguars and had begun retrofitting a revised part which cured the problem. Unfortunately, the fix hadn't yet been approved for Velars. But I was promised that the part would be available once 'type approval' had been granted for the Velar and that this would all be resolved by the New Year, 2018. As a goodwill gesture, JLR offered a £2,000 payment at Xmas 2017 in return for our patience and agreement not to reject the Velar at that stage. As an aside, £2,000 cash became £2,000 in retail vouchers but, when we pointed out a few home truths at this opportunism, the local dealer waded in and issued their own £2,000 cheque to us. We left the dealer to then slug it out with JLR afterwards. How to almost snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, JLR CRC style. Thankfully, a good dealership brings common sense to these affairs.

When does the New Year officially end? I am unsure but I would suggest March 2018 doesn't any longer feel like New Year. So I contacted JLR and asked where my magic part was to rectify the noise from our Velar. Answer: they didn't know any more. My response: okay, we are rejecting the Velar. And just in case you are not taking me seriously, I will carpet bomb the upcoming launch of your new I-pace on your corporate social media sites. I waited until they had all gone home on Friday, carpet bombed the sites and then waited until they popped into work on the Monday. By 10am, Monday morning JLR had reached out to me and asked how we could correct this situation. That worked then.

From nowhere, the part was found and couriered to my dealership in Scotland. Even my dealer had no idea it was on its way. They managed to get the part to the dealer just in time. The part was fitted and, voila, the whole thing was over. Silence!

Unfortunately, despite victory I was exhausted. And so I checked out of the forums and fell silent. Sorry people. I am human too.

Well, my train is just coming into my home station so that's me. I will continue the much more happy tale of my ownership experience later this week. Felt I should set the record straight as it's been weighing on my mind for a while now. This thread, over the next week or so, will effect closure for me and then I will probably check-out again if that's okay.

Best wishes, Arianne
 

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#5 ·
Welcome back, Arianne! So glad to hear of the resolution and that you didn't end up having to reject. Looking forward to more good reads from you, my friend. I recently had my 2 year anniversary, and am still very pleased despite the few niggles along the way (all resolved).

- Jake
 
#7 ·
Okay folks, having got that emotional baggage out of the way, let's move on to happier times - the ownership experience after the initial spat with JLR.

We love our Velar. That's why we persevered so hard to avoid rejection. We have experienced no significant issues with the car whatsoever in the subsequent period. That's noteworthy for two reasons.

First, this is a JLR product. Read any review from the US and many from the U.K. (including AutoExpress) and they will stress the concern with reliability and build quality. Our experience is that our Velar has been reliable and rewarding to own.

Secondly, by comparison with our ownership experience of a Volvo XC60 and XC90, our Velar wins outright. Our XC60, a 2014 model from new, repeatedly suffered with EGR valve failure from coking up. For the first two years Volvo was unable to identify a solution other than cleaning or replacing the unit. The car would regularly slip into limp, safe engine mode. At first Volvo denied there was a design fault with our dealer adhering to this line. Other dealers were more honest, the owner's' forum was alight with posts from unhappy owners and even a rogue Volvo technician waded in to spill the beans. Eventually my dealer admitted the issue was real and a newly engineered EGR unit was retrofitted on thousands of cars. My earlier XC90 was a wonderful car but frequently suffered issues.

Volvo is synonymous with bullet-proof build quality. JLR is not. Our truth has been different so far with a trouble free ownership experience with our Velar, post March 2018.

It's not all been perfect. Minor niggles include: the glossy black trim at the bottom of the rear passenger doors collecting light debris damage where it flares out just before the wheel arch. The dealer replaced it but it's clearly a section of trim prone to picking up chips. My audio is fed by a USB stick. I use high quality files, many are uncompressed FLAC format. I am an audiophile and the Meridian system thrives on high quality input. The first track on the stick is ELO 10578 Overture and the car almost always defaults to this track at start-up rather than remember what was last playing. Annoying but not serious.

We've had the occasional issue with the ICT system. It's rare. We like the whole system - it looks good, speed is decent if not amazing and the connectivity through the Remote and Route Planner apps are reliable. Our car is booked in for 19B uploading and SOTA functionality on 21 November. The dealer will collect the car, drop off a courtesy vehicle and plans to keep the car for a day, maybe two. Fair enough.

