Recently my Freelander 2 2008 decided to randomly break.

It was fine Monday night as I drove it and had no issues whatsoever, come Thursday morning and I went to start it up and this is when the problems started (last week).

It wouldn’t even attempt to try and crank, the ignition comes on but nothing when putting my foot on the break and trying to start it. Transmission fault on the dash, engine fault on the dash, HDC system fault on the dash and as soon as I put the ignition on, the temp gauge goes up and into the red with the red light.

Does anyone know why this is and how to fix it as it’s spent a week in our garage being stripped and testing different things and we are still yet to figure out what the problem is.

I’m not sure if this is relevant or not but coming up to this randomly happening, my alarm would randomly go off for no reason, sometimes twice within the space of 10 minutes because it thought the bonnet was open when it wasn’t, to lock it again I’d have to open the bonnet and close it. It seemed to have gotten worse with the alarm going off up until the engine wouldn’t start again.

Thanks!

Silly question but I'm sure you've tested the battery voltage and grounding before doing all that?

Yours is an older FL2 so have you tried bypassing or replacing the bonnet latch sensor to remove that error?
If all the warnings happened after putting your foot on the brake and when you pressed the starter I’d be looking at the starter solenoid contacts. They wear and corrode and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.

The alarm going off is most definateley the bonnet catch/sensor easy fix.
Other issues could be number of things Battery? earth stap? Starter motor?do you have a code reader ? 2013 FL2 XS.
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We’ve tested the battery voltage and all seems fine, the grounding also seems fine.

All of the warnings on the dash and the engine not starting happen as soon as I put the ignition on, we’ve tried it with easy start and manually turning it over which does get it to crank but that’s the only way. Doing it from inside of the car gives us nothing other than ignition. The car hasn’t been able to crank for over a week now after trying new things every day.

We do have an Autel which gave us these codes:
- “Engine speed input circuit”
- “Control module network signal calibration data”
- “Lost communication with ECM/PCM A”

While voltage is important, resistance is more important at cranking currents. A cable will carry 12v at multimeter voltage testing current levels but the resistance in real use and at a starting current of 800amps can be huge. Have you looked at the starter solenoid contacts? At £20-30 for a set and easily changed they are at the less expensive end of the things you can throw at the car in an attempt to fix it!

I think the fact you've got instant errors is either poor volts (you checked that) or something in the wiring loom. There are a couple of areas that seem to come up on here , under the battery box is one. The fact the Autel can scan says that most things are behaving. Assume the tail lights work correctly (they chat over the CANBUS) , radio controls work etc?

How old is the battery though you have 12v you might not have the cranking amps as previously mentioned, poor battery can give error messages, try charging you could also try a hard reset? 2013 FL2 XS.
Defender 90 300 TDi.
Defender 90 300 TDi CSW.
1964 MGB Roadster.
1944 Willys MB "Jeep" with bullet holes. (gone)
17 hand Irish Drought Thoroughbred (mostly lame)
Nagging Old Boiler.

Mahatma Gandhi said if there is an Idiot in power those who elected him are well represented. The Enemy is our own corrupt Government.

One of my taillight bulbs did go but we’ve since replaced that and they work fine now.

All of the radio and everything works fine too, steering wheel controls too but I will say my steering lock is no longer working at all, it doesn’t come on when the car is locked or no key in ignition as it previously used to but I assumed this was down to all of the errors I’m having.

I’m not sure how old the battery is as I’ve only had the car for 1 year and 3 ish months but it’s got the same battery in it from when I bought it, we’ve tried a hard reset and it’s still the same.We did put a car battery charger on it which would have taken over and that works correctly so could it still be an amp problem with my battery even with a charger connected that would provide the correct voltage and so on if my battery didn’t have it?

Steering lock fault from before starting problems or after. Things are so interlinked that it could be that the steering lock system still thinks it’s locked and so is inhibiting start attempt.
https://www.freel2.com/forum/topic39967.ht...ering+lock

The steering lock problem has started since we’ve been having these problems, the car will be locked and I can turn the wheel with no lock, it usually was on when there was no key in the ignition but now it’s always off

You need to eliminate a failing battery, dodgy starter and poor earths.
The FL2 is renown for putting up a variety of electrical faults when the battery fails.

What does the battery voltage drop to during attempted starting ?

Personally I would begin by getting hold of a fully charged, good battery (borrow one from another car maybe).
I would also do a hard reset by connecting the battery NEG and POS leads together for a minute or so (discharges all capacitors).
Then connect up the temp battery.
I would also run an additional earth ( Id use a jumper cable) from starter motor to NEG terminal (bypassing engine and chassis earths).
And see what happens. Jules

Just tried all of that and still no luck, the voltage drops to 10.5 when manually cranking it

Lost communication whit ECM and wierd starting issues. Same what i had and you get directly temp to red and all other faults

Try to wiggle / push relays on engine Bay

And check your positive cable fusable link.

I had it snapped broken and i tought i fixed it. But My car still does this same and when i wiggle relays it works

jules wrote:

You need to eliminate a failing battery, dodgy starter and poor earths.
The FL2 is renown for putting up a variety of electrical faults when the battery fails.

What does the battery voltage drop to during attempted starting ?

Personally I would begin by getting hold of a fully charged, good battery (borrow one from another car maybe).
I would also do a hard reset by connecting the battery NEG and POS leads together for a minute or so (discharges all capacitors).
Then connect up the temp battery.
I would also run an additional earth ( Id use a jumper cable) from starter motor to NEG terminal (bypassing engine and chassis earths).
And see what happens.

Jules ( Rommel and others) giving good advice --- get a new battery, and carefully check and clean all the main battery supply and earth connections. --- Poor power supply to electronic modules, during start up, will give phantom faults and error codes.

BossBob also points out the (common on old FL2s) fatal Bonnet Sensor problem.

j00ppiss had an interesting, hard to find Battery Starter Fuse failure. As the wiring diagram below shows, the fuse only effects the starter motor 12v supply circuit.

Click image to enlarge

 FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
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