marcos_eirik
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2004
- Messages
- 4,178
- Location
- Oslo, Norway
- Car(s)
- Mostly my feet, occasionally a Tesla
This is our 1999 Jaguar S-type 3-litre. It's got all the options on the list ticked, and it's done a pretty much faultless 90'000 km since we imported it from Germany in 2003.
Our second car is a 1996 Range Rover 4,6 HSE, imported on green plates in 2000, just before the taxation hole was filled in. So we have the back seats in our basement.
This is the only image I have now, but I'll get some better ones later...
And yes, before anyone asks we?ve had some problems with it?
The first problem was my father?s fault. Washing the car underneath and leaving it outside in degrees below zero is not smart, as it ruined some sensors controlling the EAS, causing it to lock up in loading position, see; no suspension travel. Water leaked into them and froze, causing them to break. Over at Volvo in Moss (Which has the brand servicing for Land Rover in our region), at first they didn?t find anything wrong with it, and on the way home it went wrong again. The second time they just replaced a sensor and the problem was still there, as it turned out there was three sensors and not one like the guys at Volvo thought. I mean, at fist they wanted to replace the whole EAS system, at our expense, but we rejected and said the system was fine. It just had to be the frozen sensors, and with three new sensors the system was working nicely again.
The second problem we had was the fuel gauge. It just didn?t work. The fuel sensor is built into the tank of the car, meaning you?ll have to replace the whole thing to change the sensor. At first Volvo replaced the tank and the problem was still there. So, at this point my father was pissed at them, so he insisted to be in the workshop while they were fixing it, discovering some disturbing facts: Firstly of the five guys working on the car, only one was actually working, the rest was just talking about what they did last weekend or was going to do the next, then they didn?t find the problem, so they wanted to replace the whole system AGAIN. Then my father went over to them and asked to see the service instructions, he then asked them if they had done instruction #1: Check wiring. No, they hadn?t. So in the end it was just a dodgy connection, and they still wanted to charge us for the tank, but we never paid for that.
Last year it had an engine replacement due to a cracked cylinder liner on cylinder #8. We're not sure why that happened, but we are fairly certain it happened during a factory recall to replace all of the hoses in the engine bay. It all started some years ago when we got it back from that there, and we suddenly noticed that the engine was running very hot, into the red. Right after, my father filled in 4 litres of cooling fluid, it seems those lazy asses over at Volvo forgot to bleed the system, so it ran on only a 1/4 of the fluid it should have had. So gradually over a two year period we had to top it up with cooling fluid, and we never found a leak, even after pressure testing, no leak was found. Last Christmas we contacted the Norwegian Land Rover club for help, and they said that cracked cylinder lining could happen if the engine overheated. Then we were left with two choices; we could have someone bore out the engine and change the liner, or have a new replacement engine. We chose the latter as that was no more expensive.
So, in January 2006 we drove the car to Kristiansand, and took the ferry over to Newcastle, and drove the car to Morphet where 4 muddy feet is based. The Norwegian Land Rover club recommended using these as they were known for doing a very good job, and for a not too high amount of money. They changed the old Rover V8 for a replacement one with several improvements over the old one, like cross bolting for instance. The capacity increased to 5 litres and the power was bumped from 240 hp up to 315 hp. Additionally they carried out a full service discovering that this car couldn't have been serviced properly the last six years, i.e.; since it was imported from Germany to Norway. We're honestly never going to have anything to do with that shit company in Moss again. All in all this operation came in at about ?5000, 1/3 of what it would cost to do it in Norway. Later the fuel/air sensor failed, leaving it in the ?desert setting? running it very rich and returning like 4 mpg. But, in the summer of last year we had that fixed as well and now it runs beautifully and substantially better than it ever did with the old engine.
The latest problem we had was the car suddenly running out of electricity for no reason. We had a p38 expert in Oslo to check it and he didn?t find anything wrong, later my father who is an electro-engineer in the Norwegian air force, took the workshop service manual he got from England, and checked every single electric circuit on the car, revealing no possible drain source. But, after a bit of googling for the problem, he found one source stating that car alarm systems were affected by radiation from these wireless weather stations bought from The Sharper Image and the likes. After our trip the USA last Easter my brother bought one and it was precisely after that, that the electrical problems appeared. This is due to the fact that the radiation from these weather station sets the car in ?def con 2? arming the tracker, alarm, engine lock etc? waiting for someone to try stealing it. In this state it uses 6 amps every 30 minutes. So, with the weather station disabled, the problem was gone. So to everyone who has got one of these look out for weather stations...
