600 miles in and a few doubts about engine performance

I'm 600 miles in to the LR experience and in the back of my mind I am having some questions whether my car is operating as it should.

While there's lots to be happy about, everytime I'm in it the questions are there and it's taking the shine off these first few days of ownership.

It's my first diesel so I am trying to accommodate the relative lack of refinement. It ticks over without an issue and pulls cleanly under load, although I've never quite had to work a gearbox quite so hard in my life! Where I have an issue is when it is running under relatively light load. It seems unrefined and slightly hesitant. I wanted to put it down to it being tight and needing to loosen up but now I 'm just not so sure?

Any thoughts, similar experiences? Is this the sort of thing an engine remap can improve i.e. Something to make it more driveable? I can see it going back into the dealer before too long if it persists.

Oh and I am as a matter of course taking it quite easily for the first 1000-1500 miles

Thanks in advance

Sounds like the turbo off boost, turbo generally comes in about 1800rpm, a remap from the likes of BASwill probably improve

Take it back and ask to drive another of the same spec to get an idea if it's 'normal'.
No feeling like that for me going 2.3 petrol to 2.2 TD, mine is also manual so can't judge the effect of the Auto Box.

When I took one for a test drive I thought it was a bit sluggish but when I looked at the speedo I was going 90 mph!.I think it is one of those cars that is comfy and without the loud engine noise.

That is something that surprises most people new to Range Rovers - they are often motoring far faster than they think they are, they are very comfy cars to travel in, and (this is the one that many driver's of sportier BMWs report over on RRsport and FFRR forums most) they slow your driving style down - there's no need to get the journey over as fast as possible, sit back in comfort, relax and try to enjoy the drive.

I agree Tim, it amazes me how I think i'm trundling along slowly until I look at the speedo! The diesel in particular can be under 2000rpm and doing 60mph, and often i've thought I pulled away a bit slowly and cars behind are way behind. The Mazda feels faster till you look at the speedo and realise you're only doing 50 because theres more revs and road noise and youre closer to the road so you see and feel it more.

But drive another one to see, incase you have a problem.

Ahhh - it's your first diesel, that explains everything.

I suspect that 'sluggish' feeling you describe is that if you rev it like you would a petrol (gasoliine for the US chaps) engined car it all feels a bit 'flat' and unrewarding? With a low rev limit and peak torque low in the rev range you will change gear a lot.

The way that a diesel engine delivers its grunt is very different and that's because peak torque occurs around 2000 rpm (ish). On a petrol engine peak torque occurs much higher up the rev range - hence the requirement to whizz the thing through the gears.

Torque is the stuff that gets that big heavy lump of a car moving briskly of the line - I believe Carl Shelby of US car racing fame is puported to have uttered the famouse phrase 'torque wins races, HP sells cars'. Its true - bhp is pretty meaningless a big meaty torque number means lots.

So try this shifting technique (you could be surprised our deceptively quick your diesel is), try not reving past 2000 rpm when accelerating, just change gear instead and let all that lovely torque do the work - it will also so wonders for fuel economy too. You might not even think it is that quick - just check the mirrors!

I'm wishing I had gone for a manual as I currently have a FL2 td4e manual on loan while my Evoque is back at the dealers (long story) and the td4 feels positively spritely compared to my sd4 auto. I think its down to the gearbox, they need to tweak the gearbox software otherwise I'll be in sport most of the time.

Autos have an "adaptive/ learning" gearbox that learn your driving style. I read here somewhere that if the dealer hands over the car with the engine running while they demo all the electric toys, this can have an effect on the gearbox shift learning, this hasn't been my experience but I am used to the same gearbox as Evoque has in FFRR's and RRS's. The usual cure for resetting the gearbox learning curve is to disconnect the battery for 20 minutes. I always find that after a service the gear changes are totally different to before the service as the dealers service teams have to disconnect the battery as part of the service and they also plug the car into a PC and update all the software. If you think your car's auto gearbox is not performing then ask you dealer to hard reset the gearbox ECU and see if that makes any difference. To be honest, I feel that the gearbox has been programmed to change up far too soon in the name of fuel economy and I often find I have to use the paddle to downshift and counter the just occurred upshift because the revs have fallen too low and the car has dropped out of the power/ torque band.

(29-02-2012 08:39am)XFullFatTim Wrote:  Autos have an "adaptive/ learning" gearbox that learn your driving style. I read here somewhere that if the dealer hands over the car with the engine running while they demo all the electric toys, this can have an effect on the gearbox shift learning, this hasn't been my experience but I am used to the same gearbox as Evoque has in FFRR's and RRS's. The usual cure for resetting the gearbox learning curve is to disconnect the battery for 20 minutes. I always find that after a service the gear changes are totally different to before the service as the dealers service teams have to disconnect the battery as part of the service and they also plug the car into a PC and update all the software. If you think your car's auto gearbox is not performing then ask you dealer to hard reset the gearbox ECU and see if that makes any difference. To be honest, I feel that the gearbox has been programmed to change up far too soon in the name of fuel economy and I often find I have to use the paddle to downshift and counter the just occurred upshift because the revs have fallen too low and the car has dropped out of the power/ torque band.

Didnt know that, are there any implications for seat memory settings and is there any anti-theft protection on the audio that might cause issues ?