Thread: MOST DANGEROUS 4X4 EVER MADE!

My 07 Range Rover Vogue was parked on the driveway outside. My wife goes out to do the daily run to the local post office, about 10KM away.

She starts the motor and immediately gets a “Suspension Fault” message.

She turns the motor off and comes and tells me what has happened.

I go out, start the motor and the message appears then a few seconds later, it clears and all is well.

I back the vehicle out of the driveway and go for about a 0.5KM drive, all is fine.

My wife then drives off with everything “APPEARING” to be OK.

About 6KM into the drive and the “Suspension Fault” message reappears so my wife turns around to come back home.

The motor then stops, and the RR came to an immediate stop, leaving my wife stranded in the middle of the road.

A message came up on the centre screen stating “SYSTEM FAILED” and then a whole range of failure messages flashed up on the screen, like “ABS FAULT” and so on, then the screen went dead.

It had just gone dark so with no lights on the RR and as the RR had stopped on a decent hill, just bellow the crest, my wife decided to roll the RR off the road.

NO WAY. The steering had locked, and because when she had first come to a stop, she had put the RR transmission in PARK, it would no release and worst of all the hazard lights would not work.

This is a busy country style road, right in the middle of peak period with no street lights and loads of traffic.

With no lights on the RR, my wife had to get out of the RR and try to wave vehicles down to avoid one of the running into the back of the RR in the dark and to stop them running into on coming traffic if the swerved to miss the RR.

My wife had phoned me as soon as the RR stopped so I was there in less than 10 minutes.

A woman in a new Prado had pulled up and ask my wife what was wrong, when my wife told her the RR was dead and she could not even get the hazard lights on, the woman pulled in behind the RR with her hazards on.

Not going to knock Toyota drivers again!

My wife had already phoned the RACQ and as the RR was in a dangerous position, the RACQ operator told her that a tow truck has been despatched as a high priority.

The RR was in such a dangerous location, when I arrived, I could risk trying to sort out what might be wrong with it, I had to help wave down the traffic.

I local resident had seen what was going on and bought a torch over to us.

Now while there is a safety reflective triangle in the back of the RR and I also carry a safety vest, all kept in with the spare wheel, because there was no power, the tail gate could not be opened so there was no way to get at the safety gear.

Then about 5 minutes after I arrived, a Police K9 vehicle came passed. The officer ask if we could roll the RR off the road, we explained the RR was not movable so he turned around and parked so traffic could see the blue and red lights and he then directed traffic from the crest of the hill.

It was still to dangerous to do anything about working on the RR and the Officer called for another patrol to assist.

Three times while the officer was directing traffic, he was nearly run down by idiots who were totally ignoring him.

Now this is Friday night on a long week end so you can only imagine how much work the police already had.

About 20 minutes later another patrol arrived and set up in the opposite direction.

It was at this time that the Good Samaritan in the Prado left. She had helped for nearly an hour and although we thanked her I wanted going to get something for her two young children who had waited with her, but she just replied, “If ever she breaks down she just hopes someone helps her”. I was very VERY grateful that she had stopped to help my wife.

At this time we received a call from the RACQ, informing us that a tow truck was on it’s way but was stuck in traffic.

20 minutes later the truck arrived and the problem of getting the RR onto the tow truck quickly became apparent.

The RACQ tow truck driver gave up and called for a service vehicle.

I took off back home, grabbed a battery and jumper leads and came back, arriving just as the RACQ service vehicle arrived.

With another battery hooked up to the cranking battery, the motor would turn over but not start, but at least with the brake light circuit working, I could get the RR out of park and release the PARK BRAKE.

2.5 hours after the RR died, the RR was finally cleared off the road.

The RR was delivered back to my place where I measured the cranking battery. It had a voltage reading of just 7.58v.

The battery has been recharged overnight and so far so good, so this leave the cause of the failure to either the starter motor or the alternator and my money is the alternator.

Irrespective of what was the cause of the failure, the way the RR failed makes this vehicle a death trap and this is a warning to others if you find yourself in the same or similar situation.

Originally Posted by Grumbles

At least insurance will cover the mouse damage Justin.

That's an informative heads up drivesafe.

I believe this is the case, yes.

JC