A slight creak from the steering column has been resolved by the dealer at a routine service. The driver's window very occasionally has a slight rattle and the dealer has promised to effect the fix as published on this forum. There's a slight noise when sitting in the nearside rear passenger seat when going over bumps and this will just need the dealer to stuff some anti-rattle material somewhere. I'm close to being a perfectionist, my wife and son don't notice it.

In my next post, I will explain what we absolutely love about our Velar. And there's a lot. This was a purchase from the heart. We specced our order exactly as we wanted it. Spending over £70k on a car is a luxury for us but we don't regret it. We live in a rural area with no motorways and lots of fast, winding country roads through the wilderness that is the Scottish Borders. We travel to Spain, Switzerland or Austria twice a year - including a winter ski trip. In snow, the Velar is amazing with the right tyres and the car handles unlimited sections of the German autobahn with absolute ease. So more on that later.

In the meantime, if our ownership experience is anything to go by, there is no good reason not to buy a Velar if your heart is set on one. Our car has been wonderful and better in comparison with our previous two Volvo SUVs.

On reflection, JLR got themselves into a hideous mess with the acoustic issues with the half shaft on the early cars with the heavier, large alloy rims. Their customer service staff were stressed and clearly overworked. There's no denying that supplying the Jaguar XJ 3.0d V6 free of charge for almost six months with unlimited mileage and fully expensed apart from fuel was an amazing offer. Even supplying the paperwork for foreign travel to Chamonix. There were moments when the customer service was first-class, including the £2k cash compensation. But there were other moments when it was opportunistic and awful. True highs and lows, such a shame. That's when you need a good dealer and ours was generally very good, but again not always.

Again, a comparison is called for. Our Audi TT, Audi Edinburgh and the UK customer service team. Awful, deceitful and truly hopeless. We will never, ever buy an Audi again after our TT suffered numerous paint blisters on both doors prior to its third anniversary. Our other car is now a Mercedes SLC 200 which we bought from new in 2017 after part-ex the Audi. That car and the dealer (Mercedes Coldstream) have been excellent too.

Hope this is helpful. Until next time then.......

Arianne

PS. Thanks for your kind words people, much appreciated.
 

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#8 ·
Arianne said:
Okay folks, having got that emotional baggage out of the way, let's move on to happier times - the ownership experience after the initial spat with JLR.

We love our Velar. That's why we persevered so hard to avoid rejection. We have experienced no significant issues with the car whatsoever in the subsequent period. That's noteworthy for two reasons.

First, this is a JLR product. Read any review from the US and many from the U.K. (including AutoExpress) and they will stress the concern with reliability and build quality. Our experience is that our Velar has been reliable and rewarding to own.

Secondly, by comparison with our ownership experience of a Volvo XC60 and XC90, our Velar wins outright. Our XC60, a 2014 model from new, repeatedly suffered with EGR valve failure from coking up. For the first two years Volvo was unable to identify a solution other than cleaning or replacing the unit. The car would regularly slip into limp, safe engine mode. At first Volvo denied there was a design fault with our dealer adhering to this line. Other dealers were more honest, the owner's' forum was alight with posts from unhappy owners and even a rogue Volvo technician waded in to spill the beans. Eventually my dealer admitted the issue was real and a newly engineered EGR unit was retrofitted on thousands of cars. My earlier XC90 was a wonderful car but frequently suffered issues.

Volvo is synonymous with bullet-proof build quality. JLR is not. Our truth has been different so far with a trouble free ownership experience with our Velar, post March 2018.

It's not all been perfect. Minor niggles include: the glossy black trim at the bottom of the rear passenger doors collecting light debris damage where it flares out just before the wheel arch. The dealer replaced it but it's clearly a section of trim prone to picking up chips. My audio is fed by a USB stick. I use high quality files, many are uncompressed FLAC format. I am an audiophile and the Meridian system thrives on high quality input. The first track on the stick is ELO 10578 Overture and the car almost always defaults to this track at start-up rather than remember what was last playing. Annoying but not serious.

