Suspension + DSC + handbrake + brake warning lights

[af3556]

I was travelling along a dirt road near Newnes when my 2008 D3 suddenly **** itself and "everything" dropped out - the dash thew up errors for the DSC, handbrake, brake warning lights, and suspension dropped to the stops. At the time we were going round a bend and we briefly lost traction (i.e. I guess we were unintentionally relying on the stability control).
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-C15Ut_qcj9U/UM2ZAxfHqTI/AAAAAAABZlk/AUb4sLUPTQ0/s640/D3%2520warning%2520lights.JPG

These errors are persistent: even after leaving the car off, and disconnecting the main battery for a period, they don't clear. The fact they all triggered simultaneously suggests to me they're not all genuine. A web search suggests either a faulty battery or brake switch - battery voltage is 12.2 V when the car's been in the driveway for about a week, which I believe is more or less ok. Not sure how I can find and test the brake switch.

Thoughts on anything to check before heading into the stealers?

Rgds,
Ben

[Graeme]

A failed ABS sensor circuit will cause those faults. Check the wiring harness behind the left front wheel to see if it has pulled away from its flimsy clip to the chassis and allowed the inside edge of the tyre to rub through some of the wires.
Did it drop to the stops or just to access height?

[af3556]

Thanks Graeme, you were pretty much on the money. The front ABS cabling seems all fine to me, however the rear ABS sensor had broken off at the mount point. Also the CV boot cover was damaged (leaking) and the parking brake cable loose from its retaining hook. It looks like a stick or such has gone up and made a bit of a mess.

Southern Classic in Wollongong estimate a bit over $500 to replace the sensor, CV boot and grease repack (apparently replacing the CV boot takes a couple of hours). I appreciated they took the time to show me exactly what had failed, and were good in answering my questions.

(It had dropped to the stops: lower than I've ever seen it before and passing through every little bump in the road. It was so low I felt like I needed some doof-doof music and flashing neon underneath when driving into town...)

Thanks,
Ben

[SBD4]

..... It was so low I felt like I needed some doof-doof music and flashing neon underneath when driving into town...

:Rolling::Rolling::Rolling::Rolling:

[AnD3rew]

Southern Classic in Wollongong estimate a bit over $500 to replace the sensor, CV boot and grease repack (apparently replacing the CV boot takes a couple of hours).

I was told that it takes so long to replace the boot that it is actually easier and marginally cheaper to replace the whole CV unit, parts cost more, but labour costs a lot less.

[karlblues2]

I had these same faults come up on Friday. Took it to Melbourne City Land Rover on Saturday and they said that the computer showed EGRs faulty and Brake switch faulty.
Said to replace the EGR's requires a body off job :eek: and will take 6 hours labour plus $508 each EGR. (There are two.)
I appreciate them looking at it at short notice, but if its potentially an ABS sensor and I can avoid 3 days off the road and a couple of thousand in repairs I will!
After reading this thread I think I will be asking them to check again before mid January when its booked in..
Any other thoughts?
Cheers
Karl

[Graeme]

It had dropped to the stopsI'm surprised it dropped right down as LR documentaton states that faults reported by the brake system only caused safe height which is about access height. It might be worthwhile to inquire if there are any outstanding software updates for the suspension ecu.

[Graeme]

Said to replace the EGR's requires a body off jobIs this for a 2.7 and if so, has the procedure changed because many 2.7 EGR valves have been replaced without removing the body.

[karlblues2]

Thanks Graeme
I am only repeating what I was informed by the stealership on Saturday
Happy if its just the ABS controller. Although as I said, they also picked up a brake switch fault..
Lets hope it's something relatively cheap!
Cheers guys
Karl

[101RRS]

EGRs do not require the body off but will result in skinned knuckles and lots of profanity - so I am told. Thats why I blanked mine and just connected the new EGrs to the electrical connector.

My new EGRs were $200 each delivered from the UK.

[gghaggis]

I'm surprised it dropped right down as LR documentaton states that faults reported by the brake system only caused safe height which is about access height. It might be worthwhile to inquire if there are any outstanding software updates for the suspension ecu.

Two simultaneous faults would drop it to the bump-stops, eg ABS sensor + brake switch.

Cheers,

Gordon

[BobD]

I am surprised that such clever blokes as Graeme and Gordon haven't come up with something to stop the car dropping to the bump stops for faults that do not even involve the suspension.

