Service light on, then off , in a couple of seconds . . .

[CaptainSpalding]

Greetings all,

In the midst of a 400 mile drive yesterday a strange thing happened. I was cruising along at 75 mph with the cruise control on. Suddenly the engine lost all power, as if it had been shut off. It was more abrupt than if I had just taken my foot off the gas. The Engine lamp went on, and a "Service Engine" message appeared on the display.

I put my foot on the gas, the vehicle regained power and speed, and after a couple of seconds the engine lamp went out. The vehicle performed as normal for the rest of the trip. Coolant temperature and fluid levels were normal at the time of the incident.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

As an aside, the engine lamp in my LR4 glows amber, but in the manual, it says that the lamp should be red. Can the lamp glow both colors, with yellow being DEFCON 2 and the red being DEFCON 1, or is it just an error in the manual?

 

[baobay]

What do you mean by engine lamp?

 

[CaptainSpalding]

Sorry. I mean the Engine Malfunction lamp.

It looks pretty much like this:

 

[baobay]

Sorry. I mean the Engine Malfunction lamp.

It looks pretty much like this:

Hi Captain,
My engine light is never on. Is yours on all the time or only for a second when you turn on the car?

 

[ycharlie]

get it scanned for codes asap.

 

[CaptainSpalding]

Hi Captain,
My engine light is never on. Is yours on all the time or only for a second when you turn on the car?

The engine light comes on as part of the lamp function check when the car is started.

The incident I described is the only time it has come on when it shouldn't. And that was only for a couple of seconds.

 

[baobay]

The engine light comes on as part of the lamp function check when the car is started.

The incident I described is the only time it has come on when it shouldn't. And that was only for a couple of seconds.

I would take it to the dealer and have them take a look. They will probably not find anything since there is no code at this time, but explain to them what happened so they have a record of it and should it happen again.
Good luck and please keep us posted.

 

[CaptainSpalding]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Here's the latest. Since the last time I posted, the car has stalled twice more. Each time the vehicle was moving, not idling. Each time it also started back up right away.

My wife took it in to the dealer yesterday morning. I hadn't heard from them by midday today, so I thought I'd drop in and have a face-to-face with the service manager. She put me together with the head tech, who told me the computer had thrown a code. He wasn't specific, but mentioned that it had to do with a torque mismatch. I can't even guess what that means. He confessed that he basically has no clue either. He went through a nationwide service database, and it seems that this issue is unique to my car. Woo hoo! Nothing instills more confidence than an intermittent problem that the service dept. can't reproduce, and that no one has ever heard of before. I asked him if he would be dogged and relentless in tracking down the source of the problem, but he was mute and fidgety. He's still got the car, and is mulling it over.

So that's the update. We'll see how it goes.

 

[CaptainSpalding]

Another update:

Land Rover has decided that the problem with the car is a faulty computer. They have ordered a replacement which will arrive August 17th at the earliest. They suggested that it might not be safe to drive the car in its current state, as random stalling might cause an accident. They have given us a spanking new LR4 as a loaner to use for the month, which is very nice of them.

I wish they were more certain of their diagnosis. I believe they chose the computer by process of elimination.

As an interesting side note - I asked them if they could just swap the computer from another car, so that we could have our own car back sooner. I was told that once a computer is mated to a car, it can never be used in another.

 

[Count Laszlo]

That's funny, my service light just came on for a second the other day (not the engine light) and was wondering if I needed service already. My LR only have 6K on the clock and 7-months old.