New guy trying to keep his beast alive. Have owned a 05 and now a 06 LR3. Love it, its my only vehicle, as it can do everything I need especially keep me safe in the snow.

I have owned the 06 since spring 2020, its a 4.4, SE, (no screen above the console) Sitting around 150k miles. Overall condition is still very good, no exterior body rust, typical undercarriage rust that I am treating before every winter and feel it is easy to control.

Last time I had some weird problems I replaced the battery and things got better, but still very randomly say once a month I'd be on the highway at 65 mph and suddenly HDC fault and the then it would lover and turn into a go kart, which I really didn't enjoy, I'm fine but I'd not want to trust anyone else with the poor handling in that situation. However it was rare enough I mostly ignored it and the times I'd try to get to the bottom of it, nothing made sense. A few times in the past 3 years some, but not a ton of water has come through the sun roof, and or the occasionally leaky 'scuppers'? that drain the sun roof. It dries out quickly and does not see to coinside with any problems...?

Well now it feels like all hell is breaking loose. I could type for an hour easy instead I'll do my best to list everything known wrong and what I've currently tried to fix it. I have a cheap ODB reader, it consistently shows no codes...? (I bet I need a better one)

Hvac blower motor working intermittently, then stopped.
--changed resistor, still doesn't work, ordering replacement blower now. Relay appears to be fine. (swapped with other relays)

Brake sensor/fault? Would go shift into drive from Park.
--This stranded me on the side of a hill, but was able to get it going with the 'under the shifter lift paddle trick'.
------Replaced the brake position sensor, Problem went away for 1 day, now it will not shift unless 'paddle trick' every time.

Transmission Fault, F on dash, Limited gears
--Watched dozens of videos for hours. Eventually I removed and inspected the TCM both inside and outside, Zero signs of water damage or intrusion on any part of the electrical system TCM/relay box or any of its connectors.
--Removed and inspected all wiring bundles I could find. I had no butt splices in the huge wire loom that runs along the drivers side front to back on the floor. I inspected every wire no breaks, corrosion and no butt splices to inspect.

HDC system everything sucks mode.
--Checked the steering position sensor collar, it seems to still function property,
--replaced the brake sensor attempting to fix this too, Also with the TCM inspection.
--inspected the compressor connections looking for rubbed wires/corrosion etc.
--compressor was working fine, and the vehicle still held air and didn't seem to to have much/any leaks, until suddenly it won't come on now.

And days into all of this happening at the same time, a random exhaust leak shows up and it now it sounds like I have a straight pipped hot rod. What gives man! Gasket ordered, I believe that, at least will be a easy fix.

I've watched so many videos and read so much I've simply confused myself about how to even start trying to piece this together. I have solid but basic tools, I perceive my next steps to be figure out a better scanner/reader. Then start throwing parts at it (tcm?). Which I cannot afford to do unless I know its going to start mending these wounds.

I posted here trying to find some local enthusiasts or a shop, because that is my next and only option if I can start making heads or tails of this.

you guys rock!

 

I am also a new owner of an LR3. 170k miles. Drove perfect when I bought it and then intermittent flashers, loss of radio and AC blowers. And best part was it wouldn’t start again when you turn it off. It would eventually respond and start after waiting a few minutes.

just to save you some time this is what I have learned from others. There’s a device called a GAPII tool. Basically an OBD2 reader on steroids that you can diagnose and reprogram certain things for rovers. It’s about $500 but apparently is well worth having. This might be something to look into if you’re wanting a nicer code reader.

Eventually I found that it was my cluster that was throwing faults and all of the issues I mentioned above. It would read immobilization fault which is what would prevent it from starting. There’s a motherboard inside the cluster that needed to be repaired. So I shipped it off to a guy who fixed it for me. I’m actually getting the cluster back today to get put back in my car. So we will see.

Otherwise, most people recommend to make sure your battery and alternator are pretty much perfect. There’s so many electrical connections in LR3’s you’ve got to have the correct voltage. A weak battery could cause some issues. You also have the option to do a hard reset on the whole car. There’s a thread in here somewhere explaining how to do it. But basically
1) turn off car and let car rest for 5-10 minutes to ensure it goes to sleep
2) disconnect battery - should sequence sticker near battery
3) take the positive and negative cables and touch them together for about 2 minutes. It basically resets any faults. If you don’t have enough slack you can use some heavy gauge wire to connect them.
4) after touching them together for 2 minutes let the car sit with battery unhooked for about 10-15 minutes

I tried this and it fixed a couple things for me. Won’t guarantee that it fixes all your problems but can’t hurt to try.

