Hi all,

I thought I'd ask the collective, since somebody here is bound to have an idea of whats going on!

My father purchased a 2007 4.2 Supercharged Range Rover Sport last week with 33,000 miles on the clock from a non-franchised dealer up north. We took it for a 60 mile test drive and all seemed well with it. After purchasing the car and beginning the drive home, we got about 40 miles before the dash lit up like a Christmas tree with faults such as Transmission Fault, Parking Brake Fault, Suspension lowered, HDC disabled and special modes disabled. At this point we also noticed that the brake lights were stuck on.

I read the codes in the motorway services with my OBD-II reader and there were 2 codes stored, both the same: "Brake Switch A/B Correlation".

We contacted the dealer and whilst he offered for us to drive it back, take back the car we part-ex'd, have him sort it and then come back to collect it, by this point it was getting quite late and my father does not travel particularly well these days (For a number of reasons) so we decided to press on and have it sorted out down south, to which the dealer agreed.

The next morning I headed over to my local LR dealer and got a new brake light switch. I installed it, cleared the codes and sure enough the problem went away! Excellent I thought, all sorted for £18 which the dealer is paying. We took the car out for a little drive and after 40 miles, the code tripped again and the dashboard came up with the same warnings and errors. Bugger. We spoke to the dealer again, and it transpired that they'd had this issue when the car came in and had changed the brake light switch once already, but had done some miles in it since then and had no issues. The dealer seems like a very helpful and honest guy so I hold no issue with him or the company.

My father then took the car on the advice of the dealer to our local Land Rover/4x4 specialist. He checked the brake lights and found them to be non-OE single filament bulbs which can apparently cause this issue. He changed them out for LR ones and cleared the codes again. My father drove home and all seemed fine. The following morning he got in the car, went to drive it and the fault occurred again. We are now at the stage where he's trying to get it into the garage (they're very busy) and the dealer is waiting to see what the garage says. Obviously the dealer is responsible for this fault but it's very frustrating that he has a new (to him) car that he can't drive!

Has anybody experienced anything like this, or know of any similar issues, that might be able to offer a potential solution? I'm up for trying most things to try and get this issue sorted!

One thing the garage did mention is that it was odd that it had two of the same codes stored. I figured this was due to it having 2 ECU's but if anybody could shed any light on this it would also be appreciated.

Cheers!

Looks to me that there is two brake switches where is the other one.

possibly one mechanical on the peddle maybe and another somewhere ABS pump. Most cars have Brakes and Stability systems linked could this be the two ecu ?!?

If I were in your situation

I would be looking around the land rover forums

taking it to a 'Respected' independent

Long shot

Are the Carpets dry ?!? could something be leaking over a loom / connector somewhere ( had this on an old VW Passat ) that had a real Christmas tree moment

ATB Agriv8

I'd be inclined to return the car.

Return the car,!!!

My ex boss took an rr for test drive and same thing happened, dashboard lit up but with car failing to restart.

Dealer was big car supermarket place near Luton so could be the same place, sorry but don't recall the name.

I've read the same fault on a disco3 forum which turned out to be a wiring fault. One of the tests was to see if the autobox would select drive without the brake pedal pressed, if it does the ECU is getting an open switch signal when the switch is actually closed.

I'll have a look and see if I can find the thread. Links at bottom have good info but neither have problem of brake lights stuck on.

10 year old Land Rover is always going to be a recipe for electrical problems, sorry.

Cheers
Davie

LINK

LINK

[Edited on 28/2/18 by daviep]

[Edited on 28/2/18 by daviep]

Hope you get it sorted and its not a sign of things to come

A mate had one of these and it had more than a few issues
as soon as the landrover warranty ran out he got rid of it...

[Edited on 28/2/18 by perksy]

these are terrifying cars for maintenance issues and stupendous services costs, seriously and no joke if I was given one for free it would be on E-bay the next day without me daring to switch it on

All the best luck in the world keeping that lemon on the road

I would also get rid of it asap, as with a Rover 45 I had years ago out of the 2 years I had it, it spent over 6 months in the local rover dealer with electrical problems, that in the end I fixed, with a new fuel pump relay Rover changed pretty well everything else, and it always failed when I got the car back

My car was also VERY low mileage, as I never drove it for fear of breaking down, hence your RR with 33k and 11 years old

steve

This is the ridiculous servicing required to do anything on the engine other than very routine stuff. Some Garages quoting 2k labour just to remove the body and just look at all the crap all over the top of the chassis, burst pipe, body off mate....

These suffer very common turbo and exhaust manifold issues...utter nightmare cars






[Edited on 1/3/18 by Mr Whippy]

^^^^ yeah. and that's just to top up the windscreen washer bottle

Reminds me of a programme I watched about the Bentley Continental - you have to lower the engine and gearbox out of the bodywork to change the spark plugs...
... or, to be precise, you have to take the car to Bentley to have the plugs changed.

[Edited on 1/3/18 by David Jenkins]

The switch is actually two very sensitive hall-effect switches -- BMW design Rover 75 suffers the same issue usually caused by the switch being slightly loose in the mounting a lot of people have cured it by gluing the switch into its mounting.