Hi all, just brought my first Landrover Freelander 2, it’s the 2.2 TD4 Auto,

Been using it for past few days and it’s been great to drive and was very pleased with the car, however this morning me and the wife decide to go out and get some last minute bits for Christmas and nothing, door unlocks with fob in goes the fob into the ignition / fob holder and no ignition, nothing, radio comes on with Sat Nav yet won’t release the steering lock or bring on the ignition ?

Tried on / off for about 30 minutes nothing, tried both keys nothing !!

Called out RAC so the guy tests the battery all good, tries the same as me both sets of keys, checks fuses & relays, looks on his computer for any other Freelander previous RAC call outs to other owners etc, one other call so he reads the notes and then removes my glove box and checks plugs behind it, all good, he calls their own tech support guys at RAC and explained the fault and they come to the conclusion it must be the steering lock module as it won’t release the locked steering even when the key fob is in so won’t then turn on the ignition, so that’s where he left it after being here for a good hour,

I go out to the car maybe 2 hours later a little peeded off and me the car starts first time!!

So please can someone tell me what this might be and has the site had experience of this before ?

Cheers in advance

Could be a few issues but early cars work better with a extra earth lead. Later ones have one. Check yours for having or not. Starter solenoids fail and are cheap to fix parts wise.

If the battery is old just change for piece of mind and then it’s in the lap of the gods but search button is going to give loads of reading. Key fobs can be sent off to get new batteries inserted again it’s via search, newer cars are easy to do at home.
(MY13 on). FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Did the RAC Check for Fault codes on his code reader?

No he didn’t check any fault codes.

My Freelander is a 2010 model so would that need the extra earth lead,

Not sure exactly what date they fitted them from sorry. May be when the first stop starts came on stream.

Should be something easy enough to chech on a warmer day. FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Just a thought, but have you checked the brake light switch?. If faulty I think this would not allow you to start the engine.

How do I check to see if this is good ?

I am not a expert but a basic test of brake light switch would be to see if the rear brake lights come on when pedal is pressed. I would first check the brake lights come on before engine is started and car starts ok. Then when car wont start check brake lights again.

Makes sense thanks I’ll try that next time, I recon it must come down to a poor plug somewhere, which one I don’t know yet and why it suddenly decides it doesn’t want to start or give you an ignition I just don’t know either,

When mine played up the other day for 6 Hours then all of a sudden the steering lock energised and bingo the ignition come back on and it started up, then all the dash lights went out and stayed out for 10 minutes even when I was driving it everything was dead on the dash including the indicators, yet lights, Radio & Sat Nav still worked ?

I messed around with the variou plugs by the passenger footwell for 5 minutes then the dash lights come back on again !!

So it all seems to tell me it’s a bad connection, do you all agree ?

I certainly do,sometimes just unplugging and pushing back in again can sort it.

I’ve had something similar and I’m not alone. Once it sorted itself out, it never did it again.

http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic24038.html Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
Evoque SD4 Dynamic Lux Auto
Present: Audi A3 S Line.

I think this is body control ecu lock up,ive had this before doing breakdowns on the road. I cant explain it but the last one on a f2 had battery disconnected over night,still nothing ,but pressed boot unlock ,re locked car ,unlocked ,all back on car started.we use batt disconnect to cure lots of faults,from radio to throttle position sensor faults.