A few days before the incident on July 20th, my wife and I heard a very slight noise. At first it was only occasional and sounded like something was vibrating in the passenger compartment. After a couple more days went by, the vibrating/rattling noise became louder and began occurring more often. We decided to go ahead and make an appointment to get it checked out at the shop. The car was due for it's 75,000 mile checkup anyway. I called the Land Rover dealership in cary, North Carolina for an appointment on Monday, July 16th, 2007 and had to wait until Thursday until a scheduler got back to us to make an actual appointment. The earliest they could take us was the following Wednesday. In the meantime, my wife became increasingly concerned about the safety of driving the vehicle as the noise intensified. On Thursday, July 19th she drove home from work and barely made it home that evening. She suggested calling another repair shop with a master level Land Rover technician in the area to see if they could take the vehicle any earlier. At this point, the grinding noise was increasing and it intensified when you let off the gas. It seemed as if the engine was revving at a higher level than necessary and the transmission was slipping. She was frightened to drive it at a high speed and called me to alert me as she was driving home should anything happen to her. The next morning on Friday, July 20th I called the other Land Rover repair shop in town and they said they could take the vehicle that day. On Friday morning, I was only about a mile away from home and driving about 30-40 miles an hour on the way to the repair shop when I heard a loud grinding sound and the transmission became totally disengaged. With the car now completely inoperable, I was stranded on the side of the road and had to call a tow truck. The repair shop told us it is the front end differential and will need to be replaced.

- Holly Springs, NC, USA