| Author |
Message |
    
Phillip Miller
| | Posted on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 07:07 pm: | 
|
Hi,
Someone suggested that I post this here. I had previously posted it on alt.fan.landrover.
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I need some help diagnosing a Check Engine problem. I want to make
sure that I have tried everything that I can do myself before taking
the vehicle to the dealership.
The vehicle is a 1998 Discovery LSE that was purchased as a "used" car
by me in May 2001. It was previously a leased vehicle (one owner).
The dealership that sold the car read the service history of the
vehicle to me over the phone. It appears as though the car had all
applicable maintenance completed on it including its most recent major
service at 60,000 miles and oil changes every 3,000 miles until it was
sold at auction by the leasing company to the (non landy) dealership I
purchased it from. Since purchasing the car, I've put about 12,000
miles on it and the vehicle now has 90,000 miles on it.
The first oil change that I did myself I put Mobil-1 synthetic oil in
it. The next oil change was done by the local Ford dealership (too
cold up here in the middle of the winter to do my own changes!) and
they used a non-LandRover filter and regular oil. I just changed the
oil again and used a genuine LR filter and regular (Shell) 5W30 oil.
Sometimes when driving the vehicle, particularly when the
engine/weather is cold or when the engine has been unused for 48-60
hours the engine will "lurch" or "vibrate" when put under stress such
as going up the (steep!) hill that is right around the corner from our
house. This is normally around 1800-2200 revs at 50mph. It has done
it (but infrequently) at 70mph on a level interstate. Most of the
time, however, it does it for a minute or so and then settles down.
The behavior exhibited itself about 2 days after the oil change at the
Ford dealership and after a fill-up at a gas station which appears to
have had some dirty gasoline. I know this because my father-in-law
indicated he had the same problem with his 2000 Chevy 3500 after a
similar fill-up. About 10 days later the check engine light came on
(not flashing) and has yet to extinguish itself.
I have put some cleaning additives in to both the fuel line and into
the oil (thought it might be sticky valves or gummed up injectors),
and have used 3 tanks of gas since the dirty gas. I have also changed
the air filter and oil/oil filter (see above).
My brother in England thought it might be the ignition module that was
playing up and gave me a new one, but I can't for the life of me find
where on my LR this part might be. I have read posts that indicate
perhaps sparks & leads might be an issue, but they were replaced at
60,000 miles with genuine parts.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be causing the
jerky/rough running, and any things that I might try and repair at
home before trying to get this to the LR dealership (they are not very
accesible from where I live). I have also thought about purchasing
the ODBII reader from www.odb-2.com; anyone got any comments on that?
All help will be greatly received!!
Phillip |
p m
| | Posted on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 07:18 pm: |
|
Phillip,
if you have a laptop or have your desktop PC not far from garage, i would definitely recommend getting the obd-2 gizmo. It practically eliminates all the guesswork; it'll give you all the trouble codes and sort of describe what they are related to.
peter |
Phillip Miller
| | Posted on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 07:30 pm: |
|
Peter,
Thank you for the recommendation. Do you have one yourself? Is there a particular brand that is best? I have a laptop that I can put in the passenger seat with no problem.
--
I also just found the Maintenance Schedule for the 1998 that someone had posted up here. It says that the O2 sensors were supposed to be replaced at 82,500 miles (I did not do that), and that the spark plugs are supposed to be replaced at 90,000. It doesn't mention when you are supposed to replace the spark plug wires, though.
Phillip |
doug james (Dgj95lwb)
| | Posted on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 07:41 pm: |
|
Plug wires are poor @ 90k, for sure. Intermittant misses are a da** nuisance ..cheers doug 95 lwb @ 100k, w/fresh wires...... |
p m
| | Posted on Friday, April 19, 2002 - 08:09 pm: |
|
Phillip,
there's only one brand, that's www.obd-2.com, that i mentioned. You can buy a scanner, but it won't be anywhere as versatile and complete as that gizmo. Cost about $130 with cable. I have one, and in conjunction with RAVE CD it beats even the intention of going to the dealer.
TO diagnose the problem, you don't need to be moving, put the laptop on the seat or hood, connect the cable to the socket under the steering column, and laptop's serial port (COM1 or ...). Turn on the ignition, but don't start the engine. Start the program, and play with the menus. It'll give you the history and stored trouble codes, with some minor explanations of their meaning.
All the info is at that obd-2.com website.
Peter |
Phillip Miller
| | Posted on Saturday, April 20, 2002 - 06:17 pm: |
|
Thanks for the postings on this one. I will probably invest in the odb equipment.
Today I changed the fuel line filter. What a pain in the neck that was. The thing was so tightly seized/rusted on to the fuel line that it took over an hour's effort to get it off. To make matters worse I had to go buy some vise grips to hold onto the worn nut on the entry side of the filter. Don't know whether it will help matters, but it was due to be changed anyhow!
One other question; I've seen some posts about disconnecting the battery to reset the "check engine" light. I tried it for 30 seconds (as one post suggested) but that didn't work. Does anyone have any more accurate information on that point. |
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