We've had the occasional issue with the ICT system. It's rare. We like the whole system - it looks good, speed is decent if not amazing and the connectivity through the Remote and Route Planner apps are reliable. Our car is booked in for 19B uploading and SOTA functionality on 21 November. The dealer will collect the car, drop off a courtesy vehicle and plans to keep the car for a day, maybe two. Fair enough.

A slight creak from the steering column has been resolved by the dealer at a routine service. The driver's window very occasionally has a slight rattle and the dealer has promised to effect the fix as published on this forum. There's a slight noise when sitting in the nearside rear passenger seat when going over bumps and this will just need the dealer to stuff some anti-rattle material somewhere. I'm close to being a perfectionist, my wife and son don't notice it.

In my next post, I will explain what we absolutely love about our Velar. And there's a lot. This was a purchase from the heart. We specced our order exactly as we wanted it. Spending over £70k on a car is a luxury for us but we don't regret it. We live in a rural area with no motorways and lots of fast, winding country roads through the wilderness that is the Scottish Borders. We travel to Spain, Switzerland or Austria twice a year - including a winter ski trip. In snow, the Velar is amazing with the right tyres and the car handles unlimited sections of the German autobahn with absolute ease. So more on that later.

In the meantime, if our ownership experience is anything to go by, there is no good reason not to buy a Velar if your heart is set on one. Our car has been wonderful and better in comparison with our previous two Volvo SUVs.

On reflection, JLR got themselves into a hideous mess with the acoustic issues with the half shaft on the early cars with the heavier, large alloy rims. Their customer service staff were stressed and clearly overworked. There's no denying that supplying the Jaguar XJ 3.0d V6 free of charge for almost six months with unlimited mileage and fully expensed apart from fuel was an amazing offer. Even supplying the paperwork for foreign travel to Chamonix. There were moments when the customer service was first-class, including the £2k cash compensation. But there were other moments when it was opportunistic and awful. True highs and lows, such a shame. That's when you need a good dealer and ours was generally very good, but again not always.

Again, a comparison is called for. Our Audi TT, Audi Edinburgh and the UK customer service team. Awful, deceitful and truly hopeless. We will never, ever buy an Audi again after our TT suffered numerous paint blisters on both doors prior to its third anniversary. Our other car is now a Mercedes SLC 200 which we bought from new in 2017 after part-ex the Audi. That car and the dealer (Mercedes Coldstream) have been excellent too.

Hope this is helpful. Until next time then.......

Arianne

PS. Thanks for your kind words people, much appreciated.
Good read.

I have an audio file named appropriately so that it is first to come on - except it is 1 hour of silence. So I get time to choose what I really want to listen to / if I forget I don't here the same god damn song every time.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#9 ·
What a great, open and honest review of ownership. Thank you. The pictures are also amazing!

I'm 4K miles of ownership in (2 months) and love it. My Velar makes me smile every time I get in it, see it or even think of it. I bought it with my heart not my head knowing that others have had issues but so far (touch wood) I've been ok. I simply love the car more and more.
 
#10 ·
Hi Arianne, long time since you made a post. I followed you from the F-Pace to the Velar and love both.

When I read on the Velar forum some of the complaints about slow and unstable ICTP I often wonder how the Velar owners would have survived the bleeding edge that was the early life ICTP on the F-Pace.

Have to say I also have had no material issues with my Velar and was quite sad when I said goodbye to the F-Pace.

I find the Velar more comfortable and refined but not as much fun as the F-Pace on fast windy roads.

Jim
 
#12 ·
Jim55 said:
Hi Arianne, long time since you made a post. I followed you from the F-Pace to the Velar and love both.

When I read on the Velar forum some of the complaints about slow and unstable ICTP I often wonder how the Velar owners would have survived the bleeding edge that was the early life ICTP on the F-Pace.

Have to say I also have had no material issues with my Velar and was quite sad when I said goodbye to the F-Pace.

I find the Velar more comfortable and refined but not as much fun as the F-Pace on fast windy roads.

Jim
Hi Jim, you are 100% right about the two cars handling. I have fond memories of our F-pace. The handling on these fast country roads up here was phenomenal and left a smile on my face every time. How Jaguar manages to engineer an SUV to perform like that is truly amazing.

