2 Days of LR3 ownership and...
 

My 2008 LR3 Westminster baby is telling its low on coolant and occasionally tells me to check my brake pads...

I cant figure out the coolant issue as it appears to have more than enough coolant. I took the two attached pics first thing this morning after sitting it all night. The coolant is way above the cold fill range... Is it possible to put too much coolant in? If there was too much would it give me a low coolant fault?

As for the brake pad warning. It seems to come and go. Of course it didnt come on at all during my test drive!!! I still am glad I bought it but a little worried that Ive got two warnings in the first two days of owning it!

Hey, not a mechanic but a four year rover owner. The brakes have sensors on them. Quite possible someone installed new pads over bad sensors. You just need to identify which one it is. Good news is the sensors are pretty direct cheap, plug and play.

As for the other one, sounds like a coolant level sensor. Wait for one of the moderators to chime in though. I wouldn't panic over your issues though. Took me two years to settle down and enjoy this thing.

In my signature is a link to the shop manuals for the LR3. IMHO you need to add a bit of coolant, but I would flush that orange stuff out (Dexcool) and go with a green 50/50 premix. The maintenance schedule says 10 years, but the D2 said 2 years or 30000 miles. Coolant has not made a 5 time improvement in one model cycle. Same for front differential, you can go with a 150,000 change interval, but it is less than a quart of fluid in a $2200 differential.

I was a little surprised when I opened the hood and found the orange stuff in there. I added a bit of coolant and the sensor is still constantly saying its low. The brake sensor seems to come and go. And once already I received a transmission fault error but it has never shown up again thank goodness.

Now that I am back home I will be dropping it by the LR dealer here and having all the fluids changed including the transfer case. We shall see what the deal is.

Hope you are ready for sticker shock on the tranny fluid..... $800 plus has been reported.

If you are getting a low coolant message but the coolant level is fine then you're probably in need of a new coolant reservoir as the float apparently becomes porous and so misreads the fluid level. You can ignore it of course. I don't believe the sensor is available separately. There may be a Tech Service Bulletin on that if you check with your LR dealer. Of course you may want to get it fixed cheaper elsewhere :-)

I thought forum rules prohibited scaring the bejezus out of new owners for at least a month ;-) Seriously if you get quoted that for a transmission fluid job, run to a second opinion. I think my local transmission shop mentioned $250-$300 with the fluid being about half of that.

The differential fluids and transfer case fluid are easy to get to and a cheap way of prolonging the life of the running gear. Check and see if your front differential breather has the new valve ($15 ish) as it prevents pressure build up in the front diff blowing your fluid out past the seals in extreme cases. Again, cheap insurance.

But as you will often read here, a good independent LR mechanic is worth his weight in tranny fluid :-)

Good lord! Ya 800 bones seems like a lot but everything with LRs seems to be a lot. I guess ill see if she really needs brakes or if its just the sensor. Maybe the tranny fluid will have to wait for another pay check or two...

About $9.

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So the local dealership had a coupon for a free multi point inspection with any service and also had a 10% off on wiper blade coupon. Since my LR3 is new to me I thought it best to go ahead and do this oil change with them and get the inspection. I specifically wanted to know if it had all recall work completed and if it had the updated breather caps.

Oil change with "free inspection" was $200
Front wiper blades $80 "free" install haha

Inspection said needed new brakes quoted at $1500, new tires quoted at $1720, brake fluid flush $160, power steering flush $220, 4x4 service $400, and new battery $300.

Ouch!!

I planned on doing my on 4x4 fluid change next weekend. I also planned on getting the battery charged next weekend. So after paying for the oil change and wipers I went out to my car and it was dead. I should have just had them jump me and take care of it later but I had a tight schedule yesterday so I broke down and just had them replace the battery. They stated that when they replace a battery that have to "reprogram the windows and some other things". The lady couldnt really describe what the deal was with reprogramming and I was in a hurry so I didnt inquire more at the time. But can someone shed some light on what would need to be reprogrammed when changing a battery? They also didnt seem to know what I was talking about regarding breather caps...