Although I tend to agree with you both that the issue is likely overblown and unlikely to occur in real world situations, once NHTSA takes a closer look at this, they may not be as forgiving.

Bottom line is, only NAS vehicles appear to act up this way, nobody in ROW countries has been able to trip up their taillights AFAIK, no matter how hard they try. So, there's got to be a reason, a missing something in some (all?) NAS light clusters. And I have not heard of any other manufacturers having similar issues before, so this may be a first for NHTSA as well. We'll see, hopefully you are right and we are worrying for nothing.

 

I agree with most that this is not likely to happen in the real world but also that NHTSA is going to freak out in the future if JLR doesn't get in front of this. I tried on mine and it didn't happen, though I'm sure it's because I had a small hand held flashlight and not the LED version that Simon took from the Battle for Britain search beams. Or compared to mine they seemed epic.

The question I have is can you tell it happens from the driver's seat? If I'm driving and they go off, is there any way of telling? If so, I would either hit the hazards (would they work afterwards?) or pull over. If there's no inside way of knowing it happens, that just turned the NHTSA team into overdrive when they pick up on it.

 

That's the big problem. There are no warnings of any kind popping up in the dash to tell you the taillight clusters (one, or both - as shown, they can go out independently) are no longer operatimg when they go dark this way - which is a head scratcher considering the number of sensors, flashing icons, dire messages and warning chimes going off for everything else considered even remotely safety-related in this car. The tail lamps don't reset until you turn the engine off, lock the doors and turn the engine back on. If they figured out a way for the lamps to "self reset" or at least throw a fault (which may very well be possible to do via OTA software), this wouldn't be as much of an issue.

 

And to add misery, dealer cannot legally sell a vehicle if it has an outstanding recall. Since JLR has an active recall on the tail light issued for the smoked lenses, and will likely also have the same for the rest of the NAS lights, as it appears they are affected, this could create yet another barrier to deliveries. As far as the old Takata airbag recall, dealers did not know what airbags were in a car when it was sold so that was not a deterrent to sell the vehicles. However, since JLR knows and has issued the recall, and likely has no new parts to install on vehicles, this could yet be another big snag in deliveries over the next few months.

"The federal National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act prohibits franchised dealers from selling new vehicles that are subject to open safety recalls that have been issued by either the manufacturer or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) or which fail to comply with certain motor vehicle safety standards. Under the Act, dealerships are prohibited from selling such vehicles until the appropriate repair is complete."

 

From a manufacturing perspective, I would think that this is something that could be more easily remedied at the factory by using ROW taillight assemblies. However, cars at port and sitting on dealer lots in the US are likely going to sit for a long time if the JLR network ends up having to replace the taillight assemblies on every single vehicle. Makes one wonder what modifications they made to the NAS assembly and why they chose to make two different assemblies in the first place.

 

As long as they don't have a chip, it could be a simple fix at the factory. But for those at the port or on the lot, as you say, the wait may be considerable.

 

So the recall is only for those with the smoked lights?

I agree it is pretty unlikely in the real world, but Umbertom clearly recreated the problem, I am surprised we aren't all getting new taillights.

 

The recall currently is only for the smoked taillights...but since every NAS vehicle appears to have the same issue, JLR will have to recall them all at some point. So, yes, most likely we will all be getting new taillights in the future.

 

I dropped my defender off at the dealer Monday so they could look at addressing SSM 75281 (leaky front air struts) and mentioned the tail light issue. I have red lights and was able to shut them off with a bright LED flashlight. I was told this morning that the tail light issue was fixed with a software update. I can't test if the update fixed, but I will when i get the vehicle back. I'm guessing another two weeks if they decide to replace the front air struts. And thats assuming they can get parts in a reasonable amount of time.

 

@zac431 I'm not an electrical engineer, but I do work in the tech field. That seriously doesn't sound like a problem that can be fixed with a software update. At best it would take a firmware update on the controllers of the lights and I seriously doubt they are on the can bus to get any updates. I'm not saying your dealer is full of hooey, but may be poorly informed. I'll make a hand-shake bet that there won't be an over the air update that fixes the light problems!<g>