First post here, and I'm in a thorny situation and need some advice/info fast. I'll try to be as brief as possible, but I want to give y'all all the background info to go on. I have a 2004 LR Disco that I bought new. At about 22k miles, as I was pulling my 16ft dura raft duck boat on a ~300 mile trip, the car skipped/missed a couple of times at ~70mph going up a decent hill on the interstate. I blew it off, but it did it again on my way back home from that trip. I took itt to my local LR dealer, as it was still under warranty, and I explained what happened and left the car with them. When I returned to pick it up, they said that they ran diagnostics on it and nothing was wrong..."that will be 240.00 please." They said if they found something, it could be covered under warranty, but since they didn't, I had to pay for computer diagnostics. After a brief conversation about the insanity of me paying because they could not find the problem, they waived the fee. Fast forward 60k miles and a long time later...

I'm driving my car when suddenly every light on the dash comes on. Nothing mechanically seemed to happen, but this concerned me. Everything returned to normal once I turned it off Nd restarted the motor. This same thing happened several more times over the course of a year. I talked to LR about what it could be, but they just said bring it in for them to put it on the computer. I explained my previous experience with that, and they said if it was not happening when I brought it in, then they likely would not be able to pinpoint it with the computer. It never would occur long enough or consistently enough to get it to them while all the lights were on. It was causin no apparent driving issues, so I kept on keeping on.

A year or so later, I graduated CRNA school and moved from SC to IN, and I bought a new LR4 and left the Disco with my dad as a backup car. In the two years he had it, he had the battery die on him three or four times...randomly. A new battery did not keep random battery drains from occurring with the car being driven once a week or so. Occasionally, you could hear clicking...like a computer churning...coming from a black box under the chassis about mid-way back. This was happening with the car off. One mechanic said it probably needed a new wiring harness while another, who owns several discos and is masterful at working on them stated that the later model Discos did not have the wiring harness problems that the earlier models were prone to having. As time went by, the battery-drain problem quit, and all was good considering the car was a back up vehicle...fast forward to now...

I decided to sell my LR4, as I was only driving it 5 miles/day and paying a but load for it. I took the Disco in to LR for them to tell me what needed to be done to get it right for me to start using again as my primary car. I ended up having new head-gaskets installed, new rear hubs, a new water pump, and the transfer case maintenanced. The car is in SC, and my 77 year old parents are bringing it to me when they come to visit the grand-kids. So, they get 20 miles up the road coming here pulling my boat, and the car skips/misses twice coming up a hill similar to the hill it did it to me on 10 years earlier. All the dash lights come on, but this time the D (drive) shifter light starts flashing and the sport mode light came on also. Dad applied the brakes, and when he touched them, the car shut down. It would not fire. After waiting on AAA for an hour, he tried it again, it fired, and he was able to drive it back to their home. It shut off one time in the way home, but after waiting, they got it cranked and home. This am, he took it to our local mechanic and the only light that was on that usually is not was the check engine light. I called and told LR this, and they said that since the check engine light was on, the event was captured and a code created, so they would be able to figure out the problem if I could get it to them. In the meantime, our mechanic hooked it to his computer, and it gave him a code for a bad crank-shaft sensor. He ordered the part, and he is installing it tomorrow. I called LR back, and they said that a bad CS sensor would cause what I explained to them...which is what I just explained to y'all...so I should be good to go. I feel a little better about my parents making the 10 hour trek now, but after googling "bad crank shaft sensor symptoms LR Discovery, I see that the missing/skipping and motor shutting down are definitely things that can be attributed to the CS sensor, but I've seen nothing about all the dash lights coming on and the D light blinking or any of that nonsense that preceded and accompanied this latest event.

So, finally my question is...has anyone on here experienced anything similar in regards to all the dash lights coming on randomly? What about the battery draining issue? Could all of these other issues all be related to a faulty or dying crank shaft sensor? I really don't want my parents to get stranded...or worse driving the car up here if there is some other electrical/computer system issue going on, and I Have not had anyone at any of the LR service centers who have seen this type of problem before. The car only has 100k miles and is strong as ever...now with new head gaskets etc...should be a great car for me for years to come if I can just get this weird electrical/computer system problem pinpointed. Hopefully the new CS sensor will fix it, but I just want to try to get as much input on the problem from as many knowledgeable people as possible.

Sorry for the mini-series saga, but thanks in advance for any info y'all can give me.

 

Sounds an aweful lot like a bad ground. I'd start checking all the main ground points.

 

Ill call my guy that's working on it and pass that on. So, I'm taking from your reply that you do not think that a bad crank shaft sensor would cause all the lights to be coming on randomly. Also, after posting this problem, I looked over the forum and found that what I had going on earlier...and likely still have going on with this...is the three amigos issue. From the threads I read, the three amigos could be caused by a variety of sensor issues. What I did not find was any post that pointed to a bad crank shaft sensor causing the three amigos problem. So, has anyone ever had a bad crank shaft sensor cause the three amigos? ie... you replaced the crank shaft sensor and voila...three amigos were no longer hanging out in your ride? Thanks again for the help.

 

So I called my LR mechanic, and he had already checked the grounds and low and behold, he found a grounding problem and had already fixed it. They drove the car with the new sensor and the repaired ground about 60 miles with no issues. Hopefully that has solved all the current issues. Thanks for the reply. Glad I thought to seek this forum out, as I am sure I will be using it a lot as I work on getting my old Disco friend back to form.

 

Congrats .. vroom vrooom