> I think taking it too the Land Rover place is much more expensive than if I
> could find a reliable mechanic who could do the same checks on the systems
> and so is it worth the price to take it to a certified Land Rover dealer
> over say an unauthorized good mechanic?  

I would feel distinctly unhappy about having a non Landie specialist work on
mine. They’re just too *different* to normal 2WD vehicles. This isn’t of course
to say that it needs to be an *authorised* dealer, just someone who specialises
in 4×4.

Another popular option is a Landie dealer’s mechanic who moonlights for himself
at weekends. There are plenty of these around.

Of course, the "authorised" status is meaningless if they’re still not up to it. My
Rangie was "made right" (not a regular service, he was instructed to fix anything
that was bust) before I bought it, by an "authorised" fitter working for himself
(Ballymena area of Northern Ireland, if you want to avoid him). After two weeks
of waiting for him to fix it properly, I agreed to take the vehicle as it was (for a
lower price) and sort it myself. A badly-fitted replacement steering box meant that
it crabbed sideways, wandered everywhere, and had the steering wheel on at an
angle. It only took a front shock change, and alignment adjustment done *properly*
to make it spot-on. The strange part is that it had already had a failed front shock,
and the previous owner had bought two new front shocks for it and left them in the
boot (trunk). The fitter changed the obviously broken one, but left the other in the boot
as "a spare" because the other shock was "still perfect". This is on a 100K vehicle,
with a known steering asymmetry ?!

Mind you, I’ve never met *any* tradesman in Northern Ireland; plumbers, plasterers,
electricians, whatever, who was any better than "glaringly incompetent" !

> Is the stamp on the book worth so much ?

On a 1990, I’d think it would be. My father-in-law has just traded in his 1990
Defender against a 1995 one, from the garage he originally bought it. and
where he’s had all his servicing done. On a farm vehicle with 60K miles on it,
he got 9K and paid 14K for the replacement. Only 5K replacement costs sounds
good to me, and I think the service history must have had something to do with
it.

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Andy Dingley                                      ding…@codesmth.demon.co.uk