and the more people that know about this guy the better!**Please note these are my findings after having used the Rover Fitting Centre in Glasgow.**
We have a 2002 Freelander V6, which has the 2.5 KV6 engine fitted to it. With only 35,000 miles on the clock the head gaskets went on the car. After Googling “Rover Specialists Glasgow” I found a thread on the mg-rover forums recommending the chap, Peter I think his name was, at the Rover Fitting Centre on Duke Street in Glasgow.
I gave him a call and explained our problem and he sounded as if he knew exactly what the problem was, gave us a price for the parts including all 3 timing belts and a price for the finished job including labour etc. We were going to do the work ourselves but by the time we’d bought the parts, bought the timing tools and done the work it wasn’t worth the hassle for the few quid extra it was going to cost to have the job done by a “professional”.
We took the car to the garage on the trailer and dropped it off on a Saturday morning. We were told it would be ready by the following Friday after having the heads skimmed, all the valves replaced and reground, the belts changed and it fully reassembled.
We phoned on Friday to see how he was getting on and were told that the boy who was doing it was off sick, he’d need the car for another week. Another week passed and we were told the same thing. 3 weeks later the car was eventually ready to be collected. We were told that it had been running in the garage for 3 hours or so and it was running beautifully.
After collecting the car and handing over £1,150 we drove the 20 miles home and upon pulling into the driveway we noticed steam coming from under the bonnet. We lifted the bonnet and the coolant bottle was bubbling violently. After a few seconds the contents of the bottle disappeared.
The car went back to Peter, and he was insistent that it needed a new coolant bottle and coolant cap (even after being told the one on the car was new), we were billed in the region of £100. This didn’t cure the problem so the car was left at the garage. After a couple of days passed we were told that he’d found the cause to be a blocked radiator. A further bill for £360 was paid for removing, unblocking and refitting the radiator.
After spending £1,600 with the Rover Fitting Centre the Freelander was still loosing coolant. Upon closer inspection we found that the plastic breather pipes had been bodged with bits of garden hosepipe as they were supposedly no longer available from the dealer, drips on several coolant pipes and just lousy workmanship evident by the broken cam belt covers.
We called Shields in Glasgow and ordered the hoses that weren’t available according to Peter and replaced all of these ourselves. Another £300 bill from the dealer for the plastic Bakelite breather pipes and several coolant pipes. After fitting these pipes to the car the coolant loss seemed to stop for a week or two and it seemed to be running fairly well.
After a trip to Newcastle and back, the Freelander was back to it’s old trick of using coolant again. We sent the car into Peter to be looked at again. The next day we got a call from Peter saying that he’d found a drip on a pipe and after tightening a jubilee clip he’d managed to solve the problem. Interestingly the pipe he tightened didn’t have a jubilee clip on it, it was a brand new Land Rover spring clip. However, another bill for £70 and we left the garage with the Freelander again.
The car has done less then 1000 miles since it was in having the heads done the first time and it is now boiling it’s coolant and doing exactly what it was before we spent the best part of £2000 on the car.
Peter in the garage is adamant that the cylinder head gasket hasn’t gone again as the car is running to well whilst it boils the coolant. Apparently when he checked it there was no exhaust gasses in the coolant so he’s advised that the job he’s done is perfect.
I was talking to a bloke who has over 40 years experience as a mechanic and he offered to drop by and have a look at the Freelander for me. I took him up on the offer and we went for a 6 mile run in the Freelander, we got back into the driveway at home, he lifted the bonnet and it was sitting bubbling away like a kettle. He lifted the coolant bottle cap, had a sniff and told me that the head gasket had gone again.
So, in a nutshell we’ve spent two thousand pounds on this car in the last few months and it’s in the exact same state it was in before we took it to the Rover Fitting Centre. Personally, I’m not convinced that he knows what he’s doing or that he knows how to fix our car.
On the telephone, he talks a good game, tells you that he does all the KV6 engine repairs for insurance companies, and has done for years. He gave us a verbal guarantee over the phone that if he did the heads on this car we wouldn’t have to touch it again for 5 years. In our experience to date, it seems like this couldn’t be any further from the truth.
It's now a year since this work was carried out, the Freelander has spent 6 months of this off the road, we’ve done 1500 miles in it since the work was done and the expansion bottle is full of oil and the filler cap has mayonnaise under it again so I’m 99% sure the head gasket has gone again.
I personally wouldn’t use this guy again if there wasn’t another mechanic on earth.
David.
That is shocking!