 

This is a great response! I have tried resetting but I did not take that long to do it! GAPII sounds very nice, man $500... *so it begins* My battery is 1.5 years old, but I am not thrilled with the 12.5v it falls too over night sitting, with little more than a dome light on, so last night I hooked up a 'booster' battery to it, it was a Lithium pack I built for camping that holds around 14.6-14.8 volts charged. The starter definitely kicked over a lot faster and lights a little brighter, but that extra oomph, did not quiet down all the errors. Perhaps a HARD reset, then using the 14.6v battery boost would see if everything wakes up happily.?

 

UPDATE:

So weird, swapped the 2 year old battery for a brand new one, Made zero difference upon the first several restarts around town. After say 10 minutes of drive time I hit the battery with the Voltmeter and it was ready 12.4v that seems crazy low for a brand new battery that just had 10 minutes of 14v charging on it. After 30 more minutes of driving the F, transmission fault has magically vanished, however after 30 minutes of driving, 1 minute after key off the battery voltage is only 12.7, I would have expected it higher. I am afraid this brand new battery was very discharged. All over errors are still present.

 

UPDATE 2:

Exhaust gasket in, and I'm going to use some random bolts to try to put it back together, Its likely going to be need to be replaced once this fails again. (part of the whole exhaust)

I ordered a GAPII, hopefully it gets here quickly. The brand new battery still seems to be a bit weak.

 

12.7 is a full battery, anything higher is just a surface charge that will dissipate after sitting.

 

Update 3: Posting this incase it helps other people.

Really dug into it deeply yesterday, made some headway. Ordered a GAPII, (it shipped today) Though in the short term I am not sure I need it now. It appears the brand new BPS (brake position sensor) was bad or not working properly. If I pressed the brake pedal and held it down after starting. It would come up with no Transmission erros the moment I would depress the brake I would get a F - Transmission fault. So I disassembled the old sensor, cleaned the carbon off the contacts and re-installed it. Now no Transmission fault until I would put it into drive!

It also decided to entirely quit starting, Upon rolling the ignition to start, everything would clip/pop as if it wanted to start. Including the starter solenoid popping, But no crank. Crawled underneath and whacked the starter solenoid a handful of times with a wrench. It would now start immediately (so new starter incoming, or at least contact checking)

It was still giving transmission fault gears/limited gearing after putting it into drive. I took apart the center console again, And removed all connections from the yoke/shifter box and inspected them. There is no indication of water or soda spillage anywhere. HOWEVER, on the bottom most (likely primary wiring connector for shift position) the bottom several pins had a lot of green corrosion on them! AHA!

I did the best I could to scrape them clean (very hard to do form the access you have, I sprayed some corrision inhibitor/contact grease onto the pins and pushed on/off the connected about 20 times to 'clean' the contact surfaces. Put all back together, now no transmission fault!!!

All that is left now is the HDC fault, which is very intermittent (and annoying)

 

this is how I’d approach this:

Step 1 (which you did, replace battery
step 2 check all your grounds. Make sure they are tight and there is no corrosion. ALL of them
start with the big ones like the battery terminals and the chassis grounds

if all good there, then I would see what gap says but I’m going to bet it’s going to have all kinds of codes because the ecm seems to log every little thing OR it’s not going to have any codes which would likely indicate your power and/or ground connection is intermittent somewhere in your harness.

this all seems electrical. The cluster could cause it, a bad ecm or bcu could cause it .

idk if we can swap known good ecm or bcu on this truck as a test but I’d try that next

 

Was this truck flooded at any point?

 

No I do not believe it ever has, I have no history on it beyond what the VIN searched showed me when I bought it. However, twice I have had to clean out the scuppers on the sun roof because after a rain tremendous rain there would be water on the floorboards. (wet, not standing water) However i have seen zero indication of corrosion on virtually any of the connectors or pins. The corrosion on the bottom pins of the gear selection box in the console was first and only time I've found any corrosion. I know in the 3 years I have owned this truck I have not spilled any liquids onto the shifter assembly.

I'm not flooded car expert, but I do not believe this truck has ever been flooded.