This is Yeovil LR, I bought two FL2 from them with LR extended warranties. We have taken both back with various problems and never been asked to pay up front. We do get them serviced there if that makes a difference.

Advantage of using LR Assist is that if they cannot fix it they will arrange for vehicle to go to Dealer and arrange a hire car. If vehicle is still drivable then hire car will be delivered to Dealer for you to collect if it's not your car will be recovered to Dealer and hire car delivered to you.

If you take direct to Dealer then you rely on Dealer to provide loan car if he has one.

I had a similiar experience, dealer advised that I call LR assist, even though the car was drivable and they are only 30 minutes away, that way LR sort you out with a car for the duration and the dealer doesn't end up having to provide a car.
I was provided with a very nice Aintree green HSE lux and went to Cork and back in it

Beware of blaming the diff too soon. I had a rear end whine and swapped tyres front to back with minimal effect so got a lead technician to come in the car at dealer to listen in case if was the diff (2008 car had diff bearing at 35k miles). Tech agreed there was a noise and diff was changed (no low level repair for 2013MY due to larger diff nose bearing). Some improvement but the nois hasnot gone. Service a manger says that it is tyre castellated and only new tyres will fix it. I've swapped L to R to try and even the wear and will put up with it a bit longer until tyres really need changing. Gone... 2013 XS TD4 Manual Firenze Red
Gone... 2008 (09MY) XS Td4 Manual Stornaway Grey
Prior... 2003 G4 Discovery 2, 1998 Disco 1 and 1997 Disco 1 Company car before that
Also gone in Nov'13, after 7.5 yrs, to new owners with time for more TLC - 1980 Series III 88
Current 2015 Discovery Sport HSE 2.0

Interesting. Wonder what is causing your noise then. I did some googling last night about Wrangler noise and there are loads of forums for various 4x4s that all have the same issue - one even said it sounded like his diff was going.

Just had a visit from LandRover Assist. We drove the car for about 100 yds and as soon as it got up to about 20mph he heard the drone and said "rear diff". He asked me to waggle the steering side to side to confirm no wheel bearings. He claimed that there was a batch of these made with the wrong preload on the diff and that most went at about 30k miles (mine has done 49k). Now booked in for next week and a hire car organised.

That's good news if its covered under warranty. I checked my tires yesterday and although the rear passenger one was down to 25psi putting all back to 32 made no difference.

Still wish I someone could record the drone as I assume they all sound the same.

I will attempt to record the diff noise on my iPhone when I take it in on Monday. I asked the LR Assist guy if it was OK to drive the 35 miles to the dealer and he said yes it's fine for a few thousand miles.

Amazing though to consider that we have had 4 FL2s in the family and the first one (08 reg) went to 100k without problems but the other 3 (10,60, and 11 reg) have had a new clutch, two replacement gearboxes, throttle body, power steering reservoir, drive shaft, hesitation problems and now a diff problem all before 50k miles. And today I somehow got an email about the Jeep Renegade launch tomorrow. (paranoid?)

Thanks. I look forward to hearing it, especially if it doesn't sound like mine

Just got the FL2 back and the story is that the dealer has replaced the front bearing in the diff but also the IRD unit! He said that the noise was coming from the diff but they discovered some wear in the IRD and got it replaced under extended warranty. He claims the bill for the IRD alone would have been about £1700. Anyway the drone has gone.

Oh and i tried and failed to upload a sound file with the noise that I recorded but it wasn't that useful anyway.

Excellent. Don't suppose you got a chance to record the noise before it went in?

Also was this an extended warranty you bought or did you buy the vehicle used from LR so came with the warranty? Just wondering if we have the same warranty.

The vehicle was bought from Yeovil LR as an approved used car. It was just over 3 years old 31k miles and came with the standard 12 months warranty and I extended it for another year on top for only £290 as part of the deal. They have been very good with a few odd problems with mine and my son's FL2 and have never asked for "diagnostic " money. Loan cars available too.

We have some experience of using external warranty companies with an earlier Porsche and it was a bit of a nightmare, they would only pay for the broken part and that meant that a part that was failing didn't qualify and you had to pay up front for work done to get to the part and then you might find they quibbled over labour rates etc. My experience has taught me to buy expensive cars only from a franchised dealer and buy their extended warranty.

What concerns me is the unreliability of these vehicles, owning one without a warranty is a nightmare.

Thanks. I have the 12 month warranty from an LR dealer. My worry is that the warranty only covers failure, not wear and tear. If my diff failed then thatd be fine but just worn... I can't afford a reapair just now as moving house

Well if its making a noise its failing. Try talking to them and see if they tell you to call out LandRover Assist to diagnose it. If you PM me an email address I will try to email the sound files to you.

btw is yours an "extended warranty"

That's my argument certainly. I will listen to your files and see if they are similar.