[Tiberius01]

Hello all,

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, for it will be somewhat long. Being new to both this forum and to the Range Rover, I am hoping that the combined experience of everyone here will be able to help my girlfriend and myself with our Range Rover. We bought a 1995 Range Rover 4.0SE with about 196,000 miles on it about 2 months ago. Everything seemed to be in fairly great condition. After the purchase, I took the Rover to Autozone to have the check engine light checked. Based on the faults, I did a tune up, spark plugs, wires, oil/filter change, and I need two new ignition coils (cylinders 5 and 6 are misfiring), however I still haven't done this. My main issue is that whenever we drive to a Walmart or a gas station, any gas station, the Rover refuses to start. It happens without fail at every gas station we pull into. It starts fine at home and at work, just not at Walmart or gas stations. :? In order to get the Rover going again, I usually have to jump the battery, though it will sometimes start without a jump after waiting a bit. At Autozone I was told that the started, alternator, and battery all tested fine. I went ahead and bought a new battery which was due anyways. When I put the key in and turn it to position 2, everything lights up as it should; seat belt buzzer, lights on the dash, radio, AC unit, headlights, and interior lights. When I try to crank the engine, nothing. No noise, no crank, no nothing. :doh: The last time it happened, it took my girlfriend sitting in the Rover for about 15 min before it decided that it would start. No jump, no wiggling of wires or anything else, it just said, ok, I'll start now. Does anyone have any experience with this situation? We both really love this Rover, it's an awesome vehicle that we want to keep for a really long time, but I can't seem to figure out this problem. Thank you everyone in advance.

 

[lrscott]

Mine does this about once a month for some reason. If I turn the key to off and try it again its fine. The wires on the starter might be corroded, I would first start there. Check continuity with a voltmeter. 196k miles is an encouragement for me . Nice to see someone out there that really cares for their P38. BTW she looks great in your profile picture.

 

[Tiberius01]

Irscott,

Thanks for the advice, I will definitely check the stater wires now. I was just going to replace the battery and alternator wires, I didn't even think about the starter. I really hope that it does the trick ray: . Unfortunately, when the Rover decides to not crank, we can turn the key more than 10 or 20 times without a response from the engine. I will post my results when I get all the wires changed. Please, if anyone else has any other tips or suggestions, they will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Tim (Scotland)]

Faulty or loose earth straps?

 

[greenslade]

Mine was doing something similar for a while - would start up after being left for a while.. sometimes. Did all sorts to try to diagnose it, thinking it was the security system. Finally, happening again away from home, I called out road rescue service, who straight away went to the wire to the solenoid on the starter motor. Cleaned that up, no problem since. I was chastened to be caught out by such a basic fault; sometimes with these complex beasts we look for the complicated reason first. Good luck finding it.

Steve

 

[vmystikilv]

Not the same car put this has happen to me in two cars, A porsche cayenne and a mercedes ML, both early 2000 years. Turned out to be the fuel pump, both times.

 

[BelgianP38]

was the new battery you put in fully charged? this would be my first check. n°2: there seems to be a special procedure for resetting the communication between the key en the electronics of the car, I'm sure you can find here on rangerovers.net

for starting at gasstations, I think it might be the fuel pump in the gastank.

 

[rhino_ed]

fuel pump.

 

[Tiberius01]

TIm, greenslade,vmystikilv,, BelgianP38, rino_ed,

Thanks guys for your input `) . Tim, I haven't checked all the grounds (earth straps, right?) yet, but will now. Greenslade, I believe I remember reading somewhere that another Rover owner had ignition problems and he had cleaned up the starter connections and that corrected his problems. When I replace all the wires, I will give the all the connections a very proper cleaning. I'm glad that fixed your problem, I learned early on in my time as a submariner that it's usually the simplest things that will fix the most complex things. BelgianP38, the new battery was fully charged when installed, that's why I had started thinking it was the alternator, but Autozone says it checks out. As for the special procedure for resetting all the communications, correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think that the 95 4.0SE had such a procedure. I will double check on rangerovers.net. Vmystikilv and Rhino_ed, I had considered the fuel pump, however, why would the pump only cease to function at gas stations? The only other place our Rover also won't start up at is at Walmarts :evil: . Do you guys think that there's some sort of electrical interference like whats described with the alarm system? The following is my plan of action, if anyone has anything to add, please by all means; will check all grounds, will check continuity with a voltmeter, will replace all wires for the battery, alternator, and starter, at the same time, clean all connections, then, if still the problem persist, start replacing parts; alternator, starter, then fuel pump. I still haven't ruled out the alarm system...a little over designed, you think? :think: As before, any other ideas are more than welcome. Thanks again, will post results ASAP for anyone else that may be having similar problems. Oh, and to Irscott, nice signature, that made my day :thumb: .

 

[TerryY]

One of the problems on the older big BMWs was that the non-return check valve in the fuel pump would leak/fail. The pump worked just fine but when you stopped with a hot engine the fuel in the injector rail would boil and push the fuel back to the tank. the result was vapor lock in the fuel rail and not enough fuel pressure to compress the hot gasses back into liquid. Let it rest/cool and it starts.

