08 D3 Electronic Gremlins

[pedro54]

My 08 D3 has started having gremlins in the electronics, HDC FAULT, TRANSMISSION FAULT, SUSPENSION LOWERS, LIMP HOME MODE. Turn off ignition and restart, all fine for a while.

First time it occurred was in Toowoomba in traffic, August last year after a 3,500Km trip, 100k from home. Stopped and restarted, no further problems.

The fault reoccured in February and has been reoccuring on a number of occasions. on a number of occasions the fault has reoccured on the same stretch of road. I have been making notes on the faults before clearing with a Faultmate FCR.

So far I have replaced the Brakelight switch and cleaned the earth connections on the body as well as removing and cleaning the connectors on the Transfer Case Control Module. The faults are still occuring and the wife is getting vocal about the reliability of the vehicle.

Most appear to be commuications errors.

List of recurring faults

Air suspension

U0416 invalid data received from vehicle dynamics control module - bus/signal message failure - signal is invalid - historic

Auto gearbox

U2023 control module network signal calibration data - bus signal message failure.


HVAC

B1B74
B1B75
B1B76
B1B77


Instrument pack

U0132 Lost comms with ride level control, los comms with suspension control module, message failure
U0184 Lost comms with audio unit , bus signal message failure , missing message


Park brake 'a'

U0100 Lost comms with engine control module/powertrain control module ' a' bus message failure intermittent


Terrain response

U0401 invalid data received from engine control module/ powertrain control module , component failure unexpected operation
U0402 invalid data received from transmission control module, component failure, unexpected operation
U0416 invalid data received from vehicle dynamics control module, component failure, unexpected operation


I have also had the following ccode twice only, whereas the other have been regular.

Engine management

P117d fuel volume regulator control exceeded max control limit, general failure information, no sub code information, intermittent


Need to know where to look next.

Peter

[DiscoJeffster]

BradC recently resolved a similar issue. After exhaustive diagnosis he ended up replacing the high pressure fuel pump (P117D error) and it resolved it. It’s becoming quite common and causes a cascading fault as you have experienced. There are a few things such as verifying the low pressure fuel pump and the fuel filter are ok first before embarking on a HPFP replacement however the odds favour the high pressure pump being the cause.

[BradC]

BradC recently resolved a similar issue. After exhaustive diagnosis he ended up replacing the high pressure fuel pump (P117D error) and it resolved it. It’s becoming quite common and causes a cascading fault as you have experienced. There are a few things such as verifying the low pressure fuel pump and the fuel filter are ok first before embarking on a HPFP replacement however the odds favour the high pressure pump being the cause.

In *my* case the HPFP faults always led to cascading park brake, suspension & transfer case faults (I don't have a transmission), but the others weren't present without one or more of the HPFP faults. Started as a P117D and gradually transitioned to the P0087 (low fuel pressure) over a matter of months.

I never saw audio, instrument pack or HVAC faults. Not to say that's conclusive as my car is a bit of a "special case".

If Peter has seen the Christmas tree of faults and only seen the HPFP faults twice I'd be more inclined to suspect something fundamental like the battery. These are tricky beasts.

[Eevo]

interesting my 08 RRS TDV8 has similar but opposite code


P117E-00 (2C) Fuel volume regulator control exceeded minimum control limit.


only happens in the first 30 seconds of driving.

[Graeme]

For all the comms faults I suggest that the transfer case module's connector pins and sockets be inspected for corrosion. The module is not sealed and the connectors are not waterproof and the module is a high speed can-bus gateway with the engine, gearbox and ABS ecus on 1 side and everything else including air suspension on the other side.

Also, check that the wiring harness behind the left front wheel hasn't come adrift and has rubbed on the inside of the tyre damaging wires.

[Ean Austral]

I had several of those codes on 2 occasions.

First was when i played around with fitting a extra battery in front of the start battery and i disturbed the 2 wires going to the earth studs. The list of faults surprised the hell out of me at the time.

Second was when i had a resonably new battery that had dropped a cell and after a week of checking ended up taking the battery for a load test out of sheer frustration , new battery fitted and all was good.

When my HPFP started to fault , the main fault that always showed was a low fuel rail pressure fault , then came the rest . That fault was constant thru every fault right up until the pump was changed and since changing there has been no issues.

Hope this helps.

Cheers Ean

[pedro54]

Thanks for the replies.

I had already cleaned the TCCM over the weekend and cleaned and retightened the earth connectors.

The P117D message has only appeared twice, out of about 10 failures, usually not there. The rest of the codes are consistent.

Was talking with Traxide earlier today about the SC80 and the fat the batteries had separated today. the comment was made after I discribed the typical weekly usage of the vehicle, I work from home and my wife is retired, that the battery could be suffering from sulphide buildup. It was recommended to change the battery for 12 hours a day over 5 to 7 days and see if the battery improves in storage the faults stop.

Trying that at the moment.

Peter

[loanrangie]

Thanks for the replies.

I had already cleaned the TCCM over the weekend and cleaned and retightened the earth connectors.

The P117D message has only appeared twice, out of about 10 failures, usually not there. The rest of the codes are consistent.

Was talking with Traxide earlier today about the SC80 and the fat the batteries had separated today. the comment was made after I discribed the typical weekly usage of the vehicle, I work from home and my wife is retired, that the battery could be suffering from sulphide buildup. It was recommended to change the battery for 12 hours a day over 5 to 7 days and see if the battery improves in storage the faults stop.