I can't believe that LR think it is necessary to drop the car to the bump stops when it detects failures. This must be one of the worst "features" of our cars. It needs a proper fail safe for all of its systems that can get you home, not something that causes you more grief than the original failure. We need a clever software engineer to change this for us.

Bob

[101RRS]

I am surprised that such clever blokes as Graeme and Gordon haven't come up with something to stop the car dropping to the bump stops for faults that do not even involve the suspension.



Gordon does have a kit to pump it back up when it does drop :).

Likewise LLAMs has a raise function but I am not sure it would work in this case - Graeme this is you queue to come in and tell us what the emergency function in LLAMs works for.

Garry

[BobD]

Yes, and I have the GOE emergency pump up kit.

Would be nice if Llams would over ride the software but I'm not sure if it does. We'll see what Graeme has to say about it.

Bob

[101RRS]

LLAMS recovery mode might work in this situation. From the LLAMS thread in the Verandah section

A minor feature has been added to Llams - "recovery mode". It is to provide off-road height when the suspension system has lowered the vehicle to a "safe" height due to a reported ABS fault. The original Llams at +50 provides only about normal height, which might not be high enough if an ABS fault occurrs when at off-road height and really needed.

Garry

[BobD]

Another good reason to have Llams!

Graeme, can you confirm that Llams can be used to raise the car in the event of the twin failures that Gordon was referring to? We just need to have the instructions on us to understand how to use the extra push button on the latest Llams to get these extra features when needed.

Bob

[AnD3rew]

The Llams instructions for recovery mode are on page 2 here
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/attachments/verandah/54357d1355266811-llams-electronic-height-controller-d3-d4-rrs-lhc-instructions-2.0.5.pdf

But it only says from safe height @ access height.

[gghaggis]

If the car has faulted such that it is on the bump stops and won't raise on a restart, then the EAS is disabled. Playing with the sensor voltages, either via LLAMS or rods won't raise the vehicle.

Cheers,

Gordon

[Graeme]

Two simultaneous faults would drop it to the bump-stops, eg ABS sensor + brake switch.There's no mention in the 2007 suspension system documentation that multiple ABS ecu-reported faults is treated any differently to a single fault. Perhaps conditions were omitted from that documentation or have been introduced since.

Did the suspension rise after a restart or did it stay permanently on the stops until the 2 faults were fixed?

[Graeme]

Another good reason to have Llams!

Graeme, can you confirm that Llams can be used to raise the car in the event of the twin failures that Gordon was referring to? We just need to have the instructions on us to understand how to use the extra push button on the latest Llams to get these extra features when needed.

Bob
Llams can only raise if the suspension ecu is prepared to maintain the vehicle at a height above the bump-stops.

Recovery mode is just extra high (obtained by pressing the button when the Llams height switch is on its high setting) but only achieves off-road height if the vehicle is only at access/safe height.

[af3556]

...Did the suspension rise after a restart or did it stay permanently on the stops until the 2 faults were fixed?

The suspension stayed down after a restart and also after a spell with the battery disconnected. I can't say it was honest to god on the stops, but it was lower than access height (at access height I can still just get my toes in between the wheel arch and tyre, whereas I couldn't with the fault). Moreover every little bump in the road came right through, much more so than when driving at access height.

The dealer diagnosed only one fault, the busted ABS sensor (it was physically broken in two). I'm hoping to hear tomorrow that it's all fixed.

Ben

[karlblues2]

Hi guys

I had a low washer fluid level sign come up around the same time as these fault lights and have eventually refilled the washer bottle back up. I then watched it leak over the garage floor. Like most things on the Disco its tricky to get at. I removed part of the inner wheel arch and the left fog light and could feel lots of fluid, but no obvious cracks. Regardless, I am now wondering if the location of this is incidental to the fault lights that appear in the original post on this thread?
Or could some water be leaking into something in the front left wheel arch near the washer bottle and cause all these fault lights and suspension drop?

Thoughts appreciated
Cheers
Karl

[AnD3rew]

I just had exactly the same set of circumstances happen to me on a trip from Sydney to Brisbane, except I had Llams set to -20, I went around a corner a little too fast, enough to activate the DSC just a touch,and then a Couple of minutes later going around another corner all the warning lights came on and suspension lowered and reduced gears etc.

