All the PM in the world wouldn't have helped a single issue I had. I was as anal as a person could get. My dealer knew my dogs' names for God's sake - seriously.
In 12 months (I won't even go into the stuff I had go wrong before) I had to repair or replace:
Head Gasket ($800 +)
Valve seals ($660)
2 coils
Drive shaft - because Rover didn't put in a serviceable U-joint ($1,500)
Transfer Case rebuild
Re-seal front and rear difs
Rear axle seals
2 sets of Plug Wires (at $340/set not including installation)
Coolant res.
2 ABS wheel sensors ($600/each)
Complete brand new engine (well over $10,000 just for the parts - original died because an oil ring failure oblonged the cylinder wall)
Rebuild of new engine when the cam shaft exploded with only 1,500 miles on it
and more.
All this with only 72,000 miles on the car which I bought brand new.
It left me stranded 3 times in that 12 months - once in the desert in AZ where I had to miss a weeks worth of work and stay in a hotel while it was being fixed. And believe me, the warranty company was looking for any way they could to get out of paying for this stuff. If I didn't have every bit of documentation and everything done by a dealer and on time, I would have been up a creek. The vehicle was not abused, a fact that was agreed upon by the nazi warranty company when they sent out an inspector - three times. If there was anything out of place, they would have stuck me with the bill. I took very, very good care of that car and it was the most unbelieveable money pit. In fact, if I didn't have the warranty, I would have just walked away from it. The repairs would have cost more than the truck was worth. I sold it for a 156,000 mile Land Cruiser and feel the reliability of my vehicle has increased several fold. PM only helps if you are starting with a solid foundation. Besides, parts are CHEAPER on my Toyota than they were for my Rover. You'll save money in the long run on a Toyota everytime. You are fooling yourself if you think Rover is where the smart money is. No offense, but they have no resale value for a really good reason.
Well in australia you are fortunate enough to have rovers that have diesels. You can do a lot of preventative maintence and a lot of upgrades to a rover in the states for 5k. A good example is the rover diff in extreme circumstance are known to blow their spider gears because it is a two pin design. Now for less thank 1k I can convert to a yota third with 4.11 gears and maybe an elocker which will allow you to be able to run 33s. Compare a 04 Discovery (around 8k) to an 04 GX470 (around 20k) that is the same year and it is near 12k dollar difference between the two vehicles in the current market :Wow1:. You can spend that 12k dollars on lockers, armor, preventative maintence and still have money left over to spend on college at a state school. In fact if I added up all of the money I have spent on rovers in the past 5 years ,parts and all, it would still be less than buying a used 04 gx470 that you would still have to spend money on the occasional repair.
