A question about stuff.

[olbod]

G'day.
I know very little about this modern electrical stuff in vehicles these days.
Me Bro has the P38a which I often drive.
Things I dont care for: you put it into reverse and the side review mirror points at the ground, grr. It has electrical gismo stuff on the centre rear view mirror. When I get in and close the door it locks ! I keep forgetting about this and usually bang me head on the window because i've started
to get out but the door hasn't opened because it's still locked, POOH.
On and on, etc.
Question. If one were to cut the wire to the rear view mirror and tape it
up, so it doesn't point to the ground when you put it into reverse, would
the ecu or thingy go beserk ? Can this sort of thing be isolated by using
a pair of side cutters ?
Of course I dont want to attack his car but I might end up with it.

Another thing out of curiousity, up here in the tropics we dont need
car heaters, I've never used one.
The P38's have trouble spitting heater O rings. Would this problem still
occur if the heater is never used ?
Can the hoses to the heater be removed from the heater and just looped back into the block or where ever it connects to ?
I usually do this with my vehicles when they do hoses or start to leak
but with all these modern electrical mine fields I prefer to stand well back,
thats why I am asking first.
Tar.

PS: some might say thats modern life, live with it but I would rather not.

[mike 90 RR]

Feel ya pain

[Scouse]

The reverse dip feature is programmable. The details on how to turn it on/off/adjust are in the owners manual.

The doors should not lock by themselves so that is an issue.

The heater needs to be in working order for the climate control to work as it belnds hot air with cold to get your selected temperature.

Help?

[olbod]

Thanks Scouse.

[p38arover]

Ref the mirrors, read the bloody owner's handbook!

Replacing the O-rings isn't hard. I've written the procedure up on the rangerovers.net website.

[olbod]

Ron, I have the Rangy for a month while Bro is in Tassie, the owners manual is not in the car, unfortunately.

When things need doing to this vehicle it goes to the best LR mechanics
in the country ie, Landrover Spares Mackay.

The gist of my questions tho concerned the ecu thingy's. How far can they be tampered with ? ( side cutters ).
I know little about these things and I am not suggesting that I would
actually tamper with it but I am still none the wiser.

I think it was you that said you wouln't be game to take your P38 off
road but what if one did and had problems ? Suppose your o rings let
go along the Tanami and dumped the coolant ( is that what happens ) ?
Can the heater be isolated and the hoses rerouted and the radiator
topped up again without sirens going off and lights flashing ?
I've read up on the airbags etc and the little kits available to bypass
the compressor and so on but not having first hand Knowledge yet
I need to ask questions about side of the track repairs !!
If you see what I mean.
Tar.

PS: Despite its foibles and high maintenance costs, I still woudn't mind
owning it.

[RickP38]

Hey mate, mine gets serviced by a LR dealer as well. I tow a lot so reversing a trailer with those mirrors was a real pain in the arse so I got them to disconnect/remove the function. (they did it at no cost so it must have been easy) However, the Mrs complains every time she needs to reverse into a park or alongside a curb

[PaulP38a]

How to disable the mirror dip function:
Turn the starter switch to position ’I’ or ’II’ (do not start the engine) and select reverse gear.
Press and hold the seat MEMORY STORE switch for 2 seconds, the message centre displays ’MIRROR DIP OFF’ and a tone sounds.

Re the heater hoses, dunno but here's a couple of thoughts:

• I understand that even in tropical FNQ heaters are useful to assist in demisting
• bypassing the heater matrix might cause a fault on the HEVAC display - probably the "cheque book" symbol. Mine has been showing the "cheque book" symbol for ages, but heating and cooling still work ok.
• I guess you could just block off the cabin-side pipes and loop the engine-side feed and return pipes and see what happens. Good luck.

Interesting that you seem so sure that P38A's have a problem of spitting heater O rings. I've had 2 P38A's so far and never had this problem that I'm aware of. Maybe I'd better have a closer look...

Cheers, Paul.

[p38arover]

If the O-rings fail, they seem to just leak. As the age, they harden. I suspect that they are fine until someone plays around with the heater hoses under the bonnet and flexes the aluminium pipes.

I think that mine started to leak after I replaced the hoses.

I like the dipping mirrors, especially when reversing a trailer. I really miss the dip function when I drive my wife's Subaru.

[olbod]

Thanks all for the reply's
I am not sure about anything regarding P38's.
When Bro first got the thing about seven or eight months ago he asked
me to look at the service records and see what I thought. It was previously owned by a woman Doctor and was well maintained and never been off road.
In it's short life, it's a 98 model, it has had four airbags replaced, the
compressor overhauled and the heater O rings replaced twice and the engine rebuilt by Bruce Davis as a beautiful 5 ltr ( which had only done 20
thou when Bro bought it ). I thought I had read a few posts about
heater O rings being a problem ?
There were many references to small problems like door locks, key fobs,
aircon etc and these niggling things that continue.
The latest is the petrol guage has slowly stopped working, I will try to trace the wiring to look for earthing problems.
Bro is not a diehard Landy man, I talked him into buying one.
He was in Sydney for a while when our Mum was dying, so he was looking
at Disco's. He rang and asked about a P38a HSE, I told him to stay away from it !! Too late he had already bought it.
These little niggling problems and high maintenance costs are piddling him
off, thats why he has threatened to give it too me, as revenge, as if it was my fault . He looks at it from the resale value point of view and
of course it has none and he is going to lose money, which doesn't sit well.
I am the opposite, I dont care how much I spend on my beautiful D1,
it's the fifth Landy I have owned and its a keeper

Of course I would accept it, that's why I am asking questions.
It is a beautiful daily and this big engine is fantastic.

I will probably ask more questions, so be prepared !
Cheers.