I test drove the Porsche Macan before ordering our F-pace. It too was incredible but, in my opinion, the Macan is just a jacked up hatchback rather than SUV. And it's ugly. Mrs A couldn't get past the appearance of the Macan and refused to have one sitting on her drive, sorry our drive! The Jaguar has much more room than the Porsche and is only marginally less capable in terms of handling.

We loved our F-pace but the build quality was very poor. The bonnet shut line was awry, such that the car looked like it had had a stroke. The air circulation system in the cabin was weird and made funny noises. The ICT system was, as you say, ancient and felt like it was running on an Intel Celeron chipset. But I was still sorry to see her go because JLR couldn't fix the wheel drone.

Who would believe that the Velar and F-pace are made on the same production line. The build quality and panel fit of the Velar is a world apart from the Jaguar. It's like the production line team see a Velar body shell slowly heading towards them on the line and straighten their backs, chuck their **** to one side and galvanise themselves to do a good job! A bit like O'Reilly the builder from Fawlty Towers - just after he has been beaten by Sybil with the umbrella and told that she has seen more intelligent creatures living on their backs at the bottom of ponds, Basil asks him what kind of a man O'Reilly is and tells him that he needs to do the best day's work he's ever done before Sybil returns the next day! Love that part.

I have found that the Velar can be hustled and copes pretty well in dynamic settings on these country roads. But whereas the F-pace is begging to be let loose and rewards you handsomely for the opportunity, the Velar says "come on, I am a Velar, I can play this game if you really wish, but don't you want me to cosset you and take you to your destination in a serene and peaceful manner?" Despite having the massive 700Nm of torque, the Velar has progressively changed my driving style from fast and furious WRC driver to "Yes m'lady", Parker from Thunderbirds!

Like others, I look forward to every journey. Really, I do. Two years into ownership and she still feels tight, new and fresh.

@tspdavey, thanks for your tip about the opening track of silence. Why didn't I think of that? Too linear in my mind. But then I work for an accountancy and audit firm - creativity isn't what folk seek in accounting although some have tried!

By the way, I mentioned our earlier Volvo experiences. Here's the link https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=221555. Over 300,000 views and counting. Fire risk, recalls, owner anger, etc. A thread that started in 2015 and is still actively running four year later. Do cars have faults? Yes they do. Does the Velar have faults? Yes it does. Some cars have more faults than others. Is this a JLR thing alone. Of course not. Life is messy, I took too long to learn it. It isn't about fairness, it's just about navigating through this mess and retaining peace of mind and joy. Easy to say, less easy to live it when one is in the thick of it.

Best wishes and a lovely, chilly weekend folks. Arianne.
 

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#14 ·
Hi Arianne & Jim, I'm just making the same jump from F-Pace to Velar this week, picking it up on Wednesday.
Looked at the Macon too, but turned it down 'cos I value the Velar's looks above the Macan's handling
My F-Pace (ICTP aside, no need to say any more on this subject) has been perfect if a bit dull (I have the 2.0l diesel....boring), and am looking forward to a more luxurious drive with the Range Rover.
 
#15 ·
chastt said:
Hi Arianne & Jim, I'm just making the same jump from F-Pace to Velar this week, picking it up on Wednesday.
Looked at the Macon too, but turned it down 'cos I value the Velar's looks above the Macan's handling
My F-Pace (ICTP aside, no need to say any more on this subject) has been perfect if a bit dull (I have the 2.0l diesel....boring), and am looking forward to a more luxurious drive with the Range Rover.
Well, we hope you have a super day tomorrow then :)

Your description of the Velar by comparison to the F-pace is accurate.

Let us know what spec, colour and options you have on your Velar. Perhaps Jim and I will share some of the functionality that you can positively exploit. It's taken me time to learn how to get the most from everything that is loaded into the Velar. I probably haven't harvested it all yet, if truth be told.

