Searching through past posts with such a vague search line as "won't start" this morning I was pretty down - envisioning towing car to town, and a huge $ bill at a very long process of troubleshooting and replacing several components that would turn out not to be the culprit. Had read about clusters failing and having to be replaced and reprogrammed, start buttons being replaced, key fobs going belly up, steering lock modules.... ugh. This is going to be painful.

Fault: key in ignition. car registered key being in ignition. push start button - nothing on cluster at all. radio, lights, windows would work. Car wouldn't start.

Must be dead battery surely. Jump start - nothing.
F8 and F4 fuses. Nope.
Pulled every fuse in the car. Nope.
Unplugged everything in passenger footwell. plugged back in again. Nope.
Battery disconnected. Hard reset by holding positive and negative together and disconneted for 30mins. Nope.

Steering lock issues? Doesn't sound like that could be it, but OK, I'm game:
key out of ignition.
turned wheel till steering lock kicked in.
key in ignition, unlock steering...
BOOM! lights on dash, beep-beep-beep of "door open and key in ignition".... could this be happening?!
With hope bubbling up inside of me i push the start button and she roars to life. Yesssssss.

Thanks to everyone here who reports back when they find a fix to their problem. Saved my bank account some serious pain.

Result.  DAVE.

Thanks for feedback, it's nice to have a solution that we can try and know it works.. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 77k+ miles) (MY2015)
Metro in its 11th Year of (Extended) LR Warranty / Full LR Service History
(Expensive, but Trouble/Worry free - hopefully?)

Brilliant! Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18

Very nice!!!

Freelander 2’s sent to the USA don’t have a steering column lock (I have no idea why)

One less thing for me to worry about

Thanks for sharing

Paul

Mine quite regularly needs the key removed and put back in before it will work, don’t know why. It’s the same with either of the key fobs, but it always works second time, so I put it down to just one of these FL2 foibles. 2005 D3 2.7 Auto
Previously:
2010 MY FL2 TD4e GS - Now gone at 199,500 miles, about 135,000 of them mine.
‘93 Defender 110 200TDi CSW
‘87 Defender 90 4 cyl Petrol
‘83 110 CSW V8 - best ever!
Range Rover 2-door V8 (not sure of year - 4-speed box and vacuum diff switch)
Series III SWB Diesel

Yeah, some odd little quirks that's for sure.

Can't help but feel 'simplier is better' would have been a good reminder every morning to the guys that designed them, but hey, still love the car.

Wife can't believe the car thought the steering lock was on when it wasn't. I had to shrug and say "well, now we know if it does it again!"

Worms wrote:

Mine quite regularly needs the key removed and put back in before it will work, don’t know why. It’s the same with either of the key fobs, but it always works second time, so I put it down to just one of these FL2 foibles.

I don’t think I have earth problems - it has the stop/start function, so came from the factory with the extra earth connection (although that doesn’t rule out a specific earth issue at the fob-insert). I wasn’t raising my issue as a problem, just one of these inexplicable quirks of the car. (Of course, having said that i’ll go out and find it totally dead this morning! ) 2005 D3 2.7 Auto
Previously:
2010 MY FL2 TD4e GS - Now gone at 199,500 miles, about 135,000 of them mine.
‘93 Defender 110 200TDi CSW
‘87 Defender 90 4 cyl Petrol
‘83 110 CSW V8 - best ever!
Range Rover 2-door V8 (not sure of year - 4-speed box and vacuum diff switch)
Series III SWB Diesel