Saying goodbye to an albatross

[amneme1]

Well, thought my ‘10 LR4 would be able to last, but has turned out to be the most unreliable POS I have ever owned. I purchased it with 36K miles, now has 75K, driven gently by the wife. I have had to replace two water pumps, an alternator, two batteries, 3 sets of tires, and a set of brakes. Granted, several of these items are wear items, but these other “wallet killers” right before the holidays sure does put a damper on things. My ‘06 Volvo XC70 has never left me stranded and has only required normal maintenance so I do know how it is to own a semi-premium brand. I really had a disillusion that this brand wasn’t so faulty of non wearable items. I hope it makes it till spring before breaking something else vital.


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[toddjb122]

Sorry to hear you seem to have gotten a lemon. That's a drag, certainly for this time of year also.

I'm on my second one... probably have driven them for 250K miles combined, haven't been stranded. I did get locked out of the rear tailgate on vacation onetime which was the most inconvenient failure, but I've overall been very pleased. Has had more maintenance over the miles than my wife's previous Toyota. Her current Audi, though, seems to have more recalls than I ever had with the LR.

 

[BrandonM7]

That sucks. The wife's RRS and my LR4 have proven very reliable, but stories like yours aren't terribly uncommon. I knew that going in and have been pleasantly surprised - sorry you got the opposite.

 

[ryanjl]

Well, thought my ‘10 LR4 would be able to last, but has turned out to be the most unreliable POS I have ever owned. I purchased it with 36K miles, now has 75K, driven gently by the wife. I have had to replace two water pumps, an alternator, two batteries, 3 sets of tires, and a set of brakes. Granted, several of these items are wear items, but these other “wallet killers” right before the holidays sure does put a damper on things. My ‘06 Volvo XC70 has never left me stranded and has only required normal maintenance so I do know how it is to own a semi-premium brand. I really had a disillusion that this brand wasn’t so faulty of non wearable items. I hope it makes it till spring before breaking something else vital.


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Brakes and tires are the nature of the beast; any vehicle this heavy requires frequent changes. Not sure when you bought your LR4, but 3 to 4 years is about the lifespan for a battery, especially for something as reliant on electronics as an LR4.

The water pump is a known issue, though. I've read about some alternators going out, but it doesn't seem too common.

Just be glad you got out before your control arm bushings got shot.

 

[catman]

Just got a 3k bill on my 08 LR3 for Christmas, rear control arms and bushings, brake caliper went, rear rotors and brakes, thermostat housing developed a crack, and while in there the belt tensioners had a lot of play so I replaced those and belts. 4 years and 55,000 miles since I have had it (149k total now) and I added it all up and it is now over 14K in maintenance. That's 2 sets of tires, I did the diffs and transfer case fluids twice which was my choice. Most of this is an a LR specialist too, which is less than the dealer.

I had my Dad's old 2002 CRV for 2 weeks which has only had 1 mild repair in 138,000 miles and I started thinking a smart person would just ditch the LR3 and get something like the CRV.

Then I got in and drove the 20 miles home from the shop and fell in love with it again...

 

[PaulLR3]

Then I got in and drove the 20 miles home from the shop and fell in love with it again...

I totally agree. Most of my friends drive low maintenance SUVs from Honda, Lexus, etc. But anytime I ride in one it feels like a transportation appliance. Tons of interior plastic, tin doors, cheap leather, boring designs, no character.

I'll keep buying brakes and tires and see what repair comes up next. Once our LR3 & LR4's are gone, there probably won't be anything like them ever again.

 

[jwest]

Sorry some of you have such frustrating experiences but blaming the vehicle for brakes, tires and even batteries is kind of silly when the wear items are usually more about user error than the vehicle itself.

Brakes: I had two sets of rotors last almost 130,000 miles....yes.
Tires: selection of an appropriate tire for the weight and uses will yield similar results, I.E. over 60,000 miles on the first set of BFG AT KO.
Battery: A high quality unit such as Odyssey is in my lr3 for 10 years now with still near top % rating on load testing. When the factory battery was losing it's steam about 3-4 yrs in, I replaced it with an Odyssey 1750 I think. The house battery is a 2150. I also put one in the Audi but you have to have a proper charger that can work with these.

It's possible my lr3 has needed a water pump and/or alternator but there hasn't been so much that I've felt like it was beyond some level of reasonable frequency considering the vehicle as a whole.

However, I did spend about 5 years simply worrying about the air suspension potential for failure, then when it simply never failed, I finally gave up and relaxed

A note about tires and brakes:
Tires, you must keep in mind that this independent suspension design lends itself to wearing tires much faster on the inside edge, especially in the rear where camber is most extreme and even more-so if towing often.

Obviously one can rotate the 4 corners diagonally depending on tire design, however anyone with a larger than factory size should also have a full size spare. This 5th tire should absolutely be rotated into the mix each time for a few reasons:
1-so all 5 have similar wear in the event you have a flat near end of wear life you need to have similar sized tires on same axle.
2-using all 5 prolongs the time to replacement by 20% ! Consider that-you put off cost and hassle of dealing with buying new tires 20% longer.
3-when using all 5, you don't end up with an old tire upon replacement time. You also get the new model or can choose new version without any issues.

Brakes: My brakes last a VERY long time but I hear of people with much lighter weight lr3/4 burning through 2-3x faster..... it's not the brake parts..... it's the driver. Bet I'd pass all of them on the highway but they waste $1000's on brake parts thinking they don't have time to not brake hard at every stupid light LOL. These types should just drive a Toyota Highlander and quit complaining

 

[mbw]

I think owning one of these long term is always going to be expensive if you don't do the work yourself. I agree on the brakes, I changed my fronts this year on my 2013 at around 55k miles. Rears have only been done once so far, at 57k now. I bet I will change those in 6 months.

I haven't had any tire wear issues. I actually want these goodyear silent armors to wear out a bit faster so I can get KO2.. but these wear like iron. I also run snows in the winter, so that extends the all terrains.

 

[mpinco]

My sons a mechanic and many vehicles he works on are deferred maintenance issues or simply high mileage. There are some makes that are better than others but generally people are shocked that per visit cost are now over $1000 and they still have items remaining on the pre-work inspection list. That is the norm, not the exception. On one hand some like all the technology and features of the new vehicles. On the other hand they don't want to maintain or fix them when the fail so either ignore them or complain when the bill is presented.

 

[toddjb122]

Just happened to come across this picture (attached) today that was shared on facebook. I have not looked into the source to see if there's a bias, but it seemed on topic, so here it is;