Ask the Expert: My Range Rover needs a new timing chain after 45,000 miles – is this common?
Dear Alex,
I bought my 2017 Range Rover Velar in September 2021. It has now done 45,000 miles and I have been very pleased with it. However, my local garage recently diagnosed it needing a new timing chain and said this is common with the Ingenium engine. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) said the car needs to be diagnosed at a dealership; I took it in and was charged £228 to be told that the timing chain did indeed need changing, at a cost of £2,632. The dealer did not seem to think a goodwill payment would be forthcoming. Is this a common fault and should JLR contribute?
– KW
Dear KW,
Your local garage is correct that this is a known fault – so much so that more than 3,400 owners have now signed a petition online calling for Jaguar Land Rover to launch a replacement programme for the affected vehicles.
Alas, any such action is unlikely, given it would open JLR to an avalanche of expensive claims from thousands of owners – which it can ill afford.
Having said that, it is important to point out that some Ingenium owners have reported no timing chain issues and many of those contend that the problem is down to the quality of oil used in oil changes – given that the timing chain runs through the lubricant.
It has therefore been suggested that keeping the vehicle serviced with the correct specification of oil can inhibit these well-known timing chain problems. The chain design was revised in 2019, presumably to make it less sensitive to poor lubrication.
With a vehicle of this age, JLR is under no legal obligation to offer any financial assistance – and given the car has been serviced outside of the dealer network, I imagine the dealer is correct in its assertion that you’re unlikely to receive any sort of goodwill payment.
The one bit of consolation I can offer is that getting the timing belt replaced by an independent specialist is likely to cost far less than the figure the dealership has quoted – reckon on £1,500 or so, which is worth doing since the cost of replacing an engine that’s failed as a result of timing chain breakage could be many times that.
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