CRANE ON THE CASE: My £88,000 Land Rover won’t LOCK… and it hasn’t fixed it after SIX MONTHS

At the end of 2023, I bought a new Land Rover from a Jaguar Land Rover dealership near my home in Essex. It cost £88,000 and I agreed to pay £1,340 a month over 58 payments.

In early September this year, it developed a fault where the boot wouldn’t open at all. More concerningly, the car’s doors then stopped locking. 

It went back to the dealership for repair, but when it was returned to me there was a dent in the door. The locking issues started again a couple of weeks later. 

I returned it to the dealership again in late September. During the time it was away I asked for updates on the car regularly, but didn’t get any. 

Shortly after I collected the car the next time, the same thing happened again. Quite upset by this point, I dropped the car back there on 8 October. I asked for a Land Rover courtesy car, but was given a Skoda.

A month later, on 6 November, I was told the boot was fixed. But when I asked about the door dent, JLR said they ‘forgot’ about it which meant the car had to stay longer. 

Shortly after this I had an incident with the courtesy car, where the child lock didn’t work and my toddler was able to open the door while driving on the motorway.

On 27 November, I asked for an update on the Land Rover again, explaining that I was annoyed at having to pay insurance and tax on a car I wasn’t able to drive. I was told someone came to repair the dent, but couldn’t find it. 

The following day, I received a theft alert for the Land Rover on my phone. It turned out the car was on a truck on its way to be fixed at a bodyworks shop. 

At this point I got a new hire car, a Mercedes AMG, though this isn’t really suitable as I need a large car for work.

As of mid-December, the car is still at the bodyworks centre. I only bought it a year ago, and in that time it has been away being repaired for more than three months.

I don’t think this is acceptable for such an expensive car. K.M, Essex

Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer champion, replies: As a busy mum who clocks in up to 600 miles a week doing your job, you need your car to be as hard working as you are. 

But you have been badly let down by Land Rover. You have been messed around, fobbed off with excuses and handed back a broken car multiple times. Sometimes it even came back with new problems, such as the bash you say it got in the dealership.

You told me you turned up to the dealership in tears of frustration at one point, after you parked up at the supermarket with your two small children, only to have to get them back in and turn around because the car refused to lock – again. 

You also say that staff have been rude and unhelpful. 

The second time you dropped the car off, you were promised you’d get a call by the end of the day to collect it – but didn’t hear anything. In the end, it took eight days. But that was trumped by your most recent trip, where your car was away for more than two months. 

That’s not right in any circumstances, but especially when the car is less than a year old, and worth £88,000 – on top of the subscription you pay for services. 

You are also still paying the sky-high insurance bill for the car. 

Jaguar may have attracted criticism for its controversial rebrand, but sales of its Land Rover and Range Rover models are soaring – so I was keen to get the company to address your experience. 

I first contacted JLR on your behalf on 17 December, at which point your car was still at the dealership waiting for repairs. 

You got the car back, fully repaired, on 19 December, and at this point were offered £1,000 in compensation.

You disputed this amount as you had calculated that the expenses you’d incurred through not having access to your car for nearly three months amounted to £5,722.99.

And sadly your issues didn’t end there. In January, the warning light started flashing up to indicate that the vehicle needed a service. 

You’d been told the car had been serviced while it was with the dealership – something you pay for via the car’s service plan. 

It also developed a worrying issue where the driver’s seat kept rolling all the way forward while you were driving, effectively trapping you in the car. 

This, you told me, resulted in a few near misses on the road. The radio and sound system also stopped working for a few days. 

All of this unfortunately meant the car had to be returned again in late January. 

JLR says that the service had been carried out when the car was at the dealership previously, and the warning light just needed to be reset. It did, however, fix the seat and sound issues. 

Unbelievably, though, that still wasn’t the last of it. 

When you went to collect it the car the next time, you discovered that the car had been crashed into on site, meaning another two-week wait for repairs. 

In February, after almost six months of pure frustration, you finally got your car back in good working order. 

Given the ordeal you’ve been through – which you described to me as ‘hell on earth’ – I am pleased to say that JLR has now come up with a better compensation offer.  

It has paid you £3,000, as well as agreeing to cover this year’s subscriptions for the car which total £380.

A spokeswoman for JLR said: ‘Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. JLR is committed to ensuring clients have the best experience of our brands and retailer network. 

‘We will investigate the reasons why this customer did not experience these high levels of care and service in this instance.

‘We are pleased to confirm that the vehicle has been returned to the client, and we have offered a gesture of goodwill in recognition of the customer’s experience, the time taken for the repairs to be completed, and the inconvenience caused.’

I am pleased you are finally back on the road. It really is about time. 

CRANE ON THE CASE