If you want genuine LR packaged air bags Rimmers are currently "out of stock, expected soon" but at over £500 each they unlikely to sell many.
https://rimmerbros.com/Item--i-REB101740
https://rimmerbros.com/Item--i-RKB101460
Driving around in the heatwave with temps up to 26C in West Wales I was grateful that the A/C was effective. Not as good as when freshly recharged last year but enough to keep us cool. The good thing is that I seem to have fixed the problem with condensation from the A/C exchanger dripping down & soaking the passenger (left) footwell. I think that the left hand rubber drain hose had got twisted so restricting the flow of the condensate. Now that it's untwisted & secured with a fine cable tie it's draining OK.
We are in West Wales enjoying the lat spring heat wave but avoiding the extreme temperatures in the east of the UK (35C by day & 20C at night). It's fun negotiating the narrow lanes in the P38 although the fuel consumption takes a bit of a knock with constant low gear. Yesterday morning as we were about to set off for the beach I switched on to find Beep! AIRBAG FAULT.
I pulled the Nanocom out of the glove box & it reported that the right side airbag was open circuit. I looked under the driver's (right hand) seat to find the usual culprit which is the dinky connector with wires sheathed in a yellow sleeve. I plugged & unplugged a couple of times then switched on & the fault had gone. I followed up with a squirt of contact cleaner just to make certain it stayed fixed.
I think that it's likely down to poor handling of error conditions by the EAS ECU. It gets a glitch with a height sensor giving an impossible reading & so loses its marbles which is why there is a fault with no valid error code. You can get a similar phenomenon with the ABS ECU when a wheel speed sensor throws an out of range reading. If the error handling was more robust it would be able to ignore the odd spurious reading.
My P38 had a ticking noise for at least ten years. It was cured by having V8 Developments completely recondition the engine,
I just remembered that the other P38 news from me is that it just turned over 200,000 miles. Nowhere near Richard's 500,000+ but still decent high mileage. It's 30,000 since I had the engine completely reconditioned by V8 Developments & it's been running beautifully. I have a list of minor problems that need attending to (crackles from left hand door speaker, squeaky rear windscreen wiper, sticky driver's door handle, wet passenger carpet, broken glovebox hydraulic strut etc etc) not to mention the many & various scratches & paint scrapes that are just cosmetic but I am confident I can rely on it. Stating this has probably jinxed it so it will have a catastrophic failure next time I drive it but I really think that the reconditioned engine & the other maintenance over the years on EAS etc mean that it is now as reliable as it has ever been.
A few days ago we drove back from south of Biarritz in the Basque Country right on the Spanish border to Brittany. It was almost exactly 500 miles (800km) & took a leisurely eight hours with stops for food, fuel & shopping. We were cruising on the autoroute at 130kph/80mph for most of the time. I detoured from the motorway so I could fill up with E85 at 73c per litre. At the motorway services E85 was 88p per litre still a considerable saving over E10 at €2.20 per litre.
There was one unscheduled stop when I got an EAS FAULT which the Nanocom told me was an Invalid fault code. I cleared it & we went on our way. Funnily enough the last time this happened was almost exactly a year ago when driving to the South of France. Almost certainly just a glitch from a height sensor that caused the EAS ECU to lose its marbles & throw a fault. It probably means that the error handling in the ECU code is handled poorly rather like the intermittent ABS FAULT that I have had recently which oddly enough has not occurred since I cleared the EAS FAULT.
Kbs wrote:
Thanks Gilbertd.
I'll try to get about 25% of that price (after fees) as these have paint chips with minor scuffs in places.
Those eBay ones look like a good deal with new tyres.
Oddly the listing doesn't say what type of tyre so I assumed they would be cheap & nasty Chinese ditch finders. However from the photos I can see that they are Avon ZX which are excellent tyres that I have on my P38.
