Ownership Diary - LR Discovery 5 R-Dynamic HSE

Thanks for all the best wishes, chaps. Very touched.

No news on the Disco; still sitting in Balgores repair yard in Romford. Have had very little contact from Rockar in spite of wishes for updates. Only contact was late last week whereby the reimbursement of the rear pads was reconfirmed and they were targeting my vehicle back to me by Friday 12th April. TBH, I don’t believe it any more than the other supposed return times I’ve had previously. Part of me is angered by that, the other part of me is happy I’m piling miles (nearly 1.5k now) on the loan Disco which is much nicer than mine any event.

In far more important news, our little bundle of joy arrived on Sunday evening (7th) after a lengthy stay in hospital attempting to be induced but it not working. Little man arrived after a relatively short labour on Sunday weighing in at 3.3kg. All healthy and discharged just 12hrs later (shortest of all my kids) and now all at home together scraping through sleepless nights but warmed by the absolute joy of seeing the older two (11yr old daughter & 3yr old son) dote on their younger brother. Honestly, the outpouring of love is enough to melt the coldest of hearts. Feeling truly blessed and also personally incredibly surprised at how much I’m in love with this chap so soon also. He’s gorgeous in spite of keeping me up most of the last two nights and scraping by on 2.5hrs kip a night. At 45, I’m no spring chicken but at least feel very comfortable with him as a 3rd timer!

Can’t wait for the Disco to be filled with three happy children in due course!

 

Oh wow, very late to this - congratulations!

 

Wow! - I'm even later - congratulations Spuff.

 

Many thanks for all the kind messages chaps. Myself and Mrs Spuff (having been shown them) are really touched. All well with little man; he's very chilled out and only really cries when hungry or windy - most definitely the most chilled of all three kids as babies. As a result, the hard yards are much more manageable and we're all feeling relatively ok all considered.

As life returns to relative normality, my mind has turned to all kinds of admin tasks - the Disco is one of those. As much as I try to settle into enjoying their Loaner (which I really am), it's difficult to fully relax when you know you have custody of someone elses car and rims/interior become stressful care items on a daily basis which would be less the case in our own car.

After trying to get hold (unsuccessfully) of both the day-to-day "Logistics Leader" who had been good up until now and then also his boss "Fulfillment Team Leader" who has ducked several phonecalls which were promised, I escalated the issue to the dealers Complaints Department overnight. Funnily enough, whilst I haven't heard from Complaints yet, I have just received an email from the Logistics Leader confirming the car is back with them, has had the brake pads replaced (Free of Charge) and as a goodwill gesture, they will supply & fit mudguards FOC also (about £350 worth) and will give me a 25% discount (parts & labour) on the side steps (which in total equates to around £700). I'm happy with that - just a shame that it took another 7-10days to get to this point and several emails also.

So hopefully we might be on the finishing straight. I can imagine that once the loan car goes back, we'll have doubled the original 2.2k miles it had on the clock when we received it. FWIW, the car has averaged 29.8mpg since new and smack bang on 30mpg since we've had it. This pretty much mirrors our car, so at least I know there's nothing wrong with the engine on mine. Once I get mine back, it'll be time for a full detail - I'll see how things are with the baby before I commit to doing it myself. If I don't have the time, then I might use the £700 saved on getting it professionally detailed. Let's see. Watch this space for the ongoing saga!