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
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