I apologize for never coming back here and describing the final fix!
I was driving home one night and just like always, the voltage started to drop. I made it to my driveway and it was down around 10 volts. I left the engine running, grabbed a jumper wire. I went directly to the ground on the battery and connected to the engine block. Bam!!! The alternator kicked in and the voltage jumped up to around 13.8. Indeed, like many suggested here, it was the ground cable where it connects to the body!!!

I had previously looked up in there and couldn't see any corrosion around the bolt/nut for the body ground. But, I was using a mirror to look at it. So, this time, I pulled off the front wheel, peeled back the inside of plastic fender. There was the grounding stud. Lots of carbon build up. Long story short, I cleaned it up, added a couple of additional ground cables, no problems every since!

Thanks to all who helped here! Sorry this took me so long to answer, I was just happy to have a working vehicle again! Note: I'm trying to post up photos, hope it works, check out the PDF for detailed photos.

 

Well done, excellent job

 

Agreed, excellent job, wish I'd have found this thread before I went through basically the same process when chasing down my intermittent starting and fake error messages...

 

Oddly enough, I had another issue that I wish I would have came back and documented here. My transmission kept going into limp mode. I would reset it and out of the blue it would do it again. The error code I got was for a high voltage issue. I hooked up my voltmeter again and monitored it as I drove. Sure enough, it would shoot up to 18+ volts. I replaced the alternator (again) and still had the same issue.
Without going into long detail here, I finally cured it with some dielectric grease on the control wire connector for the alternator. There was a carbon build up on the actual connector. I cleaned it as best I could then greased it and crammed it back in there. It has worked fine every since. But that issue was just as hard to track down as this one was.
So, look for that one the next time you have a weird electrical issue!

 

Thanks for that, I do have a solid state colour oscilloscope (dual trace with memory) and digital and analog VOMs to measure with, and it did not take more than a day before I discovered what was wrong, you can use the oscilloscope to look at VREF and the PWM signal coming back to the alternator from the ECM, I never imagined the alternator was capable of putting out 18 VDC so I'll be remembering that for sure, especially if noticing lamps burning out in a hurry. Luckily I guess the solenoids in the transmission can take it, or you'd be in for a nasty repair surprise, although I think you can get at them by removing the transmission oil pan, but that task is also kind of a pain. Anyway, thanks again for the additional information...

 

Does the LR3 need a new battery to be mated with the ECU or starting system and alternator so that the alternator knows how much to charge it, and that is why the light is on? Or is it just that Ford charging system that does it all? My Jaguar battery light would not go off but very rarely it does, and I have no idea why because the battery is being charged properly according to the parameters of the Ford charging system.... You know, charged at 15A for a few minutes, then steadily drops down to normal charging parameters determined by how much power is being drawn at times intervals, and at 10 min it drops to normal. Something like that scenario. But my BMW needs to have a new battery mated with the ECU by resetting the coding or something like that. So I'm wondering,...do you need to reset the ECU battery charging parameters on the LR3?

 

I don't think so. I've plopped in new batteries in the past without a 2nd thought or having to do anything else.

 

The LR3 doesn't have a battery management system. So just remove and replace as needed, no reprogramming required or available. I did hear once about a 2009 that had one, but the 2009s were sort of a test mule for the 2010 and beyond, so who knows. If you have a 2009 LR3 with a battery management system it would be nice to know about it for general knowledge for the group.

LR4? different story.

Jeff

 

your battery cables are tight, but lose. Good luck.

 

I'm having the same issue although it's 19 degrees here i've done the same had my battery and altenator replaced just recently. had no issues then all of a sudden after warming up the car before going to work i head out to get coffee and turned it off come back and dead won't crank or start. trying to boost doesn't help as it's totally dead. going to replace since i still have warranty but will definitely check the ground cable like you mentioned