Coolant Low level alarm but level normal

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bbyer

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I have to admit to being slightly nervous at present. After finally taking the time to fix the erroneous 'Low Coolant' warning, I have no warning lights or other fault messages on any of my three LR's. Something is sure to go horribly wrong very soon!
Believe it or not, at some point in the fixup process, the 3's do get reliable. It takes a few years re each vehicle but then it is just the routine stuff.

Mind you routine is alot more than on a Chev pickup or a Jeep, but the 3's and 4's are a lot more sophisticated.

Tahoes etc are just now getting independent rear suspension and four corner air springs - that is about 15 years after the 3.

There is a cost to being on the bleeding edge.
 

ktm525

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Right but they are no more sophisticated than lets say a Lexus LX570 which is not in the habit of having plastic cooling bits degrade and explode at 100k miles or having their LCAs go out on a routine basis... It's too bad that LR did not fix the multitude of plastic, switch,sensor problems that plague these models. If they did they would have had a vehicle that could stand with a Land Cruiser. But that ship has sailed and we have the Disco 5 and Defender.. Enjoy your 3 lol.
 

bbyer

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Yes, it puzzles me why Denso stuff on the Land Rover does not last very long but on Toyota it does.

I do not believe Toyota makes defective goods when they sell to Land Rover so I just cannot explain why.

It is the same with engines. Land Rover buys what are presumable good engines from Ford and Peugeot, but once they get into a Land Rover, strange things happen.

I do not know what engines the new Defenders have or where they came from, but I lack confidence - time will tell.

The Grenadier guys I also wonder about - they bought an inline six from BMW - might be OK but it seems there would be better alternatives. The BMW V8s sure did not work in the full fat Range Rovers - but then again, LR seems to do something bad to what were good engines. It seems to me that Buick aluminum V8 did not work out in the early Discovery's either.

Historically GM has built some pretty good inline sixes - (say the 292), but then again, GM put an inline five in the small Hummer, the H3 - where did that come from?

To me, the Grenadier should have the GM 350 V8 - that would be a power plant.
 

ktm525

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Denso builds to manufacturers specs. The problem plastic bits on the Land Rover are Ford lol.
 

bbyer

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I removed the float sensor in the LR3 coolant expansion tank and took a couple of pictures per below.

The float sensor is about 1.5" long per below and the "dimple" that it sits within is about 2" deep.

The float sensor remain dry at all times and relies on the vertical movement of the internal wetted float.

Expansion Tank float sensor d.jpg Expansion Tank float sensor b.jpg
 

ktm525

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The whole sensor system is stupid. By the time the sensor triggers low coolant from a puking crossover, the engine has overheated and has taken the heads with it. You now have a $10k paperweight.
 

bbyer

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The whole sensor system is stupid. By the time the sensor triggers low coolant from a puking crossover, the engine has overheated and has taken the heads with it. You now have a $10k paperweight.
My 1992 Buick Roadmaster had the fluid level sensor on the radiator.

It worked, the red light and the engine temperature gauge both peaked at the same time but too late.

A frost plug in the engine block had let go and dumped all the coolant; to make it worse, I even saw the trail of coolant on the pavement in the rear view mirror but could not figure out what was going on until too late.

GM 350's run about 3K and the old block is sold for scrap iron.
 

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