After my recent issues with two failing brake light switches generating an ABS FAULT & TRACTION FAILURE I thought my problem was fixed.
https://rangerovers.pub/topic/3982-abs-fault-traction-failure-fixed
Unfortunately I am fairly regularly getting ABS FAULT & TRACTION FAILURE while driving along. This isn't every journey or even every day but probably once every two or three times I take the car out. There is nothing I have seen that will definitely generate the fault e.g. it's not when I turn right or go over a bump. It can occur at any time but I drove 500 miles from Brittany to south of Biarritz & didn't get the error once. The brake light still works & the brakes seem powerful enough although I have never been in a situation where I needed the ABS when the fault is displayed.
If I switch off the engine the fault is cleared. There is no fault stored. If I connect the Nanocom while the fault is displayed then I cannot connect to the ABC ECU. It's probably one of the ABS sensors giving an intermittent false reading that the ECU cannot handle so it throws the fault but it's not easy to figure out which one. The whole right front hub with wheel bearing was replaced a couple of months ago so that's probably favourite.
The fault is occurring more often so I need to attend to it before it's permanent but does anyone have suggestions as to how I might identify the culprit? Of course it may not even be a wheel speed sensor but is the ABS ECU throwing a wobbly. Ideas...???
When I was towing a caravan with my P38 I had cheap pair of Ring branded mirrors from Halfords. In fact the P38 door mirrors give you plenty of visibility of a van at the rear & you don't really need the extension mirrors but I put them on anyway just to comply with the law.
Pete12345 wrote:
Tape will improve it, but only for a while !! Guess how I know ?
There are some on eBay, but £29 plus postage for 11 clips ?
That's £29 for 11 USED clips too. I'm surprised that nobody has used a 3D printer to create new ones yet.
For a change this really is "What I Have Done To My Range Rover Today" as I dropped it round the garage for an MOT at 09:30 & they called at 11:00 to let me know it was ready for collection. It passed with a few advisories which was nice especially as when I took it out for a run to get it warmed up prior to the MOT the EAS had twice spontaneously changed to Wading Height while driving along. Given the weather today with it raining so hard that there are deep puddles standing on the road that may be the car exhibiting AI. I will put the Nanocom on & see if there are any error codes but won't worry too much about it for now.
Incidentally I know that they have a check list for the MOT but some of the advisories are useful e.g. brake fluid at minimum which I knew about as I checked it yesterday & then realised I couldn't top it up without buying some DOT 4 today. I guess that I should have a look to check that it's not obviously leaking anywhere as I don't recall ever topping it up before.
Not what I did today but what I did last week. I was driving to the next village a distance of about five miles & noticed that it was running a bit roughly. It revived up OK but was rough at low revs. I run on E85 (85% bioethanol) when in France & had about a quarter of a tank full. I decided that I would fill up with E5 (98 octane) & probably get a bottle of one of those magic potions alleged to clean the fuel injector etc. I filled uo then drove the five miles back to our cottage. I then sat with it on the drive as I put the Nanocom on to see if I could discover what the problem was. I eventually got to the Nanocom screen that shows misfires & saw 9 misfires on cylinder 3. After revving the engine for a bit the misfires disappeared & it was running smoothly again.
I'm not sure what the problem was. I subsequently filled up with E85 & drove back to the UK with no further issues.
A couple of days ago just before I set off from dance to the UK the same damn error message appeared again. This time ABS FAULT & TRACTION FAILURE appeared without any touch on the brake pedal. I thought that a wheel sensor might have failed but of course as I had just recently replaced the brake switch I was suspicious this could be the cause of the problem.
When I put the Nanocom on it actually displayed a Fault that the brake switch had failed. It also showed both brake switches closed Closed & only Brake Switch 1 flipped to Open when I put my foot on the brake.
I didn't have a spare brake switch or time to wait for one to be delivered before I headed back to the UK. The brake lights were working & there wasn't obviously anything wrong with performance of the brakes so I risked driving the 250 miles. I ordered a switch for delivery in the UK so it was waiting for me when we returned.
