New faultmate FCR for P38 any good?

Paul I will PM you when i get a minute.

BBS Guy said:

Hello all
Let me start off by truly and most sincerely apologizing for not noting the very slight clue in your name Rangiegal and just assuming you were male.
However i suspect i am not alone in not realizing you are female

Before moving on, might i also thank The Mad Hat Man for adding his most diplomatic input, truly an asset to this board.
And also to Rick The Pick and Rewmer for their balancing input and helpful comments.

I did post a long attempt at trying to get Rangiegal to see at least some of our point of view, but in reflection, and in re re reading her further and somewhat abrasive comments, i now realize in the cold light of day, that I would be just wasting my time.

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My goodness, your original post has been edited to the extent that it is completely rewritten - "changed your mind" indeed. Perhaps some people saw it - basically vilifying me for daring to question anything you had decreed and attempting to call me a liar as well. I rather suspect that you changed your attack on me as, as MHM pointed out to both of us by PM, it did not present your unwillingness to sort out very poor customer service at all.

And no, I did not "launch an unfair attack" on you - you have had months to sort out the refusal to provide the relevant codes so I could use the Faultmate I had bought. And nowhere in ANY of your advertising on the web do you point out that the procedure is complicated, cumbersome and will require several weeks and possibly the purchase of extra hardware and software before a Single Vehicle Licence unit could be used on a P38. As Rewmer pointed out, I think, Plug and Play IT IS NOT.

You may have a multitude of adoring fans out there, but the fact remains that on THIS occasion, and in my case, your "customer service" could not have been worse. I tried on numerous occasions to rectify the problems I had encountered, but met with nothing but arrogance in return- you'd already had the money for the system and the attitude was simply that you couldn't care less and I was to get my information from your booklet and the "support forum" (responses which suggested I consult the booklet and not trouble you with such trivialities).

Your original post was derogatory about my pointing out that the "clue" to my gender was in my name, as you referred to me as "him" and you suggested that the "guy" in your name was much clearer as to your gender - what sort of attitude is that? I suspect you are quie wrong about most regular posters here not knowing I am female -several threads make mention of it and I have been here for quite some time. As a "newbie" to the forum you missed it and made the assumption that I was male, then, in the original post, became quite offensive about it.

I merely pointed out that I had spent £600 on a system which can never work as you have failed to respond to any request to make it useable. As things are now, I am 200 miles away from my Rangie and have no chance of plugging the equipment in for several more months until my contract far from home is complete, nor does anyone else have access to the car to do so. I have no further use, in reality, for the Faultmate as I will be selling the Rangie, but it would have been nice to sell it with her as a great bonus item (no issues with the great system that Rovercoms / Faultmate's are, by the way).

Everyone has the right to speak as they find - if I get great service from a garage or anyone else, I'm the first to say so - likewise, I will flag up really really poor service, as in this instance.

I'm sorry you ignored MHMs appeal to both of us to take the issue to PM and resolve it as I would have been very happy to post the resolution for the forum readers. Truth be told, you didn't actually bother to contact me at all - Instead, you posted a very long diatribe against me, which I rather suspect you were advised to change as it could have had a very negative impact on your business.

Re the refusal to send items to an alternative delivery address unless the purchaser paid cash into your bank account - its quite wrong to state that "£20 bunches of flowers are sold that way in the UK, but not expensive kit like yours" - I deal regularly with a Sewing Machine retailer who is happy to deliver machines costing well over £1000 to my nominated address. The comment suggesting that sending a Faultmate to me in the UK would be a dodgy deal like sending a laptop to South Africa and was uncalled for and completely untrue.

Just for the clarity of all concerned it would be helpful if you would confirm your refusal to provide me, a buyer of your Faultmate Extreme SV system, with the necessary licence to use it or indeed any assistance at all in getting the system working, and that you have thereby rendered the entire system completely unusable. Bear in mind your previous refusal to correspond with me by email about the matter so I could get it working, and your refusal to go with MHMs suggestion that we resolve the issue via PM and that I could then report back that I was satisfied with the outcome of what had proved to be an extremely unhappy purchase at present. Or that a buyer of my Range Rover could register the system without problems if it is not registered prior to the car being sold, given that the hardware is unregistered.

MHM also suggested refunding me for the system which you conveniently ignored- how about making a refund in full to the Haiti Disaster Appeal and you can have the wretched hardware back unused to sell to someone else??? At least a lot of people would benefit in that case.

Rick-the-Pick said:

Rangiegal,

If you get your laptop sorted out, one with xp & the correct port for the lead, I'll talk you through the procedure of plugging the extreme into the vehicle & extracting the correct info blackbox need's to licence your specific modules.

This can only be done on your vehicle so the extreme can work out what modules you need. This is achieved by the using vehicle scan, & at present, that's the only module you have licenced at this moment.

