Well that's disconcerting! Please let us know if it happens again. I still can't call it "common" and after 11 years and 121,000 miles without that ever happening I don't expect that to suddenly be an issue (knock wood) but I'd love to hear either that it never happens to you (again) or that it gets resolved rapidly.

 

Well, I've had a partially similar episode where I was driving up hill and the truck just died. But my situation was quite different - I was at about 10,000', climbing in low range/1st and second gears, on a very hot day around 90*. And I didn't loose any electronics, just the engine. A few other LR3 owners in the SoCal club have experienced this but only in similar circumstances to what I've seen. Each time the trucks have re-started once they cooled for a few minutes.

Our theory is either vapor lock or the computers just get confused by the rapid accent. I've never heard of it happening on a road, only on trail at higher altitudes.

 

My wife has experienced this on many occasions WHILE DRIVING.

I was skeptical. Just like the rest of you on this forum, I thought, no, can’t really happen.




Well, it REALLY HAPPENS. I was seeing a vehicle suspension light on, so I had turned it off for 5 minutes to let it shut down a bit. I restarted the car in the rain and had just turned it on, backed up and pulled forwards about 60 yards to a stop sign, and as I braked and came close to a stop - everything instantly shut off completely. The engine stopped, brakes went spongy, the entire dash turned off. And no, the batter cable is very securely attached.

I immediately grabbed the keyfob and turned it back a click and then clockwised it to start the vehicle engine, which pinged up and on without any hesitation.

The clock didn’t reset and the HVAC settings returned to previous (Programmed full defrost).




Experiencing this seriously shatters a lot of trust in the vehicle. Thank heavens it wasn’t on lionsback at Moab or similar, or in the middle of an intersection with all the family loaded inside ready to be torpedoed by a suburban.

The vehicle is 2006 LR3 HSE with all options including cooler and heavy duty. It has 181k miles on it.

The key fob as it sat in the ignition seemed like it was extremely loose as it could be circled in about 10 degrees tilt in 360 fashion. So, that is my first suspicion.

But it is horribly serious.

 

I just had this happen in the worst of places. At night, on a curvy mountain road with those cement lane barriers on both sides, 18 wheeler trucks in the slow lane, everyone trying to race home, motorcycle on a hitch mount... My gauges lit up like a christmas tree, the shift indicator indicated "F", let me know I couldn't use any special programs and the instrument panel went completely black. While I was getting freaked out by that, the car just stopped responding to the accelerator pedal. I got lucky and found one of the only pullouts on the hill and waited for a tow truck. While I was waiting I used my diag tool to run the codes (too many to list) and found the battery to be at 9.4 volts, which is weird because the car started great and had been on the freeway for 2 hours. When we jumped the car back to life it seemed normal, instruments, power, everything. I plugged in my diag tool in again and found the volts to be at 13.4 which tells me the altenator is working. Any ideas why my car almost killed me?

 

Hi!
New member to the group. Thanks for the ad.

I realise this is an old thread but when I Googled what happened to me yesterday, this was the first result. So figured it’s important to keep the thread alive.

The original poster was not wrong and as these cars get older, I suspect we will see many posts regarding this.

I was driving 80kmh/50mph down a slight decline on a normal road. Cruise control on. Suddenly the door locks opened and cycled back to locked. Display went blank except brake warning light. Motor died. No power brakes, only manual. No power steering. Coasted to a stop.

Turned off and on. Dead. Placed in park. Pulled key. Put key back in. Dials acting like the car was having a seizure, jumping around. Turned to position one. Christmas tree is the right expression. Cycled through many errors. OBD2 reader recorded many errors that not seen before.

After trying ignition off/on a few times, normal display returned with the water low and suspension fault that I am used to. Car started and drove normally.

I have just purchased. Driven 800km. Never seen this before but obviously previous owner had.

LR D3 2008 with 190,000km. Temperature at the time was about 5 degrees C.

If this starts any discussion, I can post the error codes if wanted.

Will come back if I find anything. Thanks.

 

Update to my issue of the car dying on me. Short story: it turned out to be the alternator. I think the root cause was a loose connection on the back of the alternator that eventually caused a problem. Replacing the alternator solved the problem.
Hope that helps

 

Alternator connections
Alternator itself
Check your battery cables, specifically the ground strap connecting to the body (common point of corrosion)

 

Slow 10 mph traffic on highway coming from Connecticut for a good half hour ..car shuts off..!!
Restarts right away and we continue.
Ongoing problem with "Suspension Fault Normal Height Only" have been trying to solve and once a "Special Programs" light came up once.
If this happens (shut off) on highway going quick will be a big problem.
​​​​​​ Battery ..Alternator ..all recently changed.
Anyway related to suspension issues ?
Codes have been no good as everything comes up as Communication Failure I forget exact words on scanner.

 

2025 and visiting this old thread because the original post “daughter claims that LR3 died….is the exact scenario that my daughter relayed to me. My 2006 has 235K miles on it and yes, a few years ago, it shutdown on me before only to start right back up. Drove fine ever since.

I just chalked it up to Land Rover electrical gremlins. Now that my daughter is driving the truck, I supposed I outta fix it.

 

So when it shut down, did it flash the hazards and unlock the doors before coming to a stop?
Might think about the instrument panel.
Definitely need to check for stored codes, and if they come up as communication errors that points to the IPC.