The "Quick" fix was a check valve that was placed in the fuel line near the fuel rail. That saved replacing about $1000 worth of fuel pumps on the V12. BMW still has the check valves for only a few dollars each.

 

[sillyboy]

Hi to All, The main reason for this problem is the petrol pump relay next time this happens try wiggling the relay or swop with one of the air con. fan relays if this is the problem clean the contacts with a piece 800 grit folded in half and cut to fit the socket there should be a slight resistance when you push the paper in if you find one of the sockets feels a bit loose put a slight twist to the corresponding pin on the relay by slight I do mean slight! Also note if you see any burning on the relay pin or around the socket, this relay and also the air con. fan relays do have a habit of burning, the early model is also very susceptible to out side interference from mobile phone mast making it impossible to come out of engine disabled, this means getting away from the area to restart the engine or using the unlock code. Hope this is of some help.
Best regards sillyboy

 

[viperover]

Many gas stations now use Wi Fi to transmit the data between pumps and the Rangies dont like them.

I now have two garages on my blacklist where I do not fill up for the same reason.
The newer RF recievers do work better but depends.

If your remote still locks and unlocks the vehicle in these places then reciever is not your problem

 

[benji]

My thoughts exactly viperover, some sort of RF signal is tripping of the immobiliser. Sillyboy you've most likely allready tried it, but does dissarming the vehicle let the starter motor turn over? I once read somewhere (can't remember where) of a p38 owner that would come out to find his rangie idling away happily, when he left if off and locked / armed the night before. It turned out to be a neighours remote control garage door turning off the alarm system (even though their rolling codes), and a engine fuse box fault shorted the starter relay.

 

[viperover]

The newer recievers do work alot better..

Before I changed my reciever I was dreading switching off, at one of customers factory I got stuck and all it took was moving to the other side of the tree where I was parked, yipe a mere few meters to block out a bad signal from a massive transmitting station very close by

 

[vmystikilv]

How did we get on the subject of RF recievers???

FOR CHIRST SAKES ITS THE FUEL PUMP MAN!!!!!! THE FUEL PUMP!!!!!!!!!!!! 8-0=

 

[kmagnuss]

What does the fuel pump have to do with the starter not even cranking at all? :think:

If it's not turning over, I'd start with the starter solenoid (sweet pun) and work my way back.

And like said before, the RF junk really isn't out of the realm of possibilities.

 

[vmystikilv]

What does the fuel pump have to do with the starter not even cranking at all?

Missed that part where its not even turning over.. Man, wish I could go back and delete old post... :|

* sits quietly in corner for 10 minutes....

 

[Ronron]

In case there would be interference of the receiver I understand that the communication between the ECU and BECM is not correct and would therefore give the "Engine disabled" message on the display. I am not 100% sure but that is my understanding of the system.
Since Tiberius have not mentioned the "Engine Disable" message I would suspect the immobilizer system, including receiver, is working. But surely it sounds very similar to those interference problems many have had. Especially as it seems to happen at specific locations.

By the way, many good advice have been given and it will be very interesting to hear what was the actual problem.


Best regards,

 

[Tiberius01]

Hey everybody,

Sorry that it has taken me so long to update on my starting problem. All right, I have gone though and checked all the grounds and they all seem good. I also went into the fuse boxes and checked all fuses and relays, all good, except for whatever reason, there was 15amp fuse where a 20amp fuse should of been, however it had not blown. I even checked the actual fuse box itself for damage, but none was found. I was getting an "alarm fault" in the message center so I looked into that thinking that it might be immobilizing the engine. I traced the problem with the help of rangerovers.net and found that the ultrasonic sensor was faulty. Bought a new one and the message center fault cleared, however, that wasn't the fix to my problems :doh: . I ended up stuck at a 7-11 gas station. I proceeded to try to restart the engine using the unlock code, both the generic 1515 and the code that came with the Rover, but no joy. My Rover finnally started about 30min later and I was able to get her home. I was thinking that the RF receiver was the cause of my problems, however, like Viperover stated, I can still use my remote to lock and unlock the Rover, so I ruled the receiver out. As for the fuel pump, I don't believe that is my problem. With my girlfriend starting the Rover and myself listening at both the fuel door and under the Rover, I can hear the pump start electronically when the key is turned to position II. Now, it could still be the mechanical components of the pump not pumping fuel, but when the Rover does start, I don't get any hesitation and bad idling, or any other problems of the sort, so I've kinda ruled the fuel pump out...that and I really don't want to drop the fuel tank to replace the thing :roll: . Ronron is correct, I am not receiving a "engine disabled" in the message center, so I have also come to the conclusion that my alarm system with the immobilizer is working correctly, even when I can't seem to start the Rover.
Thanks to everybody that has posted trying to help us with our Rover. I'm sure that we'll find out what's going on with it soon. If anyone else has anything to add to the list of things to check and do to try to fix this, please by all means. I have a few other things I'm gonna check, such as cables and the starter motor. Thanks again to all and I will post soon, hopefully with the fix to this issue.

 

[AlexT]

So , if you have the diesel model is a known problem of injection pump, there is a modification kit that you can find with a quick search on the net.
(p38 diesel won't start )
If petrol then the fuse box, same problem I experienced.
You can look for new or try a rebuild of internal tin solder, in my case it worked.

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