Our second car is a 1996 Range Rover 4,6 HSE, imported on green plates in 2000, just before the taxation hole was filled in. So we have the back seats in our basement.
This is the only image I have now, but I'll get some better ones later...
And yes, before anyone asks we?ve had some problems with it?
The first problem was my father?s fault. Washing the car underneath and leaving it outside in degrees below zero is not smart, as it ruined some sensors controlling the EAS, causing it to lock up in loading position, see; no suspension travel. Water leaked into them and froze, causing them to break. Over at Volvo in Moss (Which has the brand servicing for Land Rover in our region), at first they didn?t find anything wrong with it, and on the way home it went wrong again. The second time they just replaced a sensor and the problem was still there, as it turned out there was three sensors and not one like the guys at Volvo thought. I mean, at fist they wanted to replace the whole EAS system, at our expense, but we rejected and said the system was fine. It just had to be the frozen sensors, and with three new sensors the system was working nicely again.
The second problem we had was the fuel gauge. It just didn?t work. The fuel sensor is built into the tank of the car, meaning you?ll have to replace the whole thing to change the sensor. At first Volvo replaced the tank and the problem was still there. So, at this point my father was pissed at them, so he insisted to be in the workshop while they were fixing it, discovering some disturbing facts: Firstly of the five guys working on the car, only one was actually working, the rest was just talking about what they did last weekend or was going to do the next, then they didn?t find the problem, so they wanted to replace the whole system AGAIN. Then my father went over to them and asked to see the service instructions, he then asked them if they had done instruction #1: Check wiring. No, they hadn?t. So in the end it was just a dodgy connection, and they still wanted to charge us for the tank, but we never paid for that.
Last year it had an engine replacement due to a cracked cylinder liner on cylinder #8. We're not sure why that happened, but we are fairly certain it happened during a factory recall to replace all of the hoses in the engine bay. It all started some years ago when we got it back from that there, and we suddenly noticed that the engine was running very hot, into the red. Right after, my father filled in 4 litres of cooling fluid, it seems those lazy asses over at Volvo forgot to bleed the system, so it ran on only a 1/4 of the fluid it should have had. So gradually over a two year period we had to top it up with cooling fluid, and we never found a leak, even after pressure testing, no leak was found. Last Christmas we contacted the Norwegian Land Rover club for help, and they said that cracked cylinder lining could happen if the engine overheated. Then we were left with two choices; we could have someone bore out the engine and change the liner, or have a new replacement engine. We chose the latter as that was no more expensive.
So, in January 2006 we drove the car to Kristiansand, and took the ferry over to Newcastle, and drove the car to Morphet where 4 muddy feet is based. The Norwegian Land Rover club recommended using these as they were known for doing a very good job, and for a not too high amount of money. They changed the old Rover V8 for a replacement one with several improvements over the old one, like cross bolting for instance. The capacity increased to 5 litres and the power was bumped from 240 hp up to 315 hp. Additionally they carried out a full service discovering that this car couldn't have been serviced properly the last six years, i.e.; since it was imported from Germany to Norway. We're honestly never going to have anything to do with that shit company in Moss again. All in all this operation came in at about ?5000, 1/3 of what it would cost to do it in Norway. Later the fuel/air sensor failed, leaving it in the ?desert setting? running it very rich and returning like 4 mpg. But, in the summer of last year we had that fixed as well and now it runs beautifully and substantially better than it ever did with the old engine.
The latest problem we had was the car suddenly running out of electricity for no reason. We had a p38 expert in Oslo to check it and he didn?t find anything wrong, later my father who is an electro-engineer in the Norwegian air force, took the workshop service manual he got from England, and checked every single electric circuit on the car, revealing no possible drain source. But, after a bit of googling for the problem, he found one source stating that car alarm systems were affected by radiation from these wireless weather stations bought from The Sharper Image and the likes. After our trip the USA last Easter my brother bought one and it was precisely after that, that the electrical problems appeared. This is due to the fact that the radiation from these weather station sets the car in ?def con 2? arming the tracker, alarm, engine lock etc? waiting for someone to try stealing it. In this state it uses 6 amps every 30 minutes. So, with the weather station disabled, the problem was gone. So to everyone who has got one of these look out for weather stations...
