More fun!
I came home late from work and noticed a familar vehicle parked up at the entrance to the village. Uh oh. The Range Rover has decided to release its coolant, not sure if it's all coming from the rad, but the slam panel had a good coating of coolant and the little plastic stub for the expansion bottle is still leaking. My Wife parked it up within a hundred metres or so of noticing the red light come up on the dash (She's not sure if it was temp or level, no beep) and the temp gauge was in the red. She had checked it a mile before hand at it was fine.
So, hoping it hasn't popped a head gasket....
I'm going bypass the leaking heater core and replace the radiator. I've had good results with Nissens in the past, are there any specific recommendations for P38s?

@Marty - guess it wouldn't have reached you anyway!!

Gordon mentioned he might start a thread like this, but he hasn't yet. So without wishing to step on toes, here's my attempt.

What could we attempt as a group?
I'd be in for:
Headlining
Possibly Ball Joints

Slung it in for an MOT at erm... short notice this morning
The garage (excellent work, but notoriously picky on MOTs) came back with rear pads (not a surprise) and front to rear brake pipes x2 6 hrs to replace.
Am I being rinsed? I know these can be a git on some cars but I see varying reports from 1.5hrs each.

Folks,
my wife has failed to start the Range Rover again!
I'm not infront of the vehice right now (being at work) but...
If you can't open the car on the remote and then open it with the key would you expect the alarm the chirp? (and then do it again when you close the door?)
She bottled out and didn't want to try and start the thing in case the sounder went off properly.
Is this likely a case of flat batteries? (they're only about 4 months old)
Or something more sinister?

Marty, Chris,
I've got a freshly burnt 2012 CD for Chris - but is it worth me sending it if Marty wants me to test a 2015 version which I could copy?
I'm happy either way, just let me know.
Cheers,
Miles

Two steps forward.....
I've found out what the noise is underneath the Range Rover. How bad a job is this? I've got someone who will do the work but I'd like to know how many hours I'm looking at. It sounds like a reall ballache to get that far into it all :(
Cheers
Morat

After Summer Camp, I asked Marty about some of the things that he could sort on my (my wife's) Range Rover and we set a date for last weekend. It turned out to be quite a busy time... for Marty at least :)

A lot of my original list is now gone!
The heated seats now work, and have the uprated 50degree thermostats, which are very popular.
The HEVAC unit now shows all of its pixels. Also, it is LED illuminated which doesn't quite match but is very clear and pleasant to look at.

The drivers door lock was replaced - I knew the switches were dead because I couldn't enter the EKA the first time I got locked out. This forced me to buy a Nanocom (which I don't regret) but now there's a new door lock which even has superlocking.

Then when we were scratching our heads and watching the EAS go up and down, we realised that it was still going up and down with the passenger door open. Duh.. shouldn't be doing that! Another door lock solved the problem, there's something eating microswitches round here :(

The EAS was a complete bastard. Marty was flicking through the circuit diagrams at ludicrous speed but the only thing that stood out on the Nanocom was that the Hand Brake on/off input was always showing ON. Weird. There wasn't any known reason why that would make my EAS only ever go up but it was definitely a fault so it was worth fixing. Frankly confidence in the vehicle was quite low. Driving at 70mph and finding yourself in High Centred mode is not very pleasant because the thing handles like a baby Giraffe on the first corner.

Marty narrowed the fault down to the Pink/Black wire which runs between the BECM and the EAS ECU. We were running short on time so Marty disconnected it and I tested it on the way back to sleep that night. It worked! For the first time in ages the Rangey dropped to Motorway height when it was meant to. The only downside was that without the handbrake signal, Access Mode isn't possible. We did toy with the idea of leaving it like that but neither of us would have been happy with an unsolved mystery.