Today I fitted the new brake switch which was working OK according to the Nanocom wee between each wheel up to 5mph. Both brake light switches were flipping from Closed to Open when the brake pedal was pressed. The voltage at all the wheel sensors was the same (2.7V I think) & I could see the wheel speeds were comparable up to 5mph. The problem was I still had a beep followed by ABS FAULT then TRACTION FAILURE appearing on the message centre. I took the car for a short drive stopping & switching off the engine then restarting several times. Finally after about 5 or 6 times restarting the engine there are now no errors appearing & I can book it in for an MOT.
I don't understand why the ABS FAULT & TRACTION FAILURE messages still kept appearing even after the problem was corrected & faults cleared. It's just another quirk of the P38 I suppose.😀
Hilariously this is the fitting instructions on the Amazon web page.
Installation:
Reassemble the handbrake control switch of the car panel.
Depending on your make and model you may need to remove the door panel to access the switch wiring.
Install a new parking brake control switch in the door panel.
Reconnect the parking brake control switch.Test the operation of the window and switch before installing the door panel.
Reinstall the door panel and power it.
It's fixed. The €15 stop light switch was not a genuine LR part but was embossed with the LR part number XKB100170. It's a bit of a fiddle lying upside down under the steering wheel to fit but it is really only a ten minute job.
It's a pity that the BECM doesn't indicate a failed stop light switch with a more useful error message than ABS FAULT & TRACTION FAILUREthe
I checked with my Nanocom & in the Inputs for WABCO D it has Brake Switch 1 & Brake Switch 2. The old failed switch showed both Closed & only Brake Switch 2 flips to Open when I put my foot on the brake. The new switch shows both Brake Switch 1 & 2 flip from Closed to Open when I put my foot on the brake.
Gilbertd wrote:
Chapter 70, Brakes - Repair - Stop Light Switch From 99MY.
It has a sort of bayonet fixing so just needs twisting out and the new one pushing in and twisting (although you do have to wrestle one of the heater ducts out of the way to get to it).
Aha! When I looked through RAVE I searched on 'Brake light switch' which drew a blank. I have now found the correct section:-
STOP LIGHT SWITCH - FROM 99MY
Service repair no - 70.35.42
Remove closing panel from fascia. See
CHASSIS AND BODY, Repair.
Remove screw and remove heater outlet duct.
Remove 4 scrivets and remove access panel
from fascia.
Release and remove heater air duct for access
to stop light switch.
Refit
Ensure new stop light switch plunger is fully
extended for initial setting.
Fit stop light switch to pedal bracket and connect
multiplug.
Fit heater air duct.
Fit access panel and secure with scrivets.
Fit heater outlet duct and secure with screw.
Fit closing panel to fascia. See CHASSIS AND
BODY, Repair.
In further research I have dug up various threads in various forums including this one where the ABS FAULT & TRACTION FAILURE precipitated by a light dab on the brake pedal is fixed with a new brake light switch. Importantly that error message indicates that the switch has failed & that the brake lights are not working so needs fixing ASAP.
Please can someone point me to the section of RAVE that covers replacement of the brake switch? I have been searching but cannot find any detail.
The car starts & runs OK. I can hear the ABS pump running. If I drive off without touching the brakes the ABS light goes out. However if I touch the brake pedal even very lightly then I get a beep & then ABS FAULT appears on the dash closely followed by TRACTION FAILURE. Another important data point is that the brake lights don't work. Nanocom finds no faults in ABS (WABCO D) or gearbox.
Googling I found a couple of threads where a new brake switch fixed the problem so I just ordered a replacement for delivery on Tuesday for €15.99 delivered from Amazon. It's not genuine but a genuine LR part costs €50 & I can't get delivery until after Xmas.
Here is someone with the same problem. https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/p38-brake-light-switch-abs-fault-traction-failure.200305/
Anyone care to speculate why a duff brake switch would throw the ABS FAULT & TRACTION FAILURE? If anyone sees these messages it's definitely worth checking whether the brake lights are working. I realise now that I was driving about all day yesterday without brake lights.
I just turned 72 & intend to keep my P38 until I am no longer able to drive. My wife is ten years younger than me so I am encouraging her to drive the car so hopefully even when I am too frail to drive we will still keep the car.