As someone who's never owned anything from the JLR factory & who's taking delivery of a new AB on March 1st, these tales of woe are concerning me as to how strong/reliable these car's are as daily drivers.

I'd have assumed they were pretty much bullet proof, however i also accept that on Forums you rarely see good news posts of how great the cars are, just problems when they occur.

Am i worrying about nothing & the failures i'm hearing about really are very rare, or are the L405's somewhat of a lottery as to whether you get a good one?

What possibly concerns me more is the apparent lack of interest from the Dealers & JLR, as even having only dealt with them so far during a purchase, they really are terrible with communication & seem to have no real clue as to the brand they're selling or supporting. This is of huge concern to me moving to a new Premium brand as having had Audi's & BMW's previously, i at least felt i had enough knowledge of the car to win the occasional warranty battles with the Mfctr/Dealer, but this isn't the case for me with the FFRR.

<--- got a 2013 SC and all the minor gremlins have been sorted out perfectly by my dealer. The car is an every day driver - no major problems so far.  All my spelling errorz are belong to me!

2023 FFRR L460
2020 Range Rover Velar

I've had many LR products now and they generally will always get you home. Yes, some niggly things can be a PITA but I can only recall one incident where mine gave up the ghost and that was a failed alternator which could happen on any car.

What I have found is that they like to be used, i.e. not kept as a weekend car. JLR have also sorted the myriad of electrical issues by fitting a 2nd battery as standard so the ECUs always get full power even during engine cranking. That was a real bugbear on L322.

L405 is over 3 years old now so the initial teething problems are sorted, the 2016 cars are amazing. You won't be disappointed.

Which engine did you go for?

As for the dealers, find a good one, build the relationship and stick with them. Plenty of horror stories but there are also some excellent dealers out there.

I've had four L405. The first was a very early car (Mar 2013) and let me down once with a turbo hose failure. It did not get me home one more time but I'm not certain if a split air spring when seriously off roading counts. I covered 38k miles in 18 months in that one. The following three have never let me down. Yes some niggles but nothing major. Total mileage covered in L405 is now over a 100k.

mzplcg is right about the dealer. 2019 D5 HSE Lux SDV6 Indus
55 D3 SE
98 MX5 1.8 RS
gone 17 older variants of FFRR

They are great cars, no doubts about that but I feel the dealers are letting the side down and have done for a long while.
Take my experience, I've purchased 2 new cars from my local dealer in 12 months, both FFRR so the premium model not a used Freelander for £20k or so. I fully expect to be treated with a little respect and feel just a little 'appreciated' by the dealer as I do think I'm their perfect customer with my track record so far.
But I've had little or no proactive after sales communication at all. The sale process is over as far as they are concerned, they have the money, another unit to chalk up and onwards they go. Now, not much wrong with that, after all it's a business but as far as building loyalty for their brand and their dealership they have failed miserably and that's what you have to accept these days from LR in my experience.
They are too successful for their own good and if they pee me off then another punter's walking in the door anyway so what do they have to worry about.

As I said before I won't buy another LR product, I'm either going back to Porsche or Bentley who have been hugely attentive recently as I'm their target for the new Bentayga. I've just had a day's off road experience and a factory tour with no after the event sales pressure at all. The difference between say LR and Bentley is Bentley want to build loyalty and hopefully my next order but LR just expect me to go back.

If your dealer's any good as mzplcg say's then go ahead, you wont regret it as the car is superb. If you have a crap dealer be prepared to get irritated.

Buying a Bentley is like defecting to the enemy - in that case to me  All my spelling errorz are belong to me!

2023 FFRR L460
2020 Range Rover Velar

Regarding dealers. It tends to be the large chains that are crap (too many run by accountancy mentallity), but they are the same for all premium (and probably other) brands, ie they're crap for all. If you can find a good one, and I think even some of the large chains make mistakes and have some good ones, then as has already been said, foster the relationship and stick with them.

Finding a good dealer has always been a lottery (for any brand). The sales experience is generally top notch, you only find out how bad they are when something goes wrong.

For the record, I bought my old L322 at just over 4 years old as an AUC back in 2007, still got it and it's been pretty reliable. The supplying dealer was an idiot, only found out post purchase! Drives:
2010 FFRR TdV8 Vogue - Stornoway Grey
2010 FFRR TdV8 Vogue SE - Zermatt Silver
1998 BMW E36 M3 GTII

Thanks for the replies. Although the mechanical failures i read about on here worry me, i can get my head round the fact it's probably only a very small percentage of vehicles on the road, but the woeful dealer situation is certainly a worry & unless i just expect too much the one i've selected due to locality is really not inspiring me with confidence & this is further heightened by the insane numbers of L405's sat in the service car pack looking very poorly indeed.

Every time i've had any question i end up having to drive the 40mile round trip to the dealers to pin them down for a response or clarification. I told them when i was first enquiring that i had no knowledge of the brand & may need a little extra assistance but so far it's been at best poor & bordering on very poor to the point i even considered over Xmas cancelling my order & buying an Audi SQ7 or Volvo XC90.

I had a 991 Gen2 Turbo S on order earlier in 2016 & the same (i've got little/no knowledge of the brand) was communicated to the dealer & they couldn't do enough for me. Was invited to Porsche GT3 Cup events, twice down to the PEC centre at Silverstone (even after i cancelled my order) & even now i get a monthly 'can we do anything for you' email as well as the qtly Porsche magazine & all this given i never actually bought a car as the timing turned out to not be quite right.

My pet hate is incompetent dealers & this more of a worry when i'm in unchartered territory.

Every manufacturer has its share of crap dealers. Mercedes even went so far as to sack the lot about 20 or so years back and made them all re-apply for fewer places. Personal opinion is that we in the UK stand for far worse customer service than many others would with the result that we get shat upon by the unscrupulous clowns. The car industry is probably still the worst offender. The manufacturers need to get a hold of these morons and start sacking a few of them, they'd soon start giving better service then.

I'm sure there would be plenty of recommendations for good dealers nearish to you from those on here if asked. There are some really good ones out there.

Be reasured, all manufacturers have bad dealers amongst their franchisees. It's up to the customer to root them out and avoid them, thus bankrupting the money grabbing little shisters. Sort of dealer Darwinism! Drives:
2010 FFRR TdV8 Vogue - Stornoway Grey
2010 FFRR TdV8 Vogue SE - Zermatt Silver
1998 BMW E36 M3 GTII

The customer Service Manager should take a much more pro active role.
He should "personally " hand new owners his business card and invite owners to contact him directly to oversee any concerns in the first months of ownership, if not throughout the warranty period. G reg 2.5VM Vogue Portofino red 1991- 1999
V reg 2.5td P38 Rioja red 1999- 2006
53 reg td6 Vogue Oslo blue 2006- 2015
11 reg 4.4 TdV8 Vogue SE. Baltic blue 2015- date.
https://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/topic56162...tty+affair

No problem so far with my car and it is one of the early ones, 2013.
I'm very pleased with it and my dealer is also pretty good compared to what I've read on other dealers.
I would say buy one and find a good dealer, it can change your experience.
And don't buy a Bentayga, I think it looks horrible and is not classy at all!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
Probably very good like a Q7, which in essence it is.

Strange how all the good dealers seem to be outside of the uk.

I'm happy with my dealer, I agree with mzplg that it is a case of finding one you like and sticking with them. My experience has been that county town family firms tend to be better than city multi-franchises. The former are getting rarer as manufacturers encourage consolidation so they don't have to deal with as many franchisees and because they want fancy showrooms and regular "upgrades", which are very expensive to the smaller operator.

I don't know about Audi, but I enjoy my dealings with my LR dealer much more than those with a BMW dealer in the context of my girlfriend's car.

I'm not surprised that Bentley offer a superior service - they are dealing with luxury products only, whereas LR is really at the higher end of the volume market. I believe Bentley service costs are much higher too, so there is scope for a bit more attention. Only Range Rovers since 1988

Had mine from new in August this year well last year now! And hasn't missed a beat, did have an issue with the FBH and a slight smell but was swiftly sorted.

I have total confidence with the car and love driving it, also puts a massive smile on my face every time i walk towards it  2010 defender utility
2010 RRS TDV8 (gone)
2007 discovery 3 (gone)
2004 discovery 4 (gone)
1994 discovery 1
1970 v8 hybrid (gone)
1975 bobtail (gone)

My local dealer is rubbish...it was even rubbish when I was ordering but I kind of knew that before I jumped in. In fact I used their inneptitude as a stick to beat them with getting such delights as a 'free' family weekend away and pick what you like from the accessories brochure on us as an apology sir

Ive forgot how many times mines been back, more so recently for the same problems to be rectified. The only upsides are that I haven't had to wash it myself for months due to the dealer valeting it on visiting, and abusing the courtesy cars on work trips around the country which has saved me a fortune on Enterprise hire cars which I normally use for longer trips.

In the past, Ive even tried the two other dealers within 50 miles of me. Neither performed any better so can only figure thats the norm.

Compared to Porsche and Bentley standards, it truly is shameful. Ive had brilliant service from both other brands.

Will I buy another range rover?.......probably but it shouldnt be like this! '14.5 SDV8 Nara Bronze for sale
'17 BMW 740e Msport Individual on order
'17 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT 6.4 Hemi on order
'16 Bentley Continental GT V8S Mulliner Driving Spec
'07 Alfa 159 3.2 Q4
'05 Mini Cooper R50
'95 Volvo 850R modified to 400hp
'89 Jaguar TWR ed XJ-S V12 Convertible