there are a lot of comments and speculation about dealer essential downloads for the genuine lr tow electrics,this is what I did ,purchased a whitter tow bar ,no bumper cut,then went on e bay and bought genuine lr electric kit from Germany,all boxed un used,then went to my friends gge,who has autologic diagnostic who then down loaded necessary files from autulogic site then programed the necessary ecu"s,nothing will work until the tow ecu supplied is matched to the car.overall I saved a fair bit,i appreciate we all cant have friends in garages,point being most independent lr garages have got the gear to download and plenty have auto logic or similar,just a case of ringing round for best price,hope this helps someone out there!

Yup. Agreed.

Local LR indy did it with his Autologic for a few beer tokens. Took a few minutes, tops.

Way cheaper than the £50 + VAT the LR dealer wanted.

Have to disagree.
On my 11my the LR Indy kit said it was activated but fortunately I took a trailer board and it was not working.
Local Stratstone said I would have to wait 3 days so took it 30miles to MJFews who did it with proper LR kit. FL2 11 S Black 😂
Gone Disco2 TD5 GS

Sounds like the indy you used should be avoided.

Should be no need to pay dealer rates for a job that can be done in 5 mins with an Autologic.

Well FRY is a pretty big Indy and mostly looked after my Disco TD5 OK for 9 years.
They just had cheap small coder - but they did charge 50£ which I got back. FL2 11 S Black 😂
Gone Disco2 TD5 GS

Activating the trailer module is a very simple process, if you had done it before or know exactly what you are doing.
I activated my own a few months back, it takes a few minutes.

However you should consider that you can make mistakes when coding or updating any devices, and a £50 or so LR dealer cost will seem cheap if you are sitting looking at a blank display on your dash after a failed or corrupted update

if you decide to use a garage (dealer or idie) you should test the results before leaving or have them prove its working.



Joe Fix it until it's broke !

"However you should consider that you can make mistakes when coding or updating any devices, and a £50 or so LR dealer cost will seem cheap if you are sitting looking at a blank display on your dash after a failed or corrupted update "
Quite agree, but as LR dealer could not do it for 3 days, and as we due on holiday that evening I checked with local (large) LR specialist he could do it. Seems his bit of kit did not have updates needed for 2year old car.
Not surprising as all the software on LR and Jaguar change at every MY update
The 2nd - not local LR main dealer did it in minutes with his expensive machine (with updates no doubt)
I was told later that more modern LR electric kit is plug and play.

What is annoying with my S basic model is there are no parking sensors to disable or anything complicated, so I think the designers could have had the electrics enabled by default. FL2 11 S Black 😂
Gone Disco2 TD5 GS

Yes - there were quite a few reports at the time of dealers charging for the "update" when as you say it is all plug and play now. Ex AA Series III LWB Safari - Gone
300TDi Disco (bought new - terrible car) sent back after 18 months
Freelander 1 Estate - leased, given back at end of lease
200TDi Disco (bought from a mate with 100,000 on the clock) - Gone
Disco 2 TD5 - sold and exported to France
FR2 TD4 GS - Gone
FR2 SD4 HSE - Now changed for a DS
New model ex-demo Evoque S 180 in white
Unable to order a new DS, so gave up. Now have a Volvo S90 Recharge.

I remember back in the 80s when I worked for a mainframe computer company. We sold the customer a £1m power upgrade to the central processor. When the upgrade arrived it was in a small cardboard box with instruction to change the badges on the cabinets and to cut a specific wire on one circuit board. We were told to make it look like a big job and spend all day on it. When the wire was cut the clock speed increased and voila a power upgrade. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

wjohnm wrote:

[Snip]... What is annoying with my S basic model is there are no parking sensors to disable or anything complicated, so I think the designers could have had the electrics enabled by default.