The car is quite complex, although if you are coming from the F-pace the learning curve will probably be faster for you. At the start it can be quite frustrating and I have found myself annoyed at what I first thought were bugs and flaws. But later, I realised that I hadn't been using the thing correctly! One can argue that it all should be intuitive and fool-proof. True but it isn't. For example, my music player jammed twice requiring a complete shutdown of the car and patience while we waited for the thing to reset across a couple of minutes (which feel like an age when you are waiting for the seconds to tick past). And then I realised that it was because the music queue from my USB drive was corrupt. Just resetting the play order by song dealt with that acute event.

You get to learn these things and then find you enjoy the car even more. At the beginning, I had the seat set all wrong which was killing my upper left thigh. I mean, agony! Then I read a thread on this forum about starting from scratch and adjusting gradually for a week or so. I did that, a radical reset to my seat with no reference to what I had previously had before...... and it's worked. Long journey - no issues.

Recently, I found a use for the dormant configurable dynamics option that I selected (I nearly always scan the cheaper options list and load up on them if I think they represent VFM). But this option had been dormant for almost two years. What a waste of money, I thought. A true gimmick. And then I realised that, when I drive along winding country roads, I want the stiffer suspension and tighter steering but I don't often want higher engine performance and a gearbox that is more eager to change down. So I set the dynamic setting in configurable dynamics to the stiffer suspension and steering but dialled down on the engine performance and gearbox - mine is a V6 diesel so standard engine performance is almost always plenty, even for overtaking. Result, better alignment with my driving style. That one only took two years to discover from delivery in 2017!!!

There are many more. Anyway, best wishes with your collection and know the forum is here for you. There will be niggles, let's hope nothing huge.

Enjoy. Arianne
 
#17 ·
Fab. Sounds like the first milestone has been achieved - a decent handover by the dealer. Take nothing for granted! Enjoy and let us have the pics when the time is right. Enjoying the moment is more important than being burdened with vlog production.

Arianne
 
#18 ·
Chastt, glad to hear you are at the grinning stage, as Arianne says this hopefully means you had good handover. I also had the 2l 180 hp F-Pace and found on windy country roads it could keep up with just about anything if pushed hard and dynamic and sport was selected.

Arianne, thanks for the tip about the configurable dynamics - mine has sat unused for a year now.

My drivers seat was configured perfectly within about a month of getting the car, then Mrs Jim saved her setting over mine and it has taken about 6 months and many false starts to get it back again to how it was. I find I sometimes need to make very small adjustments between when I drive to work in the morning, work a long day and then drive home in the evening (typically about 1.5 to 2 hours each way), restoring the seat back to standard setting next time I drive the car.

I guess I'm getting old or spoilt. ;)
 
#19 ·
Jim55 said:
Chastt, glad to hear you are at the grinning stage, as Arianne says this hopefully means you had good handover. I also had the 2l 180 hp F-Pace and found on windy country roads it could keep up with just about anything if pushed hard and dynamic and sport was selected.

Arianne, thanks for the tip about the configurable dynamics - mine has sat unused for a year now.

My drivers seat was configured perfectly within about a month of getting the car, then Mrs Jim saved her setting over mine and it has taken about 6 months and many false starts to get it back again to how it was. I find I sometimes need to make very small adjustments between when I drive to work in the morning, work a long day and then drive home in the evening (typically about 1.5 to 2 hours each way), restoring the seat back to standard setting next time I drive the car.

I guess I'm getting old or spoilt. ;)
Jim55, do you know what I had on my Volvo XC60 that I miss on the Velar?

........ the key fobs memorised your preferred memory setting for the seats. This meant that the seat was already moving into position as you opened the door. Mrs A had her fob, I had mine and the lad (who owns the SLC that I enjoy too) had....... nothing except the No3 button! Pecking order!

Having said that, as I sit here and type this message, I realise that I too must be getting both old and spoilt.

On second thoughts, just to own a Velar (well, not a Velar that folk have needed to reject based on the other thread admittedly) is to be in a fortunate position. I can live happily even if I get wet waiting for Mrs A's Seat setting to move backwards from right up against the steering wheel, bolt upright and then need to remove the two ballerina shoes thoughtfully abandoned in the pedal box.

I have a little errand to run this evening which gives me the perfect excuse to drive our car, on my own, music on and get ready for the weekend. Perfect!

Arianne

PS. Glad I am not the only one trying to figure out a practical use for the adaptive dynamics!
 
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