Thanks to bmwrovers, BonzLr3 and the rest for sharing. I wish I had seen this earlier (not that it would have helped me...). I ran into what seems like what was described here. But only once. However, it did not quit and even after pulling it off side the road and shut it down, the LR3 still was erratic. A few moments later, there was smoke comig up between the inside of the windshield and the passenger side of the dashboard. Afterward, the vehicle was completely dead. I had it towed to the Land Rover dealer. The Service Manager's first question was asking me if I had driven through a flood storm. I had not. He told me if the roof was open and water came in, water could have found it's way into electrical boards.
At this time, the Service Manager has called and informed that so far, repairs would be about $6900 and that may change as they begin repairing it.
The vehicle is a 2005 LR3 that I just purchased this last March. 2 weeks ago, I just came back from a 1500 mile trip around northern Minnesota area. The vehicle ran great. Seeing as how this is my first Land Rov with out of control repair bills, I'll be thinking very hard about keeping it one it is repaired.

 

Sorry to hear about all the trouble, I have found these forums very informative which has helped me figure out. What ended up happening?

 

Well BonzLr3, we're at a little over $7000 for repairs. My insurance (American Family - represented by a arrogant little appraiser) has all but shoved it up my backside. Tuesday, I'm going back to the dealer and see where we are and what can be worked out. I'm sure he wants the car off his lot and I'd like t see it back in the driveway.

I'll learn more next week after talking to the service manager.

 

I was quite impressed with you figuring out the cold joint problem and then implementing a fix.

While you had the printed circuit board out, did you notice the type of LEDs soldered to the board?
I wondered as I have done the Clock on the Dash software update and now the red coloured fuel burning heater LED illuminates, (as it is supposed to).

When the chime speaker quits and needs replacing, I thought about replacing the red LED with a green one so I wondered what type of LED it was - and hopefully not one of those "volts applied determines the colour" type.

Also did you have any problem getting the gauge needles back on so they read correctly? That I see as a concern.

 

Thank you for the compliment, I love electronics and I've been tinkering with cars since my roadshop years at circuit city . You'll have to share how you did the clock update, and fuel burning heater LED mod. To answer your question I can't tell what type of LED the bulb is, and I checked superbrightleds.com to see if it listed them but it doesn't show cluster bulb info. The LED's are soldered on but if I could find replacements I would also love to the switch the color since I hate the green! I got the needles out using the spoon method as seen on this link:
The speedo and tach are easier than the fuel/temp, they come out without the shaft. When the needles go back in they have to be set at zero as you will see in the video, you'll feel the stop. When I reinstalled the fuel gauge it didn't go in as smooth as the others, and I can't seem to get it to behave now. The temp works but the fuel gauge either sits at empty or get's stuck halfway, it's been driving me crazy all week. I left the plastic cover off the cluster while plugged in so I can manually move and re-adjust (I even tried a magnet to move it behind the cluster) but no luck. I even tried running it to empty and reinstalling the needle with no luck. I now use the range and fuel light to monitor my fuel . I went on ebay to find a new cluster, but I have read they are VIN specific and won't plug and play. I really don't want to go back to the dealer and spend all the money (especially after I proudly fixed the cold solder issue) to get a new dash reprogrammed. My other thought it to buy a used one for $100 on ebay, pull the fuel gauge and have a dash to "tinker" with. I've got a busy week but I will keep you posted as I play more with the cluster. Would love to have a red or blue cluster if anybody can figure out what kind of factory led lies in the cluster.

 

You are asking some not so easy questions.

First off with regards to the instrument pack pcb, the reason the board is unique to a VIN is that the backup memory for the 3's master computer located on the rear of the passenger side fuse box is located on the instrument pack pcb.

This means that when you order a new instrument pack from LR, the factory programs in the initial software load your 3 was born with including your VIN.

As part of the software load is your VIN, even if you had the board from a used 3 that was identical to yours, there would be the VIN matching problem.

As to if this is self solvable, I do not know, but I will have more to say after what follows below.

Regarding the upgrades, my D4 Bluetooth install, the Clock on the Dash, and the 3 Blink signal light feature, I was able to do those as I purchased what is called a Nanocom Evolution, a software "inputting" device. Learning how to use it is a whole topic in itself but I expect you will ultimately end up with that sort of device in your tool box.

The big brother version of the Evolution is the BlackBox Faultmate, more of a challenge to use but for those who know how, it has more features and costs more.

There is a competitor out there, GAP Diagnostic who make the IID Tool that is pretty capable as well. As to which will be the best when they get them working without surprises, it tends to be the Ford, Chev, Dodge argument.

With some of the mods such as Clock on the Dash, the change is only software related. The D4 Bluetooth mod requires the D4 "Bluetooth" module and some new wiring and probably not a software update as the new module has the new software within.

As to why I mentioned the Red Fuel Burning Heater light, on our LR3's, this light always remain off as we do not have the diesel fuel powered engine heater that they have in the UK. Here in Canada and the States, LR installs an electric block heater instead.

As such, by about 2008, to provide the Clock on the Dash, LR changed some of the software load in our 3s. Also included was a colour change of the red LED light to green and a change of the FBH symbol to a head lights symbol.

As such, when you do the software update for the Clock on the Dash, the FBH red light goes on when the headlights are on. It is something like what they were talking about in that YouTube video where they blocked off a flashing light that resulted from a software upgrade.

Now back to the instrument pack pcb board. I do not know if with a Faultmate or other, you can yet reprogram the instrument pack pcb. Others might, but I do not as it is not a problem I have had yet.

I suspect if you keep fooling with the fuel gauge, you will get it to work. Also when there are gauge problems, sometimes it is one of the connector pins so you might look again at the pins and see if another one is loose.

As to LED colours, my wife's 4Motion VW Passat has blue backgrounds with red lettering on the buttons etc; to me, that really looks good and I can read the red lettering much better than the green of my 3.

Here are a couple of links to pdf's that you might find useful.

DISCO3.CO.UK Photo Gallery - NAV Radio BlueTooth phone and Rosen DVD

DISCO3.CO.UK Photo Gallery - Home > Member Galleries > bbyer

 

Thank you for the detailed answer, if I can't get the fuel gauge to behave I will likely grab a cluster off ebay and remove/reinstall that fuel gauge. I think what happened was the shaft wasn't all the way in and internally the gauge spun itself, but who knows when it comes to something this technical. When I pull the cluster out again I'll see how hard it would be to de-solder the led's and replace them with a different color. I'm not sure if that would even work since it looks like there is a green film on the back of the instrument gauges (keeping the needles white). Either way I'll keep you posted, thanks again for the links/information.

 

I could believe the green film thing re colour.

Well one could probably change out some of the indicator warning lights re colour if one knew what the LED's were but I expect we are stuck with the green colour.

For your info, here is a link re changing the speaker out when the chime stops.

DISCO3.CO.UK - View topic - No clicking!