The next day, when he started to trace the wire, he found the end of a self tapping screw coming up from underneath the vehicle into the wiring loom on the right hand side ahead of the BECM.
Great. Some soldering and shrink wrap later there were four wires repaired (including the handbrake wire) and full EAS was restored. RESULT! sadly we then wasted a couple of hours because of faulty LR manuals which indicated that the handbrake signal was still incorrect. I got to see inside my own BECM (which is a bit like watching your own open heart surgery) but eventually it was certain that the BECM was working fine.

That cost us the chance to have a go at the faulty blend motor, but by that time it was clear that I've got bigger problems behind the dash. The carpet under the drivers footwell is soaking and pink. Uh Oh. I guess that means the dash is coming out pretty sharpish* for a new heater core, so the blend motor and a sensor can wait till then. Hmmpph :(

In other bodging news, Marty took the chance to change some bulbs in the instrument cluster. The ABS and TC bulbs were fine.. just taped over by some previous MOT dodger. Great.

Then to top it, on the way back a new and expensive sounding noise appeared from underneath. It could be a CV joint... I should find out tomorrow.

But massive thanks to Marty for putting his brain to work on The Duchess, which is now a far more complete motor than it was before. I hope we'll be able to get one of his Audi heater cores in it some time, but I think I'd better investigate the running gear before taking any more motorway trips.

*sharpish is realistically a couple of months. Lets hope nothing goes badly wrong by then.

I've burnt that SatNav disk - just need your address :)
cheers!
Morat

Is this a flat battery?
I get gearbox fault, eas fault, traction failure, abs fault and it won't start..just click click click with the dash lights dimming in time.
Help!

Gilbertd :)
I wonder if you could cast your expert ear over the following recording?
http://www.lard.me.uk/nastynoise.wav

Something really horrible is interfering with our work radio repeater. It's located in a Farm Yard with adjoining works yard and joinery shop, so there's loads to go at and I can't think of anyone with more experience who might be able to narrow it down a little bit!

I can't stretch to £350 a day and free F1 tickets but I could manage a pint :)

Well it's not bad, but it's not perfect....
The general symptoms are:
Low MPG (2.8/-2.9 miles/litre on LPG)
Hesitation on Petrol at about 3500 rpm on hardish acceleration (seems OK on WOT). No hesitation on Gas (maybe because the LPG is richer?)

I'd had a code showing a sensor fault for the upstream o2 bank1, which I tried to change but I couldn't undo the bloody plug*. So, just in case it was throwing the code because the LPG was running too rich for the ECU to lean it back out I reset the adaptive values and took it for a drive on Petrol only to see what happenned.

Immediately after reseting the adaptive values, the idle went to hell. Nasty and lumpy. It took about 5 minutes to get back to normal. Then I took it for a short drive. It was weak, very weak but it kept running and slowly improved.
Codes: Adaptive values out of range, both banks. Knock sensor (1 time). Strangely, I didn't see any misfires recorded on the misfire screen.

I cleared the codes and did ~35 miles on petrol on back roads and tried to get into every part of the rev range in low, medium and high throttle openings. It started out pretty grim but did settle down to being properly driveable, with the exception of the 2/3 throttle hesitation at 3500-4000 revs. You have two choices at that point, back off and let the 'box change up so you can pull away again at just below kickdown or just floor it and it moves on again.

Finally I parked her up and checked the codes again. This time just the "adaptive values out of range, signal too high" for both banks.
So.. I don't think the 02 sensor is necessarily bad. I've been watching the live output and they both seem to switch between the same ranges (about 0.01 to 1.4). Bank one did take a while to read anything from cold(ish) after the first reset - I don't know if that is enough in itself to require a swap. I have the part if necessary, just need to get it up on a ramp and get medieval on it's ass!

Does anyone have any suggestions? I can get whatever info is required from the Nanocom, I just wish you could tell it to "dump everything" to the SD card from Motronic, but if it does that I haven't found the option. Personally, I'm leaning back towards MAF again.. but I don't know these engines - yet 🉑

*I really suck at this :( I couldn't fit my hands far enough up the gap to get a decent grip on it, and I wasn't strong enough to do it with fingertips.

