Hippo
Lord Hippo
Follow the white dot on the rear diff of the vehicle in front, illuminated from underneath, and they'll be ok.I hear the headlights aren’t great
Si Click
Well-Known Member
My comments on military contracts were generalised rather than specific to LR. What you have been told about the MoD demanding a discount is inaccurate. We are simply not allowed to do business in that way. LR may have felt that in order to secure the contract they would have needed to sell at that price, but that would reflect on how uncompetitive they had become. We generate a Statement of User Requirement (SUR) which once endorsed is broken down into the specific capabilities that need to be generated, the numbers required, and the timeframe in which we need them. We then use the Award process to put the requirement out to tender and invite companies to bid for the contract. The winning company will have met the product capabilities and the testing and demonstration requirements, will be able to meet the scale and timeframe requirements and will have made an affordable bid. If all bidders meet the requirements then value for money may be the final discriminator. What you cannot do is approach a single company and demand a discount. Companies invest a huge amount of money in making their bids and any suggestion that the Award process has been circumvented or another company has been approached directly or given different terms, will result in a legal challenge which would delay the delivery of the capability by months if not years.
Hippo
Lord Hippo
I appreciate it goes out to tender. The last purchase of 8,000 did. Regardless of meeting spec, they know the tender process pushes down the price. LR has simply don't need or want that type of work. At the same time the army want something different. So they won't supply in future anyway.
Si Click
Well-Known Member
It should be said as well, the army don't need land rovers much anymore, they came to the end of their usefulness on foreign soil when IED's and explosives became more widespread, modern wars need specialist vehicles which are built for war, that takes a lot of investment as others have said, for limited return if any. Fitting armour to a defender just wont cut it anymore, and trying to design something from scratch, doesnt in my mind make much sense for land rover.
Below is the foxhound which replaced the defender, think you can see the similarities but the mine protection underneath is next level -
its definitely doable for land rover, but is it worth it.. i dont know
Essentially all correct. Soft skinned vehicles are now of little operational value except in very permissive environments and we have invested heavily in vehicles like the Foxhound. As well as the vulnerability issue, the Army refused to accept even TD5 powered Defenders and sourcing new 300 Tdi powerplants was becoming stupidly expensive. In the UK we went away from Defenders because we now lease the vast majority of our UK vehicle fleets and where a Defender would previously have been used the contractor was able to meet the requirement more cheaply using vehicles like the Ford Ranger. There are still some Defenders in use but they are becoming rare. I did the Civilian Armoured Vehicle (CAV) course in Afghanistan, but an armoured Defender with a 300 Tdi is farcically underpowered. Fortunately I was working with the Americans and we used armoured Suburbans with big V8s.
Si Click
Well-Known Member
The tender process pushes down the price because as a Govt Dept, under Treasury rules we are not permitted to accept a more expensive bid, if an alternative (and valid) bid would deliver the capability at lower cost. With something like vehicles, what can happen is that a company may make a bid that barely allows them to break even; knowing that if their product is accepted they are very likely to win the subsequent support contract, often by teaming up with a dedicated support provider.
However, LR don't want the work because they no longer make a product that meets any military requirement.
Hippo
Lord Hippo
Even if they did make a suitable vehicle, they don't want the work. It doesn't matter how its worded. They don't want to miss out on £7k of profit per vehicle. That's what they say they lost on the wolfe's.
neilly
Well-Known Member
You would have to question on the civvie street Defender if they made any real money on it. I would be surprised if they only lost 7K on the wolfs.
Cheers
RangeRoller dt
Well-Sprung Member
target practice is a requirement
Si Click
Well-Known Member
If you are saying that LR lost £7K on each Wolf they sold to the MoD, then unless they were making that back and more in support, then they should have sacked their commercial team. Companies that underbid on contracts benefit no one, including the MoD.
British Aerospace (as was) did this with the Nimrod MR2 replacement. They had a substantial gap in orders that would have brought production at Warton to a near standstill for a significant time. So they underbid for the contract in order to stabilise the production line until Typhoon production started. They then gradually pushed the price up to try to recoup the costs until the full scale of their technical as well as financial ineptitude became apparent. Their dishonesty in the bidding process ended up costing their shareholders and the British taxpayer hundreds of millions. However, it achieved their aim of keeping their workforce together, and when Typhoon production started they lost all interest in MRA4 and made it so expensive that the Govt had no choice but to cancel it. No wonder they became known as British Wasteofspace and had to change their name - twice.
Hippo
Lord Hippo
I would think they made a profit on military LR's built but it would have been a lot lower than normal. We asked why LR seemed to turn their back on military vehicles which started the conversation. That's when he pointed out the price was about £15 to £15.5k for a military build. I assume wolfe spec. His point being the same effort to build one for none military cost the same but sold for about £23k or more. That's quite a hash reality considering LR's history with military but they increased in volume to the extent they don't, and won't take on sales like that when they can shift another one for more instead.
