Thread: Auto No drive + M S lights no start

check your battery voltage.

^what he said^

It's most probably the XY Switch on the LHS of the gearbox. The M + S lights indicate that it's in limp home mode and it will only drive in 3rd gear. Keep that up and the gearbox won't last long.

The switch is supposed to be a sealed unit, but it can be opened up and inspected, cleaned. Unfortunately for me, I used too corrosive a cleaner when I repaired mine, so the repair lasted a week before it started to throw up faults again.

RRP from Land Rover for the switch is about $1,200. The cheapest NEW one I could find was $750. There is a new one on ebay now with a Buy It Now of $265 from memory.

Here is a link to the repair :

Repairing D2 Auto Selector Switch - old one wanted for testing purposes

Here is a copy of an article I've written for LRW on this whole episode. :


The bad thing about having a computer driven car is that it adds a layer of complexity to it's operation. The good thing about having a computer driven car is that you plug in the electronic diagnosticator, and it tells you which component is in want of attention.

My D2 would on rare occasions flash the (M) - Manual and (S) - Sport warning lights, indicating a transmission fault. The first time I saw it, I thought, " wow manual sports mode! " But no, it's locked into 3rd gear Limp Home mode. The warning light for that should be a sad face and a walking stick! Not a Manual and Sport light. This little spat would require the ignition to be turned off and on again after a few seconds. Then it started not properly engaging a gear. I'd go into reverse, gently roll / back out of a car parking spot, then find the car can't accelerate, not in Reverse or Drive or any other gear, until the car was put into Park again. Then it would work, but no fault lights would show on the dash. The Hawkeye Diagnostic Prognosticator told me that it was the selector switch.

I quick search online revealed extraordinarily expensive prices for these switches. A ring around revealed that a recent price hike by Land Rover had made the switch a $1,200 rip off. The best I could get a new one for was $750! In my mind a whole four speed auto gearbox should be worth that much, not a switch.

I put the word out on www.aulro.com for anyone that may have had an old switch to donate. A few hours later a couple of faulty switches were on their way from Sydney to Melbourne for a post mortem analysis. Expert opinion had informed me that they were a sealed unit that couldn't be reconditioned. Someone I spoke to on the phone had pulled one apart, and said it was full of micro switches and very complex. The risk was that water may have got past the seal. One of the donor switches had been pulled apart, and a photo posted online prior to their arrival seemed to indicate water damage as the likely culprit.

The switch is located on the left hand side of the gearbox, and is accessible from under the car. It's a little tight, but a 10mm and 13mm spanner are all that's required to remove it. Unfortunatley on the D2a the exhaust pipe has a CAT that blocks your access, so the front section of exhaust needs to be moved out of the way. Unbolt it at the exhaust manifold (3 bolts) and at the flange under the car (2 bolts). But, you'll also need a 10mm socket to undo at least one of the cross members to drop or at least twist the exhaust pipe out of your way.

The switch is a quasi sealed unit, it has a lid and a rubber seal around the lid, but it's pop rivetted together. An issue that is easily overcome by a drill and replacement bolts.

Inside there are only two switches, each with 3 on/off positions. A wheel with a cam on the surface activates the 6 on/off combinations, and the resultant code goes to the computer. Now you would think that if a cheap mobile phone has gold plated electrics, then a luxury 4WD transmission switch might too, but alas the electrical switch is thin copper contacts like what you might find in an indicator stalk. My switch had no damage, apart from a fine film of electrical grime from these cheap contacts.

I cleaned the contacts with some carby cleaner and reassembled the unit. It work perfectly for a week, then began to intermittently play up again. I pulled it apart a second time, and found that the carby cleaner had been too corrosive for the contacts, I should have used an electrical contact cleaner and then given it a spray of INOX. I cleaned it up again, and it was better but not perfect. In the meantime an almost new switch turned up on ebay for $150. The new switch had a black cover, instead of the tan coloured one on the original. I had been told when I was looking around to make sure I bought the later switch, as the earlier ones were more prone to failure. I would have thought that a 2003 vehicle would have had the later switch, but it looked identical to the earlier ones I had autopsied, so I figure the black one with it's revised clips is the so called new one.

So did I fail? Well not quite. I bought myself some extra time to find a well priced new switch, but I also proved that you could rebuild the switch. Hopefully you'll learn from my mistakes and not use too harsh a cleaner. But even if you only got another week out of the switch at any rate, if you're on a trip and you need to cover some distance to get home, and escpecially if you're towing, then it's worth spending an hour under the car and giving the switch a temporary lease of life, rather than cook a gearbox in limp home mode - stuck in 3rd gear.

Regarding the non start, the XY Switch is also an inhibitor to stop it starting in the wrong gear as well as a position switch. Turn on the headlights and if they're bright, then you know your battery (voltage) is okay.

One guy I spoke to, from whom I bought a near new XY switch, had replaced his, but then discovered it was frayed wiring on the loom that leads to the switch that threw the same errors, so check the wiring that runs over the gearbox to the XY switch plug.

To complicate things, I just went through the motions of starting a diesel if it ran out of fuel, and the thing started for me, go figure??? I am a bit baffeled as to where to start. The inhibitor switch seems the most likely cause of the problems.

Check your battery. The ECU is realy sensitive to voltage and will do as you describe. I have the same problem, fixed by a new battery.