Hi Guys, need some advice and info.

I have an 06 LR3 SE, for a while now I have bee noticing little issues with some of the random electronics parts. For example, the on wheel buttons doing odd things, say hitting volume up and having the radio change inputs. A couple winters ago, the sun roof stopped opening, it was a cold night and there was a decent amount of frost on the car so I figured I had burned out the motor as the fuses and all were good. The I noticed chronic hood open and low coolant (granted I have not checked the sensor on this one) messages on the info screen. Fluid level is good, and the hood is most certainly closed.

Flash forward a couple of months, my radio looses it and will only play CD's. FM/AM are mostly dead air but every once in a while you get a really loud high pitched squak. CD works perfectly. Sat I dont have activated, but the message comes up to call XM, so figure that might be working. Aux is gone as well, only there is a lot of intermittent loud clicking. The light sensor on the dash I am assuming has stopped as well, the speed variable wipers dont work any more, and the dimmer on the NAV screen doesnt either. Then, the suspension compressor dies.

Get the compressor fixed at an indie shop, get the car back, radio starts working for a while. Then stops again, and never comes back, same symptoms as above.

I got online and bought a cheap (probably knock-off) mongoose. $80 bux, came from china. Chips are not sanded off and are easily IDed. My plan was to try and re-flash the audio gear on the chance that something got out of sync or just corrupted the flash...

Anyway, spent some time with SDD this weekend, lot's of DTCs posted. Finally figured out how to clear all the old one's that the indie shop didnt bother to... Have half a dozen that are dug in like ticks. Not the least of which is a communication failure to the BCM. There were a few others but that one seems to be the most important.

So, I guess question one is, is my BCM bad? The AC and everything else works perfectly. Bluetooth to the phone still looks good. The diag screen on the NAV shows good data for everything BUT the light sensor, which either shows 0 or flips between 8 and 17%.

I tried running some of the audio component tests from the extras tab on SDD but cannot seem to get the damn battery to cooperate and stay at a reasonable voltage (my charger/monitor is a bit small for that battery) so I cannot run them. But the other batch under the recommendations tab all fail pretty much instantly.

I ran a reset through SDD and let it clear everything and reset the controllers but no dice on anything.

On the main overview screen listing the modules the BCM and the one next to it(cant remember off the top of my head which one) are both red Xed out.

I have tried the old battery terminal reset and the other things I could think of but cannot really make any progress.

Anybody have any thoughts or anything I can try? A different reset or something? I am not really good at all at navigating SDD, so trying to find anything in there I want to do (or feel remotely comfortable doing) is a pain.

Assuming the BCM is toast and needs to be replaced. Would you trust doing it with the probably cloned Mongoose? It seems to work alright, although I haven't tried flashing anything. There are a couple of odd things that I cannot figure out with that though, cant decide if it's a POS clone, or just something that's supposed to happen. With the Clonegoose connected, if you put the key in POS 2, as it self checks, the locks all unlock twice, about 20 seconds apart. The hazards come on and stay on (just the outside lights, not the marker on the dash, or the relay's clicking...) until it's disconnected and the key is pulled from the ignition. The last odd one, is that you cannot turn off the dome lights to save your life. Once it's plugged in, the center row dome lights come on and stay on until you pull it. If you turn them off, they just come right back on.

Hopefully one of you LR pros out there will have something interesting, as I'm at a bit of a loss.

 

I do not have any good answers for you but I do admire your efforts - particularly with the Chinagoose. I fooled with one for about six months to a year and then got tired and purchased a BlackBox Evolution.

Your experience with door locks clicking etc is a good news story; at least I think so. That means your Goose was actually inside the computers and doing something. Depending upon the flash, using my Evo, and with the Goose, sometimes you get headlights flashing, signal lights flashing, the door locks going crazy - a real zoo of noise and light.

The reason I mention charging the battery is one thing I did figure out with the Chinagoose is that to power all that noise and the lights, you have to have at least a 25 amp power supply connected all throughout the flash plus before and perhaps even after to bring the battery back up.

I think at times, the draw on the battery when a flash is occurring can be near 35 amps. That is with both the Chinagoose and the Evo - a flash is a flash.

Some flashes barely take 10 amps and are complete in less than five minutes; attempt something like the Nav override and that is a couple of hours of your heart in your mouth plus a real sound and light show. For that you best have a spare power supply as well should the primary die/quit of overheat.

Anyway, prior to any flashing attempts, put the charger on at least 4 hours in advance. My bet is even if you think the battery is charged, the draw will be about 10 amps for at least the first couple of hours and then it might taper off.

Regarding your troubles, my first guess is that the computer stuff is generally OK and that you will not have to replace any of it. I expect you have corroded wires due to water getting into both the left and right door sills under the driver and passenger doors. You might want to pull up the black plastic sill strips and fish about in the wiring bundle. If it is wet/damp, start to look for telephone like squeeze connectors within the bundle. When you find one, tug lightly on it; I bet it will just pull off and you will be looking at three or four small corroded wire ends.

With the 3, rarely is there a major mechanical or circuit board problem; if so, they would be easy find and fix; more often than not, it is loose connectors or corroded conductors.

The main connector to the back side of the instrument panel circuit board is favorite for just working loose over time. The backup memory chip for the main ship computer is mounted on the instrument panel circuit board. The main memory chip and backup are supposed to be in constant communication so you can guess what an intermittent connection does to the computers and the vehicle. If any of the gauge dials are acting up, that can be a visual indicator of a instrument panel connector concern.

 

Thanks for the response!

I will have to give the door sills a try and see if I can find anything. Just out of curiosity, is there enough room and/or slack to actually work in there if I do find myself trying to repair a broken wire?

Any other common places for broken/loose connections I should check on while I'm looking?

Thank!

 

The sort of thing pictured below can be on both sides.

LR uses a squeeze type telephone splice that holds water and allows corrosion to proceed. The conductors shown relate to the door locking circuits - key fob quits working, not a battery problem or circuit board problem, just a "simple" corroded conductor fuss - but try to find it.

And yes, with some tugging there is some slack, but not much, that allows you to fish thru the bundle.