[argonaut]

Hello!
First of all I should be polite and say hello, I'm a newbie to this forum and relative newbie to the P38. I bought my December 1996 built P38 4.6 HSE a couple of months ago and I'm enjoying owning this car, good to drive, good to look at and suits what I need from a car.
Of course there's been a couple of problems - door lock actuators for example, one has just failed again but there's one issue that I can't resolve. I did post this elsewhere on lr4x4 but so far, no-one has been able to offer a solution.

This si the problem description:
A puzzling new feature has developed with my P38: warning messages in the Message Centre now appear as "Handbook ##" = handbook page numbers rather than actual fault descriptions which was the case up until a couple of days ago, (eg leaving the ignition key in will result in "Handbook 72" rather than the normal "Ignition Key In". Whilst this is interesting it's not terribly practical - is there any way to reset this so that message fault descriptions appear?

One morning, the car refused to start - there was a "beep beep beep" plus Handbook 150 and then Handbook 166. This was accompanied by some strange sound under the bonnet, it sounded as though the source of the sound was close to the bulkhead and I was thinking about it possibly being fuel pump related (?). This happened twice, after each time I removed the ignition key, reinserted and tried again - on the third attempt, no beeps and the car started straight away. Any clues as to what this mallarky might have been?


I have tried disconnecting the battery and re-connecting but this made no difference.
Any one have any ideas?

Cheers

 

[symoonbeam]

Not sure about your message problem, but I think your other issue might be the engine immobiliser.

I have a similar issue where, if I remove the key from the ignition for any length of time (more than 2 minutes say), then re insert the key and try and start the car, I get the same beeps and the engine immobilised message, followed by the press remote message. I have to remove the key, press the unlock button, then re insert the key and the car will start. Alternatively I just have to remember to always press the unlock button, regardless of whether the car is locked or not prior to starting it. I think it is an issue with the passive arming coupler in the ignition lock.

I suspect that your two handbook messages are the ones I refer to.
Hope that helps a little.
Cheers
Jay

 

[SID]

Hi, and welcome.

The code numbers in place of words may well be due to the language or market for your car have been lost by the memory. If I remember right, there is a default setting of just codes, so that it can tell tec's in Japan etc whats wrong by using numbers. I think this was done as Rover could not be bothered to learn Japanes etc and the display matrix could not handel it any way.

You could email BlackBox Solutions (click the banner at the top of the page) and ask if they have a unit that can reset this.

SID.

 

[argonaut]

Hi, and welcome.

The code numbers in place of words may well be due to the language or market for your car have been lost by the memory. If I remember right, there is a default setting of just codes, so that it can tell tec's in Japan etc whats wrong by using numbers. I think this was done as Rover could not be bothered to learn Japanes etc and the display matrix could not handel it any way.

You could email BlackBox Solutions (click the banner at the top of the page) and ask if they have a unit that can reset this.

SID.

Cheers SID, I was thinking about that as a possible cause as well, maybe the unit's memory of language has gone awol.

 

[argonaut]

Not sure about your message problem, but I think your other issue might be the engine immobiliser.

I have a similar issue where, if I remove the key from the ignition for any length of time (more than 2 minutes say), then re insert the key and try and start the car, I get the same beeps and the engine immobilised message, followed by the press remote message. I have to remove the key, press the unlock button, then re insert the key and the car will start. Alternatively I just have to remember to always press the unlock button, regardless of whether the car is locked or not prior to starting it. I think it is an issue with the passive arming coupler in the ignition lock.

I suspect that your two handbook messages are the ones I refer to.
Hope that helps a little.
Cheers
Jay

Hi Jay, I suspect that you're onto something there, I was getting "engine immobiliser" warnings before they became encrypted into "Handbook ##" language. Pressing unlock solved the issue.
Thanks for the tip.

 

[Jos Geuze]

Hi

The BECM can have the following language settings in the faultmate settings page:
English
French
German
Italian
Spanish
Dutch
Portugeese
Code book

As mentioned by SID have a diagnostic system conneced to your car to set the language right.

Regards

Jos

 

[argonaut]

Not sure about your message problem, but I think your other issue might be the engine immobiliser.

I have a similar issue where, if I remove the key from the ignition for any length of time (more than 2 minutes say), then re insert the key and try and start the car, I get the same beeps and the engine immobilised message, followed by the press remote message. I have to remove the key, press the unlock button, then re insert the key and the car will start. Alternatively I just have to remember to always press the unlock button, regardless of whether the car is locked or not prior to starting it. I think it is an issue with the passive arming coupler in the ignition lock.

I suspect that your two handbook messages are the ones I refer to.
Hope that helps a little.
Cheers
Jay

A little update on the warning message "engine immobilised". Recently I've been having problems where it seemed that my key was losing synchronisation and I was getting this warning every time I got in the car. Just for a laugh and becuase I couldn't think of anything else I thought about chaning the key unit batteries. I removed the cover so that I could see what batteries it needs (couldn't find this info in the handbook, they are CR2025 in case you were wondering). The top battery looked fine, I hooked this out and between the two batteries I found some corrosion. I cleaned this off, removed and cleaned the batteries and the battery compartment then re-assembled everything. I went back to try this in the car and now the key works perfectly and I no longer get the "engine immobilised" warning. Interestingly I was not getting any warning about the batteries being low.

Anyway, might just be a coincidence but it's working fine now.