I’ve got bad news for you all. Not only do Land Rovers ‘know’ what you’re thinking, they know what you’re GOING to think sometime down the road. Seriously.
What Jonathan describes here is not unusual.
Here’s my experience.
I needed major leg surgery and despite having the NHS in the UK they would not do the major knee ligament reconstruction I required. So I opted to plunder my savings and do it privately. They made a bit of a mess of it (I will never use **** again). So I was required to revisit the hospital to have the offending ‘problem’ fixed - which required me to pay AGAIN for the repair work.
I drove down to the hospital (130 miles) in my 110 Defender the previous night, and as my surgery was at 8am opted to sleep in the LR outside and simply walk in in the morning. A friend was coming down on the train the following afternoon to drive me back home.
As I’d arrived at 9pm the car park was empty so I found a spot near the hospital front door figuring it would be an easier hobble to the 110 after surgery. Good sleep, then surgery next morning.
Now, I have a slight ‘problem’ with needles. I'm not afraid of them, but occasionally I get a nerve response which triggers a form of muscular paralysis and my blood pressure plummets and heartbeat takes a severe nosedive. It’s happened several times with injections, but also with hand injuries I’ve received. I warned the anesthetist but they didn’t take me seriously.
To cut a long story short I ‘crashed’ on the table and created rather a lot of problems for them. They managed to revive me, but as you can imagine I was not happy. Anyway they did the minor surgery on my leg, then I woke up in a ward alone.
No-one came. I called out. No-one came. I shouted louder that I needed help to get to the toilet. No response. I rang the bell to summon the nurse, no response either. This went on for half an hour and finally in frustration I used my mobile, called directory enquiries and got the hospital number and called the front desk. The call went as follows:
“Hi this is a patient, do you have any nurses here?”
“Pardon me?”
“Nurses, do you have any?”
“Well yes, we do”
“Good. Well do you think I could see one please as I’m a patient getting impatient and need to go to the toilet and I’ve not seen a nurse for an hour and they dont answer my call nor their bell.”
“What! You mean you’re a patient in here?”
“Well yes, I’d hardly be calling you from Venezuela would I.”
“What ward are you in?”
“I have no idea, I thought you might know. I was put in here unconscious after surgery.”
And so it went on, and finally a nurse, a consultant and an administrator came dashing in, and the nurse proceeded to lie through her teeth that she’d come in every 5 minutes to check me and that I was unconscious. I told them to go and ask the gardener whom I had watched wandering about trimming bushes and hedges and we could have a discussion with him about his topiary skills which I’d observed for the last hour.
The nurse continued to lie, and so we had an ‘argument’ about the hospital’s abject failure to do anything efficient other than to remove money from my wallet, and I’d to almost punch them to stop them sedating me. By any standards theirs was a totally ridiculous performance.
Anyway the surgery led to a septic infection in my knee, which I later found out was “a common problem with that surgeon because he’s sloppy” told to me by one of his colleagues I’d met by chance and who, as a knee specialist, wondered why I was hobbling. I almost lost my leg, and ended up off work for 18 months. Another story.
However back to ‘the moment’. That afternoon I was released, and my friend arrived to drive me home in the 110. As I hobbled on my crutches into the plush front reception area the unmistakable whiff of something ‘mechanical’ caught my nostrils. It was sweet, sickly sweet, and to my surprise all over the ultra-expensive carpet were red footprints fanning out from the front door and leading to every corridor inside. Hmm. Interesting.
I got outside, the red sweet slimy stuff was everywhere. A large river of it ran down the sloping car park fanning out into a broad swathe through which everyone approaching the building had to walk. And then carrying it inside all over the place.
I followed the river back to its source. Oh oh, it appeared to be beneath my 110. Power steering fluid of course. Oops.
Well, that was us stuck. The seals had obviously blown. So I called the recovery company and they sent a low loader to get me. The private hospital is set at the end of a narrow road through expensive parklands and the ‘normal’ clientele had their cars lining the drive and the car parking bays, Bentley, Rolls, Jags, Porsches, Range Rovers and the like. We blocked the drive as the low loader was so big no cars could get in or out whilst the mechanic valiantly tried to manoeuver into position to haul me on, right in front of the front door. His tyres skidding on the oil slick. The owners of the Ferrari he nearly took the side off probably needed sedation afterwards, and more than a few pairs of Gucci loafers might have needed binning.
It was chaos.
We got it on and back to the garage. “Aye yer seals have probably failed son” said the grizzled mechanic. You might be here a while until we try to source some bits to fix it, might need a new box though.”
He paused and thought “But I’ll tell you what lets just try this first” and he poured several litres of ATF into the filler tank. It swallowed the lot. He anxiously scanned the underside, wiping the box and waiting. Nothing. Not a drip. “Lets start it and see what happens”. So it was started up. He whirled the steering from lock to lock, leaving it on hard left lock then hard right as the pump squealed in protest and the fluid heated. Not a drop. It ran for ten minutes more. No drips. They lowered the ramp.
“Okay chaps clear off, there’s no leak I can find. Must be just one of these Land Rover things”
We drove the 130 miles home with no problem, and no leak. The power steering box required no work doing on it and did not ever leak again, and I replaced it 10 years later when it was sloppy and worn but still not leaking.
Land Rovers? They know. They just know. The soul in the machine. Thats why some people just feel ‘at one’ with them. Treat them right and they reward you. Treat them badly and they scold you.
You have been warned.
Thanks for posting !
