Almost a year since JLR apologised for severe parts delays and promised improvements at its new logistics hub, some customers have continued to experience issues that have only recently been resolved.
Last November, JLR CEO Adrian Mardell said the firm was “really unhappy” about problems at its then new Global Parts Logistics Centre in Leicestershire. It had been reported that some 10,000 cars had been off the road awaiting parts due to delays at the new distribution hub.
Mardell promised the company would fix the issue and said customers would begin to see the benefits during the second quarter of this year.
In February he said the firm had begun to resolve the backlog but cautioned it would take time for dealers to repair the affected cars.
In April, two months after the update, JLR customer Robin Tudor contacted Autocar to report that his year-old Range Rover Evoque had broken down in January and the company had said the parts it needed would not be available until July.
Last month, reflecting on the delay, he said he had been given contradictory explanations throughout. “My car is now working fine, but it has put me off JLR vehicles in future,” he said.
Meanwhile, owing to a delay unrelated to JLR’s new logistics hub, Julie Courtis’s five-year old Jaguar XF Sportbrake had, until recently, been in a garage awaiting parts four months after they were ordered. The parts have since arrived and been fitted but her husband remains unimpressed with the company’s customer service team.
“It was their lack of transparency that was so frustrating,” said Simon Courtis. “For weeks, they had been saying only that the part ‘is on the list’ or blamed ‘supply chain shortages’. Recently they said it would arrive at the distribution centre in mid-September, but then my dealer was told JLR could still not say when it would arrive.”
A spokesperson for JLR said the firm’s Global Parts Logistics Centre was now stable with consistent parts supply but conceded that some customers are still waiting for parts.
“We do appreciate that some customers may not be feeling that improvement just yet. To resolve that as quickly as possible, we have invested £5 million to increase mobility availability for clients while they wait, provided 90% of JLR clients whose vehicles are in for repair with a JLR vehicle (up from 65% in October) and increased our UK customer service agents by 25% to give greater support.”
Unfortunately, JLR’s offer of a courtesy vehicle to customers awaiting parts did not extend to the Courtis family, whose XF was with an independent garage. As a result, they paid £2000 in hire car charges.
