Broken down . Advice please

It must be time for an update from the OP

Hello everyone. Update for you all. Firstly a big thank you for all your suggestions. It's been an interesting 24 hours. Luckily being broken down three miles from meant I could get a few tools. Yesterday I tested all the fuses to no avail. Tested battery. Convinced myself some sort of electrical failure but puzzled how that could happen. Tonight after work called my breakdown service and had a fun evening. Wife and son came down to the Tesco car park with me and shopped while we waited. Breakdown service arrives and immediately starts talking about dragging it onto his wagon. What about trying to fix?. Turns out he used to be a taxi driver (not a mechanic) and just collects vehicles. Steering locked at angle so I was not keen on dragging it. He thought about using a jump pack but someone else had borrowed his! We tried jump leads but nothing, no dash lights at all. He thinks maybe the battery in key so I go home to fetch spare but no difference. He calls another waggon, while we wait we share our photos from classic car shows. New guy arrives. The both have unusual first names starting with the same letter as the breakdown service which was comical. New chap thinks immobiliser stuck on and suggests disconnecting negative battery terminal to reset it. I had not heard of this before but my son had googled it on his phone and had suggested this earlier ! More fun ensues, they have no tools so wife suggested my wife goes back into Tesco to try to buy a 10 mil spanner or similar! Then new chap remembers he has a socket set and fetches It. very impressively clean , hang on its never been used ! Then I notice the sockets are imperial and none of them fit! I suggest pliers etc, they both search their trucks and eventually find some pliers. Only the new guy is strong enough to remove the neg terminal nut. Key removed from ignition. Battery reconnected and lo and behold it starts. Apparently the immobiliser can get stuck on if it's very hot inside the car. It was hot yesterday but I am very surprised this can happen. At least I know what to do if this happens again and we had an enjoyable evening! Sharing as may be helpful to someone else on here. Thanks again everyone.

If it happens in future- don't bother with pliers.


A gallon of petrol and a box of matches will be the cure.

Who was the break down company? Eye would suggest you get a better one as they're a load of rubbish. No tools no knowledge isn't the sort of help you need on a complicated car.

I'm a suspicious of the idea of it being too hot inside. Did they try turning the steering wheel at the same time? There would be land rovers stuck everywhere when it gets to 30 degrees int summer.

Also interested to know which 'breakdown' company this is!

Yes tell us so we can avoid them
Thanks

That must be the worst breakdown company I've heard of! They sound like nice guys, but nice is no good when it's 3am and raining on the hard shoulder.

I don't really want to rubbish my breakdown company as in previous call outs with different cars in the past they have been very knowledgable and efficient. Let's just say they don't use orange or yellow livery. They subcontract to local privately owned businesses and I think this one has had a few staffing challenges. I actually have reasonable DIY knowledge but couldn't solve this problem as I had never encountered it before. I was very surprised. However locked steering , non starting and no dash lights, I.e. Immobilised vehicle was cured just be disconnecting and reconnecting the negative battery terminal allowing it to reset. Very odd, so thought I'd share in case anyone else suffers this in future. I shall be carrying a spare terminal sized spanner from now on just in case it happens again. If my wife is driving it she could fix it herself then

Dart2050 said:

I don't really want to rubbish my breakdown company as in previous call outs with different cars in the past they have been very knowledgable and efficient. Let's just say they don't use orange or yellow livery. They subcontract to local privately owned businesses and I think this one has had a few staffing challenges. I actually have reasonable DIY knowledge but couldn't solve this problem as I had never encountered it before. I was very surprised. However locked steering , non starting and no dash lights, I.e. Immobilised vehicle was cured just be disconnecting and reconnecting the negative battery terminal allowing it to reset. Very odd, so thought I'd share in case anyone else suffers this in future. I shall be carrying a spare terminal sized spanner from now on just in case it happens again. If my wife is driving it she could fix it herself then

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My F1 has had exactly the same problem - ie immobilised and only disconnecting the battery and reconnecting would clear. However, there is a reason why it cocked up, and in my case the starter motor was on its way out and sending spikes of leccy through the system.

Even the big national companies use subcontract labour ter assist them. But turning up automatically with a recovery truck having no tools and talking of dragging it on said truck is not good.

Yer should ring the national company and make them aware of what happened. There is a level of ability the subcontractors must achieve and carry out. If the subcontractor is doing it to you then it will happen to others. Eye dun't care if they have staff trouble. If they do then they should stand down when that happens. Not send out a fool.

Yer should also be aware recovery gets them more money and the driver normally gets a bonus fer recovering back to their garage if he can - gaining said garage more work.

They're paid ter investigate first then report in fer recovery. There should be tools on the vehicle (not including the driver). The next person who they "help" could be on ere with a fuked gearbox, burnt out engine bay...

Eye once upset my FL1 by turning on and oft the ignition too many times, when messing with diagnostics. Never started the engine. Happened 10 times then it refused ter start. Deleting error code p1666 din't fix it. Disconnect and reconnect the battery did. They do have timeout counters fer protection when strange happenings are detected.