Help!
My wife was driving and after returning to the car she said the alarm sounded when she tried to start it. I don't know if she locked it. Possibly not.
Now I can operate the door locks with the fob but the engine won't crank. There's no eka warning on the dash. I tried Eka unlock via the nanocom but no change.
I also (foolishly?) tried to unplug the siren and found out is IS battery backed...

Is this the loss of sync thing? Is there anything I can do?

.> Worst case, reset the fault, manually pump up the system so it's riding on air, and then pull the ECU connector or delay timer relay - it will then have air in the springs, but not control the valves to let it out... then we can look at it when you get here :)

A couple of bits of wire in the ECU connector will also just give an EAS MANUAL message on the dash, rather than all the beeps and hard fault messages. .<

OK, this is a bit advanced for a biff like me.
The dash isn't giving any messages. There's nothing in the EAS fault memory apart from 1x "invalid fault code" which I can clear but without visible change.
The EAS christmas tree is solid on the access mode and flashing on any other mode you try to select because it's just not rising (ooer).
Compressor runs.

I'll switch it on tonight and stick my head underneath to see if I can see/hear any leaks.

How do you pump up the EAS manually? I'm guessing that if there's a leak, I'm stuffed until I can sort that but if the compressor has failed then I should be able to run as Marty suggested.

Mrs M reported that the Traction Control error had returned. I wondered if the ABS sensor had vibrated out again, but there was no ABS warning. So, I checked through the nanocom and found only one error "invalid fault code" on the EAS system. I deleted it and the TC error on the dash dissapeared. So it looks like there's something strange going on in the EAS.

So, I had a play with the EAS in light of what Gilbertd said in my other thread and confirmed it won't lower to motorway position automatically. If I press EAS inhibit and select motorway it'll go there. If then switch off EAS inhibit, the EAS stays in motorway when above 50mph and returns to High as normal when you drive through a village at 30.

Finally, one of the codes that I've seen in the Motronic was "rough road signal implausible". Unless anyone has a bolt of inspiration I think I might be asking MartyNZ about EAS ecus in July....

Whaddya reckon? :)

So, I said I'd bought a Nanocom :)

First on the list was Motronic, so I thought I'd start there. There were a LOT of codes, so I cleared them all and ran it again. There were fewer codes the next time but some worrying ones like "Multiple cylinder misfire" and "adaptive values out of range". To be honest, I could feel that through my arse - especially on cold idle on LPG.
So, I switched off the LPG, reset the adaptive values and went for a drive on petrol only.
These are the results.

NANOCOM - MOTRP38.APP - MOTRONIC fault file

P1592 = ROUGH ROAD SIGNAL IMPLAUSIBLE
DRIVE CYCLE A
OCCURED 1 TIMES
SIGNAL INVALID
FAULT IS CURRENTLY PRESENT
FAULT DETERMINED AS PERSISTENT
FAULT DOES NOT CAUSE THE
MIL LAMP ACTIVATION

P1000 = LAMBDA SENSOR UPSTREAM
CATALYST BANK 2 DRIVE CYCLE C
OCCURED 1 TIMES
SIGNAL INVALID
FAULT IS NOT CURRENTLY PRESENT
FAULT DETERMINED AS PERSISTENT
FAULT DOES NOT CAUSE THE
MIL LAMP ACTIVATION

P0172 = MIXTURE ADAPTION FACTOR FRA
BANK 1 DRIVE CYCLE C
OCCURED 1 TIMES
SIGNAL TOO HIGH
FAULT IS CURRENTLY PRESENT
FAULT DETERMINED AS PERSISTENT
FAULT DOES NOT CAUSE THE
MIL LAMP ACTIVATION

P0175 = MIXTURE ADAPTION FACTOR
FRA BANK 2 DRIVE CYCLE C
OCCURED 1 TIMES
SIGNAL TOO HIGH
FAULT IS CURRENTLY PRESENT
FAULT DETERMINED AS PERSISTENT
FAULT DOES NOT CAUSE THE
MIL LAMP ACTIVATION

I'm guessing I need a new O2 sensor, somewhere. Could someone possibly enlighten me as to which one that is? :)
Also, what is the rough road sensor? It sounds more like EAS than Motronic to me, but if you have any hints I'd be grateful.

