I have just purchased a 2024 Defender 110 P300. Have around 450miles with it and had it for 2 weeks. Today when driving to work on a very rainy day after getting some messages about lane assist and collision avoidance being disabled temporarily, which I kinda brushed off because of the rain, I received a message that I should stop safely that the engine is overheating. I did and I lifted the hood and everything looked okay, The coolant level was normal, the engine didn't seem to be excessively hot, no steaming or boiling noticed. I waited 10 mins or so and drove another couple hundred of feet and the gauge rose again and this time I stopped for 30-40 minutes and waited. Called for a tow but when I was told that the waiting time would be 180 minutes I decided to try to limp to work. I started the car and no issues. Temperature back to normal. Turned on the heat to help the engine cool down just in case and drove to work. mid way to work, since i was super hot and the car seemed to be back to normal, I killed the heat and tuned the A/C. I drove to work in stop and go traffic with no issues and no other warnings. After work I drove it straight to the dealer (about 25 miles) with no issues. Ac was running and all and the engine temperature gauge stayed in the middle all the time. Left it
at the dealer to be diagnosed.
Can this be just a software glitch? I've read about people having the same issue as me in the past. I believe there is even a Motor Trend article that mentions it. I noticed no leaks and no physical signs that the engine was overheating when opening the hood. I did stop very soon after getting the message, so theoretically I didn't let the temperature climb that much, but still no physical signs ... The gauge was getting at the bottom of the red zone ... And after that back to normal like nothing happened?? Very weird.
Did anybody experience something like this? If so what was the fix? BTW my car did the OTA software update this weekend ... so, my car should've had the latest and the greatest software.
Also , what about the lane assist and collision prevention disabling themselves in bad rainy weather? Is that normal or another software issue? Both came back and started working as they should.

Thank you in advance for any help!

 

If it were me, and the car had 450 miles on it... and it was any inconvenience to wait 180 mins for a tow... I'd keep driving it. If the motor grenades just as you did... that's really *not* going to be your problem anyway on a car that new.

That said I'm pretty mechanically sympathetic, so it might kill me to purposely kill a motor over a coolant leak.

To answer your question, I am not sure but I do remember reading stories of ppl getting "overheating" messages in forums here and in UK over the past 3-4 years. And in some of those cases, it was a coolant sensor or something fault. Not an actual overheat situation. Hopefully yours is that simple.

 

Can't help on the overheating--picked up my P300 110 a week ago, but almost 700 miles of highway and city and no overheat issues.

Re the driver assist functions and heavy rain--when the cameras and sensors can't see well, the car will turn them off, which is a good idea anyway. I don't think that's a glitch.

 

Overheating can be air pockets fooling temp sensor.
Heavy rain will switch off lane assist yes, in my case it was off for 4 days and then warning disappeared.

 

You have a coolant sensor issue more than likely.

Sorry for the troubles, but I bet it's nothing serious and the motor is fine.

Check back in and let us know!

 

Dealer couldn't find anything wrong.No coolant leaks and they pressure tested the system. Al least that's what they said. They did upgrade the PCM firmware though and they said that might be the fix. That is exactly what is described in this article:
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2...te-6-reliable/

I hope that does it.

 

The PCM update did seem to fix it. I have since put 2000 miles on the car and no issues.

But now when I took the car in for a suspension issue, they noticed that the cooling fans are going on high too often after I shut down the car. They said that it might be a water pump issue and they will look into that. He also told me there is a national backorder for water pumps...
Seemed at the time that the overheating issue was a false alert, but now what they told me got me wondering...