Good question. Some of the responses after your question go some way to respond to this. (all, pls excuse my lengthy response below, hopefully it will be of assistance to Peterg19 and others, plus it’s a topic I enjoy).
Any vehicle from any manufacturer will have an issue when you least expect it. On the link myself and DaveB provided it references a few of the items Ineos is providing to get people back on the road again, including ‘flying spanners’. Though I‘d be interested to see how much $$ this is and if vehicle insurance covers it for truely remote.
If you take Bushguide‘s @Bushguide definition of Outback as the pale country on the map, which is quite an efficient definition, anything in there you are on your own, no matter the vehicle manufacturer. It then turns into a communication discussion if travelling vehicle solo (there is a very good thread on this forum discussing communication options. Link provided below).
Thread 'Radio, Satellite, and Adventure Communications'
https://www.theineosforum.com/threads/radio-satellite-and-adventure-communications.12410554/
I was passing through Birdsville one time and met a group of people at the Birdsville pub. They had been in Birdsville for the preceding week (very bored) waiting for suspension parts to be flown in for one of their vehicles (a very expensive exercise). The vehicle was a Toyota. They were very well prepared, two vehicles and one of the party was a mechanic by trade. They went into the northern Simpson Desert and the vehicle had multiple failures and they limped back.
(overseas forum members: Birdsville is a small ‘town’ on the eastern edge of the Simpson desert).
Am I concerned about Grenadier breakdowns in the outback, no.
Servicing at non-Ineos centres: I’ve had my Disco3 serviced very well in Alice Springs, Broome, and Cairns where there were no Land Rover dealers (on a side note, my Disco3 was a manual transmission, diesel, with coil springs. That thing was amazing). @Bushguide has raised a few times the very good point of IA dealerships in remote locations. Les’ points are spot on, as this impacts people that live and work remotely that need access to dealers and IA service centres for more than an oil change. If you take the gas fields outside Innaminka, the mines in the Pilbara and western deserts, the remote stations that are 1 million square km. Many of those people though can fix a vehicle in a pinch, all they need is the parts. I once could get an engine up and running with a tool kit and tape. Those days are dead unfortunetly with the rise of software. I see the biggest risk in any vehicle as being the engine. Way to much software and sensors to go wrong, but that‘s another thread
If you are still reading this thank you, I hope you found my ramblings of interest. There is a wealth of knowledge and experiance on this forum, I hope my occasional contributions are of benefit to all. btw happy Xmas all, I still visit this forum multiple times a day.
(Edit: I have heard of people travelling remote now with devices to clear engine error codes to get the vehicle up and running again)
Last edited:
