Two weird faults - perhaps unrelated

[codemonkey]

I've recently experienced two faults with my '05 SE, one for the first time today and the other for the third time today. They may be unrelated, but I'll put them both here in case they are related.

First up is a transmission fault - this happened for the first time today, and has only happened once. I had been driving all day, including some offroad/low range driving, and was headed back home on I70. Traffic was backed up from the Eisenhower Tunnel going east, so we crept down a long, long grade - maybe ten miles - in about an hour. Because of the steep grade and high altitude (11k to 8k feet) I kept it in 1st and 2nd gear, creeping along, to keep the brakes from overheating (pretty common up here).

After about an hour of this, while stopped (yet again), the warning "transmission fault, come to safe stop" flashed. A few yellow warning lights came on, I can't remember which, and then it said "transmission lowering". We were stopped for a few minutes, so I turned the ignition off, waited a moment, and turned it back on again. Fault gone, mostly normal. The only weird thing is both the offroad and normal height indicators were lit by the switch, and the up arrow was flashing. I hit the down switch, it picked normal height, and seemed happy. I frankly couldn't tell whether it had raised or lowered in any of this.

I continued on home, leaving the shifting to the transmission, and it was all fine. Has anyone experienced this? My guess is that the transmission may have overheated with the slow speeds and lock into 1st and 2nd. At the same time, traffic jams at high altitude are a fact of life in Colorado these days - this won't be the last time I encounter these conditions.

 

[codemonkey]

Ok, second fault. This has happened three times, all offroad. Typical scenario is I have been offroading in low range, rock crawl mode, offroad height, HDC on sometimes, off sometimes. Proceed like this for several hours without problems. Then I stop, sometimes more than once. Each time I verify the special program, height, and low-range. Continue offroading for a bit, then end up going down a steep hill. I'm actually not crazy about HDC so typically I turn it off on really steep stuff and just two-pedal it.

The three times, on the very steep downhill, creeping down usually in low range/1, I get the fault "HDC fault, vehicle lowering". Which is just awesome, usually I have a wheel on a big rock, or once actually top-centered, because it lowered me to access height on a whoop-de-doo. I end up needing to cycle the ignition, reselect my program, raise the height, and then everything is fine.

The first time this happened was on the dealer event and the dealer guys told me after I had stopped previously, the special program was deselected and when it detected a need for HDC (downhill), it freaks out to get me to turn it on. This sounded fishy to me, one as I had seen the special program that time, and since have verified that it stays selected after each stop. Today I even turned off the car before the big downhill, started up, verified that rock crawl was still selected, picked another program, and then went back to rock crawl. It also seems fishy that, to get me to turn on HDC, it would freak out and lower the vehicle, when sometimes it just turns on HDC anyway.

So is this normal behavior? Given the other fault above, if I take it in will the dealer be able to read these faults and do anything worthwhile?

 

[tonysheeba]

i think both fault related u r not mention u r car model 05 LR3 or L320, MAY BE U R BRAKE LIGHT SWITCH FAULTY,IT OCCUR INTERMITTENTLY

 

[Houm_WA]

tony, this is an LR3 forum; you can assume it's an LR3. ...and I can confirm it as codemonkey has posted here many times before.

I do not think that it's a faulty brake light. Also in no way, shape or form is it the LR3's way of encouraging you to turn HDC on. I have it off as often as I have it on and it never "freaks out" like that to convince me to turn HDC on. That's nonesense.

Here are a few thoughts: Since this all happened on the same day it could be your battery. I just experienced something similar and I'm keeping an eye on that myself. I'm not sure if it matters that my fault happened during start-up and yours was while driving. I don't know all that; I just know the LR3 is very sensitive to voltage.

Do you have an extended warranty or is your vehicle still under factory warranty? If so, you may want to go have them look for fault codes. Per your question above, sometimes it leaves information about the faults and sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the seriousness of the fault (amber, red, etc) and the system (suspension, transmission, etc). There is only one way to find out!

It's good that the faults cleared upon re-boot, but the fact that they came back a few times would have me wanting to get it looked at.

Good luck. Please let us know what you find out.

 

[codemonkey]

Here are a few thoughts: Since this all happened on the same day it could be your battery. I just experienced something similar and I'm keeping an eye on that myself. I'm not sure if it matters that my fault happened during start-up and yours was while driving. I don't know all that; I just know the LR3 is very sensitive to voltage.

Last night I saw the threads about "transmission fault, limited traction" on startup, which seemed to be a weak battery issue. I had been assuming that since I had been running for hours yesterday, the battery should have been fully charged. But, if the battery is going, and I'm just creeping along, I guess the alternator isn't putting much out, and that could cause a low voltage situation. I'll look at the battery tonight and see how old it is. For $80 or whatever, I may just throw another one in there to be safe.

It is under warranty (CPO), so I may take it in later this week (I'm dropping it off to get skids installed tonight). If anyone has other ideas to look at, let me know - I like to have as much info as possible going in to the dealer.

 

[Houm_WA]

Yeah if it's under warranty then definitely have them look at it, even before getting a new battery. What skids are you installing per se?

 

[codemonkey]

What skids are you installing per se?

I'm the (or a) "prototype" LR3 of sorts for Hi-Country Offroad, here in the Denver area. I think he's going to do a gas tank skid, compressor skid, and transfer case skid this time. He did the sliders I have - this is my LR3 in these pics:

http://www.hicountryoffroad.com/Products/LR3/Skid_plates/LR3_skidplate.htm

 

[Houm_WA]

I'd love to see how those turn out....an alternative to the Rasta products would be good, even if just to create some healthy competition!

Any word on the cost?

 

[nwoods]

Don't do the skids before going to the dealer, do it after.

 

[codemonkey]

Don't do the skids before going to the dealer, do it after.

Too late, it's already down there. That occurred to me today - I'm going to go in complaining of a transmission fault, possibly related to overheating, and they're going to say "suuuuurre...those weren't on there when it happened".

Though, Flatirons is pretty cool about this stuff - they're the ones that got me hooked up with Hi-Country in the first place. I guess we'll see how far that coolness goes with warranty work.