Luckily for me though I just pulled over, shut down the car locked the doors, waited a minute and opened and restarted and everything reset to normal. Whew. Needless to say I don't think I will be using the Llams -20 on the highway again.

[Graeme]

..and suspension lowered and reduced gears etc.Reduced gears shows that this was an ABS fault not a suspension system fault so wasn't caused by using Llams at -20mm. Fault codes would likely indicate a particular wheel ABS sensor fault.

[AnD3rew]

Reduced gears shows that this was an ABS fault not a suspension system fault so wasn't caused by using Llams at -20mm. Fault codes would likely indicate a particular wheel ABS sensor fault.

I don't think it is a Llams fault per se, but my theory is that with a heavily loaded car with the suspension lowered and then going through a high speed corner with a few unsettling bumps it got all kinds of strange wheel movements and sensor indications which caused a fault. I have never had it before, and it didn't repeat for another 6 hours of driving once I went back to normal suspension settings.

May be nothing at all to do with the Llams setting but the car was at maximum wieghts with maximum load on the roof racks etc and maybe the Llams was just one straw too far.

[Graeme]

As that height is the 160 kph+ height I doubt it had anything to do with the fault(s).

[AnD3rew]

As that height is the 160 kph+ height I doubt it had anything to do with the fault(s).

True, but I suspect that that was designed for 160 kph on a German autobahn at, not 100kph on the New England Highway at maximum weights, but we will see if it appears again. I cold be wrong, it may be a dodgy ABS sensor.

[AnD3rew]

If we assume it has nothing to do with the -20, Does this ever just happen as a one off, or do I need to assume there is something dodgy going on?

[Graeme]

I've not known a height sensor electrical or plausibility fault to trigger reduced gears, being a more normal result of a wheel speed sensor fault due to the vehicle speed being unreliable. It is feasible to get an ABS fault that doesn't re-occur for a long time, perhaps a flake of rust affecting the regularity of the sensor signals, a loose sensor or damaged wiring. DSC relying on wheel speed sensors increases the liklihood that it was at least a plausibility fault, if not an electrical fault. With all my experimenting that sometimes caused suspension faults, not once was there a fault that caused reduced gears. Reading ABS and suspension ecu stored fault codes would be the only way to establish or discount a cause.

I agree that the LR probably expect the lowered stance to be used only on smooth roads. I use the height only in special circumstances and on relatively smooth roads mostly because more bumps cause the suspension to thump.

[gghaggis]

Quite a few years ago, I had a peculiar fault that froze the D3 at extended mode. Driving 400km home, I had quite a few DSC activations and then finally a "reduced gears" fault. So something cascaded the error into the TCM.

I'd note that when the car drops itself to the -20mm setting, it knows about it, and can adjust DSC calibration etc accordingly. If you modify the heights with LLAMS or rods, it doesn't. I always caution people fitting the two-way rods to only use the additional heights when required. I doubt that it could cause a permanent fault or problem though.

Cheers,

Gordon

[Crash68]

Coming back to WA from South Austarlia, our 07 2.7td would be going along nicely then suddenly drop in to neutral and the car would lower, we would also have limited engine power. the messages we got on the dash were HCD command Failed and various messages about the car being at different heights once we had the compressor needs to cool before the car will resume normal height.
We had stopped the car several time and shut it all off and restarted it, disconnected the battery for a few minutes and the last one getting everbody out and locking and unlocking it several times to see if that would solve the problem. which it did for short periods.
We seemed to be able to drive in 3rd at about 80ks and it got us back to Penong

This was just before Nundroo crossing the Nullarbor with temps in the low 40s with 4 kids in the car, we decided to turn back and head to the nearest dealer in Port Lincoln 500ks away.
Once we left Penong for PL the car drove with out a problem all the way, the dealer ran his computer on it the following day and could see all the error messages but could not specify an exact problem, maybe some canbus issues. They loaded all the latest software updates and sent us on our way.
the car was fine for the next 1500ks until just near Balladonia it all started again. gggrrrr
We have managed to limp home but the problem is still occurring occasionally, our closest dealer is about 6.5hrs away so maybe a slow drive there this week.
The guy in Port Lincoln did say the battery was on the way out but it is only about 12 months old.
any ideas please?????

[Graeme]

Low battery voltage is a well-known cause of various faults.