Thread: 2000 Disco 2 TD5 Auto Can't Select Reverse

Hey all,

We have a 2000 Discovery 2 TD5 Auto. It went for a long drive recently (someone drove it, thankfully it didn't just decide to go exploring on its own) and arrived home safely. It reversed fine once (back up the hill in front of our carport) but thereafter reverse just stopped working. We've never had this problem before.

When we select Reverse, the engine note doesn't change, the red light on the selector console thingy doesn't light up, the odometer screen shows nothing and revving the engine simply revs as though it were still in Park or Neutral. It does the same thing as when you put the selector half way between Drive and 3rd, for example. All other gears work fine. It just doesn't seem to know we've selected a gear when we put it reverse. With that in mind, my first thought was, "well, the XYZ switch must've gotten some air con drips in it" since the air con was running basically the whole trip. However I had the XYZ switch off more than a year ago and I'm fairly sure I siliconed it back up so it could never get water inside.

But the thing that's really confusing us is the fact that the reversing lights still come on when we select reverse, as do the rear wipers if we put the windscreen wipers on.

I'll probably take the XYZ off again just to be sure but in the meantime we're hoping someone here might have suggestions and/or explain how the reversing lights can come on if it doesn't know it's in reverse.

Additional notes:
- The rear suspension stopped pumping up in the same trip. I think it's unrelated because it seems to me like the compressor is dead (we'll test later) but it may be useful information. Also I think it's unrelated because it stopped pumping during the trip, whereas reverse stopped working at the very end of the trip while parking it.
- I cleaned out the red and black ECU plugs with electrical cleaner to remove the oil that seeps in. No change.
- We bought an expensive new battery charger because our last one died and fully charged the battery. It was a 12.56 volts before the charge, I think 13V after. No change.

Thanks for any help

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The reverse selection command from the XYZ switch to the ECU is on the same contact of the switch with the graphics and reverse lights so if these are working the switch is OK that's all i can say