Another interesting one was asking why they didn't waxoyl LR's as standard. He said it would make it messy to work with if done in production and stink. If done at the end its a messy process and they need to be left to dry oft before dispatch. All valid points so they leave it for owners to do to their own requirements instead.
Its strange to see them talking about the vehicle we love (fingers crossed) in that way. As a business they have to be profitable and practical.
Hippo
Lord Hippo
He said they did make money on it. Media report they don't due to a lot of manual assembly but he said if it lost money then it would have stopped years ago.
One thing that helped to reduce cost was the lack of development work, changes in design and retooling needed in production as the design had few changes over the years. Although an icon to us, LR were said to be quite mean to the tratter. The eggsample given was it only received the 200, 300 and Td5 engines because they were made for the D1/D2. Making one engine for two vehicles was a cost reduction which meant the tratter was given the same engine. A harsh reality but they were mean by doing the minimum and it still sold.
RangeRoller dt
Well-Sprung Member
LR aren’t just LR anymore. Bet there are still loads of contracts for Jag engines for tanks etc.
Si Click
Well-Known Member
As long as civilian sales were going to take all they could make that would be sensible, but they must have realised that it was becoming increasingly difficult to meet ever more strict EU regulations, that the writing was on the wall for the existing civilian Defender platform, and that money spent on further development of it was pointless.
So why leave the military market where there was a longer term sales potential? I still think that it was not so much LR dropping the military, but the military dropping the Defender. The Snatch LR had become unusable operationally due to the inherent vulnerability of soft-skinned vehicles, and the bulk of non-operational vehicles became part of the leased white fleet, and for the bidding company the Ford Ranger and similar were cheaper to buy, more economical to run and maintain and just better value for money.
RangeRoller dt
Well-Sprung Member
^^ this
Military operations have changed so much since the introduction of the snatch, I think it’s served it’s time. Cost reductions making vehicles cheaper and more en par to civilian expectations makes me think they are on separate paths of philosophy nowadays
RangeRoller dt
Well-Sprung Member
I’m not trying to be funny, my £500 RangeRover wouldn’t sell to pay your mums insurance for a year.
watch this see how much is in common with your Evoque you may work out where I’m coming from.
watch this see how much is in common with your Evoque you may work out where I’m coming from.
Carter4365
Active Member
Still trying to insinuate that because I have a nice car I must've been given it by mummy and daddy I see. Some people just work hard, save, and forgo things other people have... yes I managed to get a good paying job quite young, maybe you should try praising hard work rather than trying to put people down because of some preconceived notion of who I am. Cheers
Datatek
Well-Known Member
I don't think anyone would criticise hard work or having a nice car, but looking at the reliability records, I think you have to be a bit of a masochist to choose an Evoke or any other Range Rover for that matter. I've had a lot of cars but I have never bought an expensive one with my own money, all the cars I have bought myself have been old and cheap, I preferred to put money away for buying a house and later for my pension.
The only reason I have a P38 is because they are dirt cheap and I have have time to fix the regular niggly problems.
RangeRoller dt
Well-Sprung Member
Your preconceived enough for the lot of us.
it’s not about you
it’s not about you
Si Click
Well-Known Member
Mate, I'm not sure that was the point being made. Sometime this century (I'm guessing when BMW took over), LR made a conscious decision to move away from vehicles that could be maintained and repaired away from main dealer facilities. Up until that point LR had remained true to the original Series heritage that said that LRs were rugged vehicles that could be modified to a wide range of uses, which had robust engines that could withstand a fair degree of mistreatment and which could be fixed by competent mechanics in the field. Suddenly LR were building L322 RRs and Disco 3s that were not designed to be modified, and had engines and body systems that required sophisticated maintenance facilities to support them. Suddenly they were not building tough 4x4s, but luxury SUVs for a much more affluent market who wanted the LR name but who were taking them to their daughter's gymkhana rather than the Gobi desert. EU regs were pushing towards ever greater electronic engine management anyway, but the affluent market demanded smooth rides, powerful engines and electronic goodies - and were willing to pay for them.
The RR in the picture is the latest example of this urban SUV policy, but your Evoque is also an example of it. As your only car, an SUV might well be much more sensible than a traditional 4x4, but the purchase and running costs are way higher than they are for a pre-2005 LR and because you are much more dependent on dealers, it is much more difficult to avoid £100 per hour labour costs.
One thing you might want to consider is a policy run by the AA whereby for around £290 a year they will pay the first £500 of any repairs from a breakdown. I have a mate with an L322 who has saved about £2000 in the last 12 months.
