Do you enjoy laughing at other people's misfortune? Well tune in, because this is one for the books. For the moral of the story, skip to the end.

I needed a new fuel pump. Suffice it to say I had looked at all of the easy, stupid fixes for my stalling problem, and came to the conclusion it was the pump itself that needed to be replaced, even though the fuel pressure had tested good every time I checked it. Thus I set about finding the proper replacement part. This is where the trouble begins.

On the Atlantic British website, you may notice they have two fuel pumps for sale, WGS500051 for "models with non-upgraded tank," and LR016845 for "LR3 models with updated fuel tank from Land Rover." I saw this and set about trying to figure out which tank I had - the updated tank, or the non-updated one, as the different styles took a different pump. I'm the third owner of my LR3, and know the second owner very well, but he knew the tank had never been replaced while under his ownership. Somewhere in my googling of the issue, it surfaced that early LR3s underwent a safety recall (#P001) for their fuel tank where under certain conditions, fuel would back up into one of the vent lines, through the charcoal canister, and out onto the pavement. Thus the line was drawn - the non-updated tanks were those which were not part of the recall, the updated tanks were those which were part of it.

Unfortunately there is no way to visually inspect the tank on the car to see which one it is, so I resorted to calling my local dealership (Sarasota) to see if they could look up by VIN whether or not my vehicle had been part of the recall. According to them, there was no open or completed recall on my truck, and I had the original tank, thus needed the WGS pump. They gave me a part number. Not wanting the hassle of doing the job myself, I got in contact with an independent mechanic in Tampa who had access to the Land Rover DDW, who told me the P001 recall had been performed on my vehicle, and I needed the LR0 pump. Hm. I wasn't sure if I could trust him, after all he didn't work at a LR dealership currently. The WGS was $500 on AB, the LR0 was $350. In the end, it was a toss-up, so I ordered the WGS one as it seemed unlikely the tank had been replaced and nobody knew about it.

My fuel pump arrived, and I was getting things in order for the job one Friday afternoon, when I noticed that the pump had not come with a new gasket. I contacted the Sarasota dealership who told me that they didn't have any in stock, and that they couldn't see other dealer's stock (I would later find out they were lying). I contacted the next-closest dealer, Tampa, where I spoke with a very knowledgeable parts representative, who told me that while they did have the gasket in stock, I didn't need it, because that wasn't the right fuel pump! I needed the upgraded LR0 pump, because according to them, the P001 had indeed been performed on my truck, on 5/8/2007, and the fuel tank had been replaced. He was not surprised that the the Sarasota dealership had steered me wrong, as allegedly they had pushed out all of their Land Rover people and it was now just Jaguar people. I thanked him profusely for clearing the situation up, he had been the most helpful person I'd spoken to on the issue yet. I got a quote from him for the pump ($348), and went on my merry way.

I called the Sarasota delearship to order the part as I didn't want to have to drive all the way to Tampa when it came in. The guy gave me the total over the phone (roughly $750). I told him the Tampa dealership had quoted me $348, and he said "oh okay, we price-match other dealers, no problem." This of course gave me pause, because these dealerships are clearly making an absolute KILLING on these parts to come ahead taking a 50% price cut. It was also the moment I learned that each dealership has their own prices for parts as they're franchised. We ordered it up, it arrived a week later (I made sure to order a gasket this time), and I shipped back my WGS pump to AB.

Fast forward a few weeks when I finally got around to doing the project. I dropped the fuel tank Friday afternoon after work, not too difficult but a bit stressful as it was my first tank drop. I had a fire extinguisher on hand the entire time, ended up doing the whole thing without spilling a drop (made sure I had less than 1/4 tank). Saturday morning, everything's fine, and I crack the tank open to find..... the WGS fuel pump inside. Mother-lover. I'd had the right fuel pump, then returned it and bought the wrong one. Of course at this point my truck was totally crippled until I could get the tank back up inside. I phoned the Tampa dealership immediately both to yell at someone and see if they had the WGS pump in stock. Their parts department was closed. I rang the Sarasota dealership, they didn't have the pump in stock and told me again they couldn't check other dealers' stock. I called the Orlando dealership, they didn't have it, but I had reached the point of frustration and told the parts guy the whole story. He empathized with me and told me off the record that the Ft. Lauderdale dealership had 4 of them. I thanked him and called Ft. Lauderdale. Indeed, they had four. I asked about the price, to which I was told $799...

Seven hours later, I was back in Sarasota with the correct fuel pump. I installed it, refit the tank, and carried on. Come Monday, I called each of my dealerships. I still had an un-used, wrapped LR0 pump, and Sarasota wanted a 20% restocking fee to return it. Tampa did some research and declared that according to their records, my car had had the fuel tank recall and required the LR0 pump. It had been performed at Land Rover Orlando on 5/8/2007, and that they hadn't given me bad information because they had told me what the DDW stated. Orlando claimed that the recall had been performed, and that I should have had the updated fuel tank. I started getting suspicious that they had lied about performing the recall to satisfy federal requirements. They also insisted that because it was performed over 10 years ago, they had zero responsibility for it. I tried explaining that as it was a federal safety recall they claimed they had performed, they were responsible for having actually performed it. It took me about three managers to get to someone who realized that in 2010, Land Rover had issued a new recall bulletin for P001. In the original 2007 bulletin, the recall did not include a new style fuel tank or pump, but rather either a modification of the original WGS-style, or a similar style that used the same pump. In the updated 2010 bulletin, the upgrade (not a recall but still labeled P001) changed to include a new style fuel tank and pump (the LR0 pump). This was because the WGS tank was designed in such a way that made it impossible to reach inside to remove the front fuel sending unit, and when they went bad, the whole tank had to be thrown in the dumpster. The problem was that Land Rover's computer system has no way of differentiating when the P001 recall/upgrade was performed on an individual vehicle, thus all LR3's that had P001 performed show up as having the upgraded fuel tank needing the LR0 style pump.

Orlando of course wasn't responsible for the mixup, so I let them off the hook. When I called Tampa back, they still denied responsibility, even though while they touted themselves as "Land Rover people" over Sarasota's mostly-Jaguar employees, they had lacked the knowledge that there was a difference in the LR3 P001 bulletin from 2007 to 2010. Sarasota, of course, just sold me the part with the number Tampa had given me, so they couldn't be held responsible, although they did agree to waive the 20% restocking fee as a sign of good faith on Land Rover's behalf once I explained the situation. After all of this, though, I ended up spending 7 hours in the car on a beautiful Saturday in South Florida due to Land Rover's disorganized computer system.

The moral of the story is this:
1) If your LR3 has never had P001 performed, it needs the WGS500051 fuel pump
2) If your LR3 has had P001 performed, and it was performed prior to 2010, it still needs the WGS500051 fuel pump, regardless of what a Land Rover dealership tells you.
3) If your LR3 had P001 performed during or after 2010, it probably needs the LR016845 pump. Check with the dealer that performed the recall and ask explicitly if the tank was replaced. Tank part numbers are: Original (WHK500220), Upgraded (LR021524).

 

This is really good information actually. You think though that if they bring up the actual service details when the work was done, it would include costs or notes indicating what was actually done. If anything for further recall sake. Sorry you had to go through all that though!

 

Yikes... sorry to hear about that! Hopefully everything got sorted and your truck is running well now. Sounds like a terrible headache...

May I ask what the stalling was like? Mine is starting to do that when I put the truck in park. The RPM’s will dip to about 500 or less and then jump back over 800 RPM’s then level to 600-700 after switching into park from drive. I almost stalled out today from doing that. Supposed to head into Canada for the weekend and am trying not to stress my fiancé out, haha.

I’ve cleaned the Throttle Body, installed a new MAF, new spark plugs, brand new air filter box (incl. new hoses/tubing,etc.) and EGR Valve has been replaced. Is it something fuel related? Alternator/Battery?

I’ll give LR a holler tomorrow to see if my tank has been updated. It’s a 2008.

 

That's not going to be the fuel pump. There's a few posts on here I made previously which describe the issue in detail. It was stalling on acceleration, very intermittently.

 

Just read through the other posts, I’ll check some of those ideas out that you had mentioned in other posts. Thanks for pointing me in a direction!