Hi all,
I'm at a loss with this one; there's some threads that relate to the dash packing up when the car's moving but nothing as 'bad' as this: I can't start the car!

Even without the key, I can press the hazard light switch and they flash outside the car but no indication of anything within the vehicle.
Key goes into slot okay but I don't hear the steering lock release - wiggling the steering wheel makes no difference (the car was parked with the wheels & steering straight and I can 'feel' the locking pins a few degrees either side of the wheel's current position)

Holding 'start' without pressing clutch:
Powers up the radio and power windows work but there's no display at all on the central console (dashboard).

Depressing the clutch and pressing start:
Radio goes off and there's a click of a relay somewhere but there's no engine start and after a few seconds, the radio comes back on.

I've checked all fuses; under bonnet, passenger area and boot. We've checked all the connections in the passenger foot-well (what muppet decided to use a connector that doesn't have locking latches, for god's sake?) The battery is charged (we've tried a jump start and we've also had it on slow charge for 12 hours) and the connections to it are tight. The headlights appear to be at normal brightness too.

No history of faulty starts in the past; this car was working perfectly two days ago - plenty of history with oil leaks that took Land Rover almost a year to fix - but that's another thing entirely and won't affect this

I've read about some kind of 'shipping mode' and there appears to be ways to perform a reset on the system (we've already had the battery off for half an hour but that's not helped) and I wonder if anyone knows of something I could try that might fix the problem or point towards a likely fault.

The car is an 07 plate, as described if you hover over the little picture at the side of this post.

Thanks for any help you can offer - I'm at a loss about this! As an aside, anyone know of a decent third-party repair shop that's not too far from Reading / Bracknell / Farnborough and can 'do' electrical faults like this? I really don't want to end up in the clutches of a stealer: on hearing the above, the service desk of one said: 'sounds like your battery's flat, mate, it'd start otherwise'. Helpful, no?

Could be a bad earth, heard of issues of corrosion in the cable, try putting a jump lead from the negative of the battery to the engine block and see if anything woks then!! 2008 XS TD4, Sumatra Black, Manual.

Mjjamieson wrote:

Could be a bad earth, heard of issues of corrosion in the cable, try putting a jump lead from the negative of the battery to the engine block and see if anything woks then!!

I had a simular problem drove to the garage filled up with fuel then nothing - dash was dead as a dodo, the AA said it looked like a flat battery but after testing the battery agreed the battery was OK so tried disconnecting the battery and thankfully it worked for mine.

Richard FL2 07 TD4 GS Auto
Ex 02 TD4 Auto

Bet your passenger has unplugged/loosened the multiplug connector under the dash on the nearside with their foot?

http://www.rovertune.co.uk/
 * GONE. GS TD4 Manual MY2013. Orkney Grey with privacy, cold and clearview packs, armrests (a must!) and a spoiler.
* 1974 Series 3 Lightweight called "Millie"
* 2024 Defender 90 D350 on coils!
* 1949 80" in family since 1975

I use www.glenrands.co.uk Great independent specialist!

DrRpb wrote:

http://www.rovertune.co.uk/

dave_evans wrote:

DrRpb wrote:

http://www.rovertune.co.uk/

Thanks, DrRpb. If confirmation were needed, this company keeps coming up in a FB post my misses made asking for a reliable but non-dealer workshop!
I'll be calling them first thing Monday morning...

Not used myself but never heard bad things over on LRO or LR4x4 forums.
Report back  * GONE. GS TD4 Manual MY2013. Orkney Grey with privacy, cold and clearview packs, armrests (a must!) and a spoiler.
* 1974 Series 3 Lightweight called "Millie"
* 2024 Defender 90 D350 on coils!
* 1949 80" in family since 1975

I use www.glenrands.co.uk Great independent specialist!

Update: the helpful chaps at Rovertune tell me this is more than likely a failure with the dashboard control - they had a similar fault on another 07 plate FR2 recently, I gather - and it'll take about 2 hours to replace & reprogram. The cost of this component is likely to be in the order of 200 GBP (at the time of writing - Nov. '12 for anyone finding this thread in years to come!).
Of course, until they get the car in they won't know for sure & it could be something else entirely...I'll let you all know what the resolution is when it's done.

Okay, now I'm in a real mess:
The good news is that this dead dashboard problem's been fixed. The bad news is that we didn't do anything...

Last thing I did on Sunday was give the key one final go - no joy, so I locked it all up and there the car sat, untouched, until Wednesday evening when I thought I'd just try it...and lo, it fired up the dashboard! It also starts and there's no errors on the dashboard or anything.
However, I have no idea what cured it and so I'm very reluctant to drive the car any further than I can walk - simply because I have no idea when (or if) it'll just stop dead!

I'll get the car down to the specialists and see if their diagnostics point towards anything because, as I'm sure you appreciate, I have very little confidence in the car until we know what caused this and have done something positive to prevent it happening again.

weird! if it ent broke dont fix it just drive it  When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car