Land Rover Forums - Land Rover Enthusiast Forum

This is my first experience with Range Rover.
Last Christmas holidays, my son, who lives in Vancouver, BC, drove his 2003, L322 Range Rover, HSE to Castlegar, BC. for a family visit. It is a 600 km journey over several mountain passes. After a New Years party on Jan. 1st, he discovered that his Rover transmission was locked-up in Park gear. The message on the dash computer reported a Transmission Circuit Failure. The next day we did some research on the problem and evaluated the fuse circuit board and light systems, but found nothing wrong. I soon learned that this vehicel is a computer on wheels. With no manual or key release on the shifter, we had to call a flat-bed tow truck to pick up the vehicle and deliver it to a local garage that told us they had the diagnostics to analyze the problem. My son had to return to Vancouver to work, so I let him use my truck. After a couple of days the garage called and told me that they traced the problem to the computer system, but had no expertise to fix it. They said it was probably a communication break-down between the BeCM and the TCM; these were new terms to me, and I assumed they knew what they were talking about. They were able to manually move the shifter to 3rd gear, "limp mode." so I could move it, but thought it a bad idea to try and drive it over the passes to the closest Rover dealer in Vancouver. I called around and found a mechanic that had more experience with Rover. He told me that he had the "official" Rover diagnostic tester and the other garage only used a generic version of the soft-ware. He told me to bring the Rover to his garage and he would fix it. It cost me a couple hundred dollars to get the vehicle released from the first garage.
The new mechanic did his tests and told me the same story as the other garage, that the computer system was not working and he had no expertise to fix it. He told me that he had experience with other Rover owners who had taken this problem to the dealership and ended up paying thousands of dollars to get it fixed. The other option he presented, that would cost only a few hundred dollars, was to send the computer units to a company in Ontario, Can., that specialized in Rover electronics. I thought it was worth a try, so we sent them away. After a week, the Ontario Co. contacted us and told us they found a component failure in the TCM. They said that they tried to find a replacement, but discovered the part was "unavailable" in North America. They offered to send a replacement module for $550. I contacted my son and he said he found a Co. in England that specialized in repairing Rover BeCM's and they could do it for half the cost of the replacement part.
When the package was returned from Ontario, I sent it off to England. They received the package, but were surprised by the contents. They said I had sent them a BCU & TCU from a L322 not a the BeCM, which is only found on the P38 model. They did not specialize in fixing these units, but offered to do some limited testing. After a week of not responding to my inquiries, I was finally contacted only to learned that they had found nothing and were sending the units back to me. They also said they had received 3 other computer units this month, from different people in North America, and found them all to be working OK.

Here I sit awaiting the package, contemplating what the next chapter of this ridiculous situation will bring.
I know I need counseling. Any ideas are welcome?