Or just point me at the relevant section of RAVE, I'm still a complete novice looking round that monster!
Other known faults on the vehicle at the moment:

• ABS/Traction failure on dash - just had a new front left wheel hub after bearing collapse so I'm guessing that sensor might be toast - have yet to code that on the nanocom because it seems to need to be done on the move and I had a 4 yo on board.

• Blend motor failure, not bothered with that yet.

• Non heating heated seats

I've no idea if these are relevant but until I know enough to discard unrelated symptoms I'll list them just in case.

Thanks :)
Miles

Folks, this is getting more serious :(
This is a 2001 (Y reg) 4.6 Vogue which is parked up at the garage after the battery went flat while it was waiting for parts.. Today the owner charged the battery, hooked it up and left it so I had time for the 30 minutes timeout to elapse before I got there.
I can open the door with the key, the hazards come on (the alarm doesn't sound, maybe it's broken?) and when I try to start it I get
"Engine Disabled, press remote or enter keycode." on the dash

I can mess around with the other stuff and set the windows etc, but I can't start the engine or use the remote.

I've tried entering the EKA in the driver's door lock (all doors, tailgate, bonnet closed, door handles pushed in) but no joy. In fact, I entered it 4-5 times and nothing happened at all no lockout warning on the dash, no beeps, clicks or anything. The central locking doesn't work on the key or the remote.

I tried resynching the remote using the door lock method - (key in, press unlock, turn to unlock, turn to centre, release button, press lock, turn to lock, return to centre, release button) - no joy.
I also read somewhere that post 99 they should "easy sync" in the ignition - couldn't make that work although I wasn't sure of the procedure.

I've got nothing!
Can anyone suggest some diagnostics or next steps?
thanks
Miles

Annoyingly it died at the garage where I was getting the wheel bearing done. Garage is clueless on P38 electrics (like me!)
I've found the EKA procedure and I'm hoping to go down there and sort it out. The garage is charging the battery overnight so hopefully it'll hold long enough for me to sort out the EKA issue and get it onto the guy's ramp so he can change the hub and brakes.
So.. I don't think I'm going to trust that battery any more. The usual online suspects don't seem to have anything man enough in terms of CCA and most of them are at 70 aH which doesn't seem enough.

So, good old Hellfrauds...http://tinyurl.com/zda6j5m they seem to have a reasonable selection. Should I just go with the £99 one? I'm thought I read somewhere that the P38 prefers a lead acid to calcium, but that might be BS!

Folks,
apart from being ridiculously expensive, are the Arnott Gen3 bags worth looking at? I like the idea of the ride being firmer when lower instead of firmer when higher - but I've also read some stories that they're not the most durable parts.
Does anyone have any experience? I'm not really bothered about the extra 2" ride height although if I had the bags I'd probably slowly collect the other bits needed to raise the offroad height (shocks, rear height sensors).

Well, technicall my wife was driving....

Turns out that the slightly vague front end and possibly the ABS/Traction faults were down to a knackered front left wheel bearing. I've never heard of a wheel bearing collapsing before, they've always given plenty of moans and grinding noises before they got that terminal but this one collapsed to the extent that it took out the brake disk and left the steering all cockeyed!

Garage has recommended a new hub. Are there any OEM equivalents around (or OEM) that you guys would recommend? I had a look at Island 4x4 and they want £175 for an "OEM QUALITY" HERE I'm happy with the price, if the quality is good.

Do you guys have any recommendations?
thank you!!
Miles

Hi Folks,
just thought I'd swing by and see how things are doing.. oh and to show off that I've just had the RR converted to run on LPG which is a huge relief to the wallet :)
It was done by Simon at LPGC (Gilbertd will know who I mean) who seems to have done a really nice neat job.
50p a litre? mines a double :)

Cheers all,
Morat