Just let me know when you want another attempt.

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Thanks Rick, my laptop works just fine thanks, its the Faultmates software that doesn't run on it, I bought the Toughbook to run it on and even that was unsuccessful, so a third laptop is just not a viable alternative now that I am actually looking to sell the Rangie as my circumstances have changed and due to family needs, I now drive a BMW.

I realise I've wasted a lot of money on a worthless (without any way of licencing it) kit and life goes on regardless. I'm 200 miles away from the Rangie at present and don't have several weeks spare to struggle endlessly with the Faultmate again, nor indeed to find I have to buy yet another laptop to use a kit I believed I could use via its own inbuilt screen. I bought the Extreme as I did not have an XP laptop,and then bought a Toughbook as was advised that Win 95 would run the program well, only to find I couldn't get the program onto the Toughbook as the disc supplied by BBS will not read in the Toughbooks drive (it reads on my Vista laptop though, but the program won't run). I bought the lead needed for newer computers and also have the serial one supplied by BBS with the kit.

I won't be home again with time (or daylight hours) available for the next few months and also want to sell the Rangie. Perhaps I could sell the unregistered kit with the Rangie and someone else may have more luck with the famous "customer service" that I didn't experience.

Thanks for the offer, perhaps circumstances will change and I will need to take you up on it. Irish also offered to help, its a sad situation really and a real waste, just wanted to warn others that BBS are not that nice to absolutely everyone - if they had been, I'd have been the first to post the good reports about exceptional service.

May I suggest that this equipment could be considered "unfit for purpose" and, as such can be returned to the supplier for full credit. I do suggest, however, that you notify the supplier without delay as to your intentions. Yu have to state your intentions within 6 months and, as I understand it (see crock of ****e thread in Q's and A's), the "unfit for purpose" is in the eyes of the user and no-one else.

I wouldn't say that the equipement is unfit for purpose as it's never been registered for one reason or another.

The system was purchased through a distributer, & being a distributer myself i know that part of the package is offering the backup as required. This seem's to be non existant in the fact that rangiegal is dealing directly with blackbox themselves without knowing the procedures.

I say the same to my customers in that they must read the instructions first. If it doesn't work after this then there's another problem.

I personally show my customers how to do it, & afterwards thay admit they never read or understood the instructions fully. But if you're not mechanicaly minded or never touched a diagnostic system before then you could tangle yourself up in the web. It's all one big learning curve & one well worth learning.

Rangiegal,

I will take over from where the other distributer has failed you & my offer will stand until you're ready.

& Mad Hat, how have you got 35,000 posts?

consumer direct

Rick - i think that is a good offer. I find it disapointing that BBS have not put this right. As I stated on in my PMs, it is a lot more difficult to keep a good name than acquire a bad one. The cost to BBS to have ensured that this was registered correctly or, even to have taken it back, would have been negligable in the long term.
I am disapointed that the matter could not have been resolved privately and amicably.
I am therefore forced, against my wishes, to accept that BBS does not take much interest in resolving a petty problem which, because of its public nature, will cost them dearly.

Hello Rangiegal

My change of mind was nothing more or less than the realization that any attempt i might attempt to explain our reasoning or policies was most likely to just solicit further unproductive and time wasting argument between us, which you in fairness your response does validate.

I could respond by quoting what it says in our sales literature about what will be required, the tutorial how to videos and so on, but that would i believe only but elicit further unproductive and time wasting argument.
We have had quite enough of that already.

I write instead hoping that you will at least agree to disagree with me on such matters and agree it is better we move on to a resolution for you ASAP.

For what it is worth, i really am sorry that you have found our procedure obstructive, frustrating and annoying for you and re iterate that my apology regarding confusion over your gender was genuine.

I am of course quite willing to try and work with you to find a suitable way around our normal procedural requirements in your case and would do so her just as much as on our own technical support forum.

My / our main problem is, that the P38 swaps its systems at certain points in its build and in order for me to give you the activation codes for the correct systems (which i am happy to just e-mail you with), i really do need to know which ones your particular P38 has.

Normally a vehicle scan gives us what we need to know, but as you have explained, that's not an easy thing for you to do in your situation so lets rule that out for now and see if we can't figure it out manually.

All P38's have Body control and EAS as standard which did not change over the years, so i can happily issue license codes for those, also given that your P38 is a top of the line 4.6, i can include Hevac as well which is a good start.

However as you may know the year is a problem as 1999 was a year in which most other systems (EMS Auto Box ABS, Cruise control and Airbag were changed as part of the Face lift. Face lift being also white indicators, side airbags in the seats etc etc.

If you could just confirm as to if your P38 is pre or post face lift, i can hopefully figure out the rest from that alone.

Before i sign off, might i also commend your generosity in offering to donate your systems refund value to the Haiti disaster appeal, sadly as i am not your supplier, if you want to go that route, that would really have to be back tracked through the distributor you purchased from.

However if it helps, you should know that i have been an most generous contributor to Great Ormond Street Hospital every year for almost 20 years now and i have already made as generous a donation as i can to the Haiti Disaster appeal already.

BBS - many years ago i was told two things....

1) always make it as easy as possible for customers to purchase and use your product.
2) you can always make things fool proof but never idiot proof.

This, in no way implies that Rangiegal is an idiot. From her signature on her PMs that is obviously not so.

My point being that your registration system really needs a major overhaul. It seems that it is open to errors and misunderstanding.
When i used to write operating procedures, i always asked the receptionist to carry them out as, if she, who had no product knowledge could carry them out, then anyone could!

Hiya MHM

I seem to have been writing my considered response to Rangiegal during your writing your post to Rick.

I can but only apologize if there appears to have been a temporary lack of concern or consideration on my part. I promise that ain't the case and even one unhappy customer is a very very big deal to us. In fact it is such a rarity as to catch me off guard.
In 10 years of supplying thousands of systems, i can still count the number of unhappy or refunded customers we have on one hand. I think and hope everyone here can detect the unusality and discrepancy in this

At present i am temporarily being bombarded daily with questions and inquiries about our new FCR and I am having to share my time as best i can between our own e-mail and the many forums i try to make myself available in, some of which are not even in my native language

I have spent my last 15 years truly and whole heatedly dedicated entirely to providing nothing less than the most outstanding diagnostic equipment to the Land Rover owning community at the best possible price which i try to improve upon with every breath i take.

Sadly in order to do this, the company i own and run has to adopt some procedural handling aspects that despite being fine 99.9 % of the time have clearly not suited everyone and in some rare cases have elicited anger and frustration that manifests itself in varying degrees.

All i can say is that we are doing the very best we / i can to accommodate everyone's particular requirements and in my joining and interacting with the fine members of this board i hope to be able to also provide its members with a valued and much appreciate say in how we change and develop our products to more exactly meet their needs and wishes.

I may after all be the boss of BBS but then every potential customer is also my Boss if i wish to retain my position at all.

I might also take a moment before signing off to thank Rick for his offer to step in, and pick up where others have previously failed. Rick obviously knows me and BBS of old and he really does know that when it comes to the crunch, BBS and me will never let anyone down no matter what.

Having just read your most recent post just before posting mine and knowing you might have pre posted i thought to check.
you are as ever absolutely spot on in the respect that although we have done a lot to try and improve the registration / activation process, especially for single vehicle system purchasers and respectfully we do have to accommodate everything from the computer illiterate right through to know it all's, but clearly we have not yet got the balance sufficiently wide spread enough and there is room for improvement that i will be seeking to attain after this

BBS Guy said:

Hello Rangiegal

My change of mind was nothing more or less than the realization that any attempt i might attempt to explain our reasoning or policies was most likely to just solicit further unproductive and time wasting argument between us, which you in fairness your response does validate.

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Thanks for the response. I happen to disagree entirely with you about "validating" your response - seems that if someone disagrees with you or points out very valid problems with your "service", that they simply become a target of abuse and mockery, and that ham-handed and rather foolish attempts are made to discredit them instead of actually sorting out the problem, which, as MHM has pointed out, would be far more productive and a far far better advert for all your services in the future.

As it stands, your earlier responses remain out there for all to see what awaits them if they dare to question your lack of interest in solving problems with purchases from your Faultmate range.

Hopefully, the whole saga can be ended by your providing the details which may (but are not guaranteed) to make the currently useless, expensive hardware in my possession, actually worth something, albeit not to me at this stage, but once linked to my Rangie, it will be of value to a buyer when I sell it.

BBS Guy said:

I could respond by quoting what it says in our sales literature about what will be required, the tutorial how to videos and so on, but that would i believe only but elicit further unproductive and time wasting argument.
We have had quite enough of that already.

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Quite. I agree with you. I could also respond by saying that the website was difficult to navigate and the videos were not clear, and that nowhere within reasonable view did it state that the Extreme version would only run on a laptop - in fact, I understood from the marketing material that it would run independently of a laptop and this was why it was much more expensive than the Nano version.

BBS Guy said:

I write instead hoping that you will at least agree to disagree with me on such matters and agree it is better we move on to a resolution for you ASAP.

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I do - its regrettable that I had to be attacked though, by daring to make the flawed customer "experience" known, even to the extent of sarcastic and inane remarks being made re my gender - I still don't believe that there are many forum members who would think that Rangiegal is a male forum name....or that a forum name ending in "guy" is far more explanatory about the gender of the poster than one ending in "gal". Fortunately for you, you amended that post extensively, removing much of that material, but not before it had been on public view, including mine, for some time.

BBS Guy said:

I am of course quite willing to try and work with you to find a suitable way around our normal procedural requirements in your case and would do so her just as much as on our own technical support forum.
My / our main problem is, that the P38 swaps its systems at certain points in its build and in order for me to give you the activation codes for the correct systems (which i am happy to just e-mail you with), i really do need to know which ones your particular P38 has.
Normally a vehicle scan gives us what we need to know, but as you have explained, that's not an easy thing for you to do in your situation so lets rule that out for now and see if we can't figure it out manually.

All P38's have Body control and EAS as standard which did not change over the years, so i can happily issue license codes for those, also given that your P38 is a top of the line 4.6, i can include Hevac as well which is a good start.

However as you may know the year is a problem as 1999 was a year in which most other systems (EMS Auto Box ABS, Cruise control and Airbag were changed as part of the Face lift. Face lift being also white indicators, side airbags in the seats etc etc.

If you could just confirm as to if your P38 is pre or post face lift, i can hopefully figure out the rest from that alone.

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My P38 is a 1999 4.6 with the electronic HEVAC as you've stated-that was the main reason I wanted the Faultmate, for the HEVAC problems, ultimately as the Faultmate was useless in its current state, I had to pay for dealer diagnostics and the HEVAC is now repaired. Its a Thor engine rather than Gems, I believe. Re the facelift: I think it isn't, as I changed the orange front and side indicators myself to the white ones shortly after purchase. Can't check the side airbags as I'm nowhere near it at present, but if a facelift has the new indicators, then I'm pretty sure its not, as it had the orange ones.

If there are other details I should check before you send me any codes etc, please let me know and I'll check at the earliest opportunity. If that means waiting a while longer, well the Rangie isn't going anywhere at the moment parked up at home while I'm working hundreds of miles away, and its taken several months of battling with the Faultmate so far, so a bit longer won't make any difference.

BBS Guy said:

Before i sign off, might i also commend your generosity in offering to donate your systems refund value to the Haiti disaster appeal, sadly as i am not your supplier, if you want to go that route, that would really have to be back tracked through the distributor you purchased from.

However if it helps, you should know that i have been an most generous contributor to Great Ormond Street Hospital every year for almost 20 years now and i have already made as generous a donation as i can to the Haiti Disaster appeal already.

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I didn't think that that generosity would be forthcoming following the attitude displayed to me in your forum posts prior to your last one, and I was proved correct. Actually, I think you could have "back tracked" the purchase from the distributor you sold it to, very easily, and others, far less fortunate than ourselves, could have benefitted from this unhappy and miserable experience that buying a Faultmate has been for me so far. You derived a financial benefit from my luckless purchase of the currently useless Faultmate, albeit via a distributor, due entirely to the fact that I was told to deposit cash into your bank account due to my "dodgy" requirement of needing the kit sent to "just any old address" - I have not, nor will I, given the passage of time and change of circumstances since its purchase, now ever derive any benefit from it at all, so I thought that others could. As a professional with my own practice, I too make donations as best as I can to worthy causes, but that isn't the point - you seem to have missed the point entirely.

In any event, I would be glad of drawing the sorry saga to a close, albeit not an entirely satisfactory one in my opinion. Your reluctance to accept or act on feedback in this matter prior to now is very disappointing and I can only describe the customer service I have received prior to finally voicing my experience on the forum, as dire, and an absolute insult to someone spending a considerable amount of money on your product.

A product finally in working / useable order albeit after many months since its purchase, would be welcome, and I look forward to getting the relevant licence codes from you along with details of how they should be entered and set up in the Faultmate Extreme, as I no longer have access to your "support forums" - my details seem to be somehow blocked or not recognised.

I look forward to getting the activation codes needed to get the Faultmate working.

Hiya all
Will get back to you shortly Rangiegal.

But talking of shorts, i just wanted to share a bit of my day with everyone.
As you all probably appreciate, i live here in Cyprus which is, or at least has been, a fair bit warmer that what you poor guys have been suffering with, or perhaps even enjoying in the UK.
I have been wearing shorts till now, but it's started getting a bit chilly over here, just 5 degrees this morning
I started out to work this morning in the Disco 3, turned all the heating up and heated seats etc.
Now the Disco 3 has a Fuel burning heater fitted and we recently added diagnostic coverage for that, which includes a priming routine that fills the thing with way too much Diesel that just stays there till you fire the thing up and burn it off. But that can get a bit smokey so we did not do that in our workshop, and hell we never need it here anyway, or so i thought. However this morning on my way to work the FBH decided to kick in by itself and from the result there must have been