Mark: Hi it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, Vancouver’s best auto service experience. How’re you doing Bernie?
Bernie: I’m doing very well.
Mark: So we’re going to talk about a Land Rover, 2009 LR2 what’s going on with this Land Rover?
Bernie: Well the vehicle was brought to us for a maintenance service. The client just bought the vehicle and it was due for I think it was about a 100,000 kilometre maintenance service and one of the items on the maintenance service is actually to replace the serpentine belt. There’s wasn’t too much on this service, but the belt was one of the replacement items.
Mark: So a belt can sound pretty straight forward but I know they can be a pretty complicated procedure. How was this one?
Bernie: Well this one is really complicated, as a matter of fact, I think as far as in the world of serpentine belt replacement, this is the worst one possible. Now there’s a Volvo model, a vehicle, I hate to say it’s an XC60 or 90, they share the same platform as the LR2 and they have exactly, so it’s the same engine. So they’re in the same category of replacement but yeah, this is the, I think quite possibly the worst drive belt to replace on any vehicle we’ve ever seen. The reason why is that the belt is located, instead of being not the front of the engine at say at the side of the, fender side, it’s a transverse mounted engine, so the engine from the right, the passenger side fender is where the crankshaft pulley is, that’s where the belt would normally be situated so you can get in there. Sometimes it’s a bit of a pain but you know, but you can always access it but this belt is located in between the transmission and the engine and so it’s a lot of work to replace, there’s a the air conditioning compressor, power steering pump, all these accessories are all run on that side of the engine under the air box, under the battery. It’s a lot of work to get at it and replace it.
Mark: Ok, did you find anything else when you replaced?
Bernie: Yeah, we did actually. We found that the water pump was leaking and that was not at all visible. It wasn’t leaking to the point of it dripping on the ground but there was a bit of a nice puddle of coolant forming under the water pump so we found that was leaking, we replaced that while we did the work. I’ll just get into sharing some photos right now because there’s some neat stuff to see with this vehicle. There’s our 09 Land Rover LR2, nice looking vehicle, in good shape about 110,000 kilometres. So this is a view of the side of the engine, there’s our new belt installed, now this is the engine itself and it’s hidden under covers, this is the front of the car, the radiator here, the hood, the bumper would be up in this area. So we’re looking at the side of the engine, none of this is visible. This part here is where the air cleaner box attaches. So this is all, everything in this area where I’m just going with the mouse, is all hidden with covers and air filter boxes and that sort of thing. So all this stuff needs to, it’s not a matter of simply, if you look at it it’s not a matter of simply just pulling a tension off and the belt sliding out. This is the power steering pump, it has to be removed, same with the air conditioning compressor, has to be unbolted to access the pump and the water pump is located in behind here. So our next photo we’ll look at is, this is what the power steering pump and belt removed and that’s the water pump there, this is a sort of drive coupler which is a really usual item. It actually clips onto the power steering pump and it’s driven by the power steering pump through this unusual coupler but kind of smart design. This is antifreeze down here, it’s an orange coloured antifreeze in this vehicle and you can see it’s been spraying out in this area here. So it’s only a matte of time before it becomes a very large leak. Here’s a view of the water pump after it was removed, again you can see this odd, strange drive coupler that is like a little blade that spins the water, basically pushes in water through the engine located underneath here and here’s another strange thing is it says FoMoCo, so that’s Ford Motor Company. So this is an actual Ford Motor Company water pump
Mark: I was going to say I smelled Ford from that kind of complicated setup
Bernie: Yeah, yeah it’s interesting. There’s a, it’s interesting that Ford owned Land Rover Jaguar during this era, the 09, they also owned Mazda which is interesting because we’ve worked on both these cars yesterday and we had two Ford trucks in the shop and we’re kind of joking amongst ourselves, hey we’re working on all Ford vehicles today even though they don’t all say Ford on them. They have some unquinesses, each of them have uniquenesses but they’re, there’s a lot of Ford, it’s kind of actually impressive that Ford’s actually spread their wings so wide in the world of cars and they’ve since retracted since they don’t own Volvo anymore, they don’t own Land Rover Jaguar but they’ve been pretty successful.
Mark: So it’s a pretty amazing where Ford parts show up
Bernie: Yeah, it is, it is amazing. We find them all over the place. I don’t know if it’s a good thing actually, maybe it’s a good thing they’re all Ford vehicles in this shop, it doesn’t maybe say so much good about them and their quality, but they’re pretty good vehicles overall.
Mark: So how are LR2s actually for reliability?
Bernie: Well of course we just talked about how complex their belt design is and you know if anything goes wrong with a lot of these parts it’s going to be a lot more work to change and repair and I mean, overall the LR2s are pretty good. Other than, we’ve had a few and we’ve talked about these in previous blog posts and hangouts, the differential bearings fail on these, especially in the rear, and it’s almost a guaranteed failure on every one of them, so that is definitely I’d say the biggest flaw of the vehicle, other than that they’re pretty good, they’re a nice size vehicle but complex in the way they’re built but they drive great.
Mark: So there you go. If you’re looking for service for your Land Rover in Vancouver, they guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112, they’re busy fixing all the Ford’s in Vancouver, or you can check, so you’ve got to book ahead or you can check out their website pawlikautomotive.com. Thanks a lot Bernie
Bernie: Thanks Mark