Trying that at the moment.

Peter


Did Tim suggest disconnecting the batteries to rule out a dead battery pulling down the other ? Last year i had an interesting incident where my main had dropped while i was tinkering with the earthing of my winch, left work only get the hdc/special progs off/suspension lowered just down the road. A restart didnt help so i limped back to work and although it seemed to start and run ok as soon as i tried to drive it would die. Made it down the down a few k's but in the end had to call the old man to bring me a battery. I removed my aux. i put the tiny battery from my mums nissan Tiida in and that was enough to get me back home.
Fixed my earth issue and charged the battery and no problems since.

[Crustie]

Hi
I had a similar problem and found when the Mechanic started to trouble shoot that under the carpet was flooded
caused by blocked condensation drains for the aircon. Since then we have cleaned out the drains and dried the
car carpets with heaters and dehumidifiers. The problems seemed to happen after a long runs with aircon on.
It is still early days since the repairs and remains to be seen if the problem is resolved however the problem has not
returned since the drying out
Cheers Chris

[PerthDisco]

Hi
I had a similar problem and found when the Mechanic started to trouble shoot that under the carpet was flooded
caused by blocked condensation drains for the aircon. Since then we have cleaned out the drains and dried the
car carpets with heaters and dehumidifiers. The problems seemed to happen after a long runs with aircon on.
It is still early days since the repairs and remains to be seen if the problem is resolved however the problem has not
returned since the drying out
Cheers Chris

Blocked sun roof drains perhaps? Have not heard of aircon drains blocking.

[TFromT]

BradC is onto it; he has a good thread on this and worth a read.

Fuel pressure related problems always seem to result in a cascading dropout of all modules on the D3/4/RRS high-speed CANbus (medium-speed unaffected). I don't know why but it just seems to be like that! I have read this is deliberate to save HPFP and injectors in the case of low fuel supply and potential cavitation but, that was written somewhere on the internet so who knows really...

I feel the key part to the error codes is the powertrain 'P' code which relates to one of the two regulators/valves inside the high-pressure fuel pump (HPFP). I *think* it's telling you that it has opened to it's maximum amount, and there's a need for even more fuel to the fuel rails. As such, would possibly suggest that 1). the HPFP is simply not working correctly (either not pumping properly or pressure or volume regulator has gone) or 2). the fuel delivery to the HPFP is not quite enough - this is easy to do a heath-check on by measuring current draw at the LPFP fuse, and also the fuel pressure measured at the schrader bleed valve under the bonnet. As others have also said, you should expect a P0087 error, and also a p2290 (?) code relating to low injector pressure - perhaps this will come..

Personally, I have had two seperate occurrences of fuel related P codes that result in CANbus dropouts - they are not good for ones relationship as you say, or anything else for that matter!! First instance was EVENTUALLY traced to a hairline crack in filter housing meaning that air was getting into the fuel at random times - this was a tricky one to find but oh so rewarding when finally found!! Second time about a year later (I'm still not actually sure..) but hasn't returned after simply changing fuel filter (I changed low-pressure pump, because it's old and probably had a dirty filter which it certainly did!); if I begin getting error codes relating to HPFP regulators then I will be changing the HPFP at that point.

In a way, the strangest thing is this part "The P117D message has only appeared twice, out of about 10 failures, usually not there. The rest of the codes are consistent"... Unless you ALSO have a short to ground somewhere on you high-speed CAN... Now that would be unlucky!!

[pedro54]

Shortly after we purchased the D3 in late 2011, we had a rodent chew through some cables, caused a CAN bus fault, and would not start. Was taken to MR Automotive at Redcliffe on a flat bed and they repaired some cable damage. There were no further issues for nearly 8 years apart from for a while we would get a suspension warning light flash and ping, but have not had this alarm for several years.

I am now startign to document all alarms in a spreadsheet with date so that I can look for common. Probably should change the Fuel Filter.

Peter

[101RRS]

I am with Ean - I had all this when my Varta battery was dying due to old age - not a sudden death just fading away gracefully but throwing up codes all over the place - almost like a dead alternator. When removed the old battery still had its voltage and tested OK under load but its CCA was down from over 900 to under 300. It would still start the car ok as long as it fired up straight away.

So check the battery - voltage, load and CCA - if any are suspect replace.

[Crustie]

Blocked sun roof drains perhaps? Have not heard of aircon drains blocking.
I have a SE no Sunroof
Drains were totally blocked of dirt silt etc from aircon

Cheers Chris

[pedro54]

Mine is an SE, no sunroof.

No issues yet. Will see this weekend.

Peter

[Crustie]

Hi
After replacing most brake parts the Brakes still had a fault, Then we found under the carpets were flooded I dried the carpets and unblocked the
Air-conditioning drains, Since that was done no problems until today, Fault code for brake switch again. In just about give up total cost to date $2500.00
plus previous owner had same problem and spent about the same ( only found out after I purchased the D3)
Never had so many problems with any car in 40 years

[PerthDisco]

Never heard of air cond drains blocking? Not sure how they would get blocked at the evaporator inside the cabin with the pollen filter cleaning incoming air.

[loanrangie]

Never heard of air cond drains blocking? Not sure how they would get blocked at the evaporator inside the cabin with the pollen filter cleaning incoming air.Common on all previous model landys, condensation pools when it can't drain to the exterior.