Is it 2.5 yeara already since we got the evoque.......time flies......
I thought it worthwhile giving some updates which others may fund useful, in no particular order......
- the car itself has been brilliant and we have all enjoyed it. It is to be fair only just run in on 11,000 miles in c30 months of use but that is what it was bought for ie a nice, small luxury SUV for local trips including the school run. to that end it has been faultless. I drive it rarely but I like it when I do and still like the look of it parked on the drive, even compared to the newer facelift model that is out now.
- the multimedia interface is still pretty rubbish compared to other marques. It has the newer InControl Touch Pro interface but approximately 10% of the time it takes so long to boot up we have reversed out of the drive and are on our way before you can either put the heated seats on or even use the reversing cameras. The nav has an annoying habit of wanting you to sign in all the time, and little randon glitches still happen eg the other day I could not swap the seat diagram to change which one I wanted to heat.
- the dual view screen is a waste of time. It gives a slightly lower resolution than standard and we never use it, ipads are the plaything of choice.
- I took out the £500 3 year scratch insurance as this is SWMBO daily and well she needs it (I know thats not PC to say but it is a fact). It worked brilliantly year 1 for a couple of minor scuffs to the front bumper. You can make 3 seperate claims a year so I sort of save them up to make 3 at once. I put cliam in which was accepted back in May for x3 front bumper scuffs and am still waiting for it to be done. A combination of bad weather, injured repairers and inaptitude from the sub contracted supplier have resulted in my making complaints under insurance prodcut legislation. Fundamentally the insurance has / is worht it (and that from someone who never usually takes out any insurance he does not legally have to), I think the issue is they just can;t cope with the demand and are fully booked all the time. I have just got a date today for the repair to happen at the end of the month, fingers crossed it does not rain in the UK which lets be honest is pretty rare, sigh.
- the 2 year servicing (pretty standard now on most cars) is a blessing which was a factor in buying the car in the first place. That has been great but its good (not) to see that Range Rovers customer service is as dire as always, at first it took them 2 days to even accept the car existed to "put it on their system" to book in the service. however I had been having an issue with service reminders constantly coming up on the display when they where clearly not due eg after < 12 month and 7,000 miles when it should be 24 month / 20,000 miles. I remember commenting on this to them and got no reply. Anyway the car was serviced on 24 months / 8,000 miles at a reasonable cost with no issues flagged up. (see comments later).
- I love the fact that the nav has built in speed camera warnings, something my c£100k BMW is totally incapable of ! You don't even need to fudge that as I had to in my 2015 Vogue, its just there.
- the active drive is ace, SWMBO never touches any buttons other than volume and seat heating but I put it in active drive mode whenever I drive it.
- the cabin is still a very nice place to be even compared to much more expensive cars
More on the service issues of premature service warnings.........I had not been on this site for some considerable time until recently and was more than a little annoyed when I read about the issues with premature servivce intervals and engine oil dilution, seemingly suffered by cars that do not do many "long trips" ie >60 min / 60MPH for extended periods ie my car which is used daily but for trips averaging 6 miles and 20 minutes. The fact I had a) suffered these premature warnings and presumably therefore oil dilution and b) told Range Rover the same back in March when the car had its 24 months service ie after it was a known problems and yet they chose not to tell me anything about it. I have checked and the VIN of my car is elligible for the free oil / filter changes on the warning even though I do not have the service pack on the vehicle. Further on checking Topix my car is eligible for 2 software upgrades :
N289 – service required earlier than expected
N377 – Incontrol Pro touch Update (which addresses bugs and adds Apple Car Play / Android Auto)
Now so far as I can see these where available when the car went in for its service and yet they did not install them !
To say I am totally fed up with car manufacturers taking the p!55 is an understatement. If they are not lying to you about emmissions then they will lie to you about something else and think thats OK.
So I phoned up my local dealership ie where it was serviced 6 months ago and yep, they could not find the car on the system......you seriously cannot make up the total incompetance of Range Rover customer service experience...."we will have to phone you back when we find the car", sure enough they phoned me back to inform me they had now found the car, what joy that brought to my day!
"so what do you want to book it in for"
"N289 and N377 software campaigns to be installed please"
"have you had THE letter"
"what letter"
"ah......"
"look I know the car is due two software updates both to fix problems with the car"
"ah but we can't.........."
"stop there!, yes you can"
"but is there a problem with the car?"
"Ok, I turn it on, reverse onto a busy road in the middle of winter, I get 2 miles down the road and then the screen starts to work, no reverse cameras, no seat heating....is that a problem or how you designed it ?"
"ah, you have a problem"
"and...... through no fault of my own you have decided not to tell me that my car has a tendancy to dump fuel into the oil diluting it so much that the engine may sieze. I have to remind you that I have already suffered one range rover engine siezer in a 15,000 miles Vogue doing 70MPH (ish) on the outisde lane of the M6 2 weeks after its first service, it was not a pleasant experience and yet you thought you would play with MY life again....thats a problem for me which N289 won;t actually fix but it will more accurately tell me when it may do it"
"right Mr XXXXX we'll get you booked striaght in"
You seriously could not make this crap up......so the car is booked in for a "free" software update in a couple of weeks....... whats the chances on it being bricked lol
On a more positive note I thought I would take my life in my hands (ie the risk of taking SWBMO ride off the road) and update the nav software. So far it has gone to plan in that I have got the new maps ready to plug into the car on USB. They did take about 4 hours to download and prep the USB drive but I have as yet actually plucked up the courage to plug it into the car.........I'll leave it to the weekend when the car is not actually needed as much lol
So thats my 2.5 year update, things have not changed at all with Range Rover.......awesome cars with the ownership experience ruined by a combination of crap customer service and a tendancy of them not to do what they should.
I thought it worthwhile giving some updates which others may fund useful, in no particular order......
- the car itself has been brilliant and we have all enjoyed it. It is to be fair only just run in on 11,000 miles in c30 months of use but that is what it was bought for ie a nice, small luxury SUV for local trips including the school run. to that end it has been faultless. I drive it rarely but I like it when I do and still like the look of it parked on the drive, even compared to the newer facelift model that is out now.
- the multimedia interface is still pretty rubbish compared to other marques. It has the newer InControl Touch Pro interface but approximately 10% of the time it takes so long to boot up we have reversed out of the drive and are on our way before you can either put the heated seats on or even use the reversing cameras. The nav has an annoying habit of wanting you to sign in all the time, and little randon glitches still happen eg the other day I could not swap the seat diagram to change which one I wanted to heat.
- the dual view screen is a waste of time. It gives a slightly lower resolution than standard and we never use it, ipads are the plaything of choice.
- I took out the £500 3 year scratch insurance as this is SWMBO daily and well she needs it (I know thats not PC to say but it is a fact). It worked brilliantly year 1 for a couple of minor scuffs to the front bumper. You can make 3 seperate claims a year so I sort of save them up to make 3 at once. I put cliam in which was accepted back in May for x3 front bumper scuffs and am still waiting for it to be done. A combination of bad weather, injured repairers and inaptitude from the sub contracted supplier have resulted in my making complaints under insurance prodcut legislation. Fundamentally the insurance has / is worht it (and that from someone who never usually takes out any insurance he does not legally have to), I think the issue is they just can;t cope with the demand and are fully booked all the time. I have just got a date today for the repair to happen at the end of the month, fingers crossed it does not rain in the UK which lets be honest is pretty rare, sigh.
- the 2 year servicing (pretty standard now on most cars) is a blessing which was a factor in buying the car in the first place. That has been great but its good (not) to see that Range Rovers customer service is as dire as always, at first it took them 2 days to even accept the car existed to "put it on their system" to book in the service. however I had been having an issue with service reminders constantly coming up on the display when they where clearly not due eg after < 12 month and 7,000 miles when it should be 24 month / 20,000 miles. I remember commenting on this to them and got no reply. Anyway the car was serviced on 24 months / 8,000 miles at a reasonable cost with no issues flagged up. (see comments later).
- I love the fact that the nav has built in speed camera warnings, something my c£100k BMW is totally incapable of ! You don't even need to fudge that as I had to in my 2015 Vogue, its just there.
- the active drive is ace, SWMBO never touches any buttons other than volume and seat heating but I put it in active drive mode whenever I drive it.
- the cabin is still a very nice place to be even compared to much more expensive cars
More on the service issues of premature service warnings.........I had not been on this site for some considerable time until recently and was more than a little annoyed when I read about the issues with premature servivce intervals and engine oil dilution, seemingly suffered by cars that do not do many "long trips" ie >60 min / 60MPH for extended periods ie my car which is used daily but for trips averaging 6 miles and 20 minutes. The fact I had a) suffered these premature warnings and presumably therefore oil dilution and b) told Range Rover the same back in March when the car had its 24 months service ie after it was a known problems and yet they chose not to tell me anything about it. I have checked and the VIN of my car is elligible for the free oil / filter changes on the warning even though I do not have the service pack on the vehicle. Further on checking Topix my car is eligible for 2 software upgrades :
N289 – service required earlier than expected
N377 – Incontrol Pro touch Update (which addresses bugs and adds Apple Car Play / Android Auto)
Now so far as I can see these where available when the car went in for its service and yet they did not install them !
To say I am totally fed up with car manufacturers taking the p!55 is an understatement. If they are not lying to you about emmissions then they will lie to you about something else and think thats OK.
So I phoned up my local dealership ie where it was serviced 6 months ago and yep, they could not find the car on the system......you seriously cannot make up the total incompetance of Range Rover customer service experience...."we will have to phone you back when we find the car", sure enough they phoned me back to inform me they had now found the car, what joy that brought to my day!
"so what do you want to book it in for"
"N289 and N377 software campaigns to be installed please"
"have you had THE letter"
"what letter"
"ah......"
"look I know the car is due two software updates both to fix problems with the car"
"ah but we can't.........."
"stop there!, yes you can"
"but is there a problem with the car?"
"Ok, I turn it on, reverse onto a busy road in the middle of winter, I get 2 miles down the road and then the screen starts to work, no reverse cameras, no seat heating....is that a problem or how you designed it ?"
"ah, you have a problem"
"and...... through no fault of my own you have decided not to tell me that my car has a tendancy to dump fuel into the oil diluting it so much that the engine may sieze. I have to remind you that I have already suffered one range rover engine siezer in a 15,000 miles Vogue doing 70MPH (ish) on the outisde lane of the M6 2 weeks after its first service, it was not a pleasant experience and yet you thought you would play with MY life again....thats a problem for me which N289 won;t actually fix but it will more accurately tell me when it may do it"
"right Mr XXXXX we'll get you booked striaght in"
You seriously could not make this crap up......so the car is booked in for a "free" software update in a couple of weeks....... whats the chances on it being bricked lol
On a more positive note I thought I would take my life in my hands (ie the risk of taking SWBMO ride off the road) and update the nav software. So far it has gone to plan in that I have got the new maps ready to plug into the car on USB. They did take about 4 hours to download and prep the USB drive but I have as yet actually plucked up the courage to plug it into the car.........I'll leave it to the weekend when the car is not actually needed as much lol
So thats my 2.5 year update, things have not changed at all with Range Rover.......awesome cars with the ownership experience ruined by a combination of crap customer service and a tendancy of them not to do what they should.
