Do not buy a truck from Jay Farlow at Atlanta on Wheels!…read more
Worst experience ever.
Essentially Jay buys Land Rover Discovery's for cheap. Has the engine rebuilt, cleans it up and sells it for triple the price of a good looking one on any car buying website. (look around, you can find nice looking ones for $4-6,000)
I paid $17,500 for mine In May of 2018 and Jay talked it up like it was one of the best ones he had ever sold. Now I have in well over an additional $7,000 in repairs, not including a currently blown head gasket on engine number 2, (I'll get to that in a minute) with less than 10,000 miles on it!
It came with their "top hatted" rebuilt engine which according to Jay, solved many of the traditional Land Rover Discovery 2 issues.
Immediately after taking delivery I noticed massive amounts of coolant consumption which resulted in sending the truck back to Atlanta on wheels for nearly 3 months and eventually resulted in them changing out the engine for a new, newly rebuilt engine. I had put less than 1,000 miles on the truck at this time.
While in Atlanta, they informed me that the air suspension system was failing and needed to be replaced. I authorized the repair for $1,027.
They also charged me $1250 for new heads, which they said was not covered by their limited guarantee. It was later found that the block itself was damaged.
My opinion is that the limited guarantee doesn't really cover anything at all, unless you want to send your truck back to them, have it sit in their shop for months at a time, while they "get to it".
Within 1 week of receiving the truck back from Atlanta on Wheels, I had a no start situation, a faulty airbag, major leaks of oil, a drive shaft failure, and it was discovered that the brake lines were completely corroded and extremely unsafe to drive.
The truck went back to Atlanta on Wheels, They replaced the driveshaft, "tried to fix the oil leaks" and replaced all of the brake lines. That took well over 3 months for me to get the truck back.
First day back I had another no start situation. (this has been a bit of an ongoing thing, as we have had to work on multiple aspects of the electrical system)
We also learned that the brake lines were not done correctly and I had to have them all redone. Jay later told me they had never done a brake line replacement before. With such a critical safety component of the truck, you would have thought he would have just told me that upfront.
This has been by far the worst car buying purchase. I thought I was buying a nicely updated Land Rover Discovery 2. Paying a substantial premium for it but getting a much better product. Thats what Jay sold me on. I would have been much better off buying a nice looking used one for about $5,000 then systematically going through the truck and fixing all of this stuff.
I now have a blown head gasket that will cost at least $1500-$2000 to repair. Thats if its just the head gasket. Jay has offered no help on this other than sending it back to his shop. Based on my past 2 experiences, sending it to his shop is at least a 3 month deal.
I have owned the truck for about 16 months and it has been in a repair shop for almost 8 months. It has almost been in the shop more than it has been in my garage.
Other repairs I have made since owning the truck...
New Front windshield, Replaced the very first week I owned the truck, because almost 2 quarts of water came into the truck while going through a car wash. I don't know how this was possibly overlooked.
New Throttle Body, Due to massive air leaks
New air intake manifold, the one that came with my truck was cracked
New front differential. One that came with truck failed due to faulty assembly.
New serpentine belt. A pulley froze up.
New battery cables. one of the many electrical issues
New starter.
Coolant hoses to the throttle body were added back to the truck. Jay thought that they were not needed. Never told me they were removed. Guess what, there is a reason that Land Rover had those lines there. While traveling out west in freezing temperatures my throttle stuck open and almost couldn't stop my truck. Very unsafe!
These are very cool trucks, that's why I bought it, but don't buy one from Jay Farlow at Atlanta on Wheels. Join the Land Rover owners group on Facebook, talk to lots of people, and buy one that has been well looked after, and plan on doing some work.
This is definitely a buyer beware situation. The things Jay will tell you before the sale are completely different than what he will tell you after the sale!
These are trucks otherwise headed for the junk yard. Jay puts some lipstick on them with detailing, a roof rack, new tires etc. Tells you it has this premium rebuilt engine etc. But as I have just explained that is not worth anything.
The one thing I thought above all else was that at least I have a good engine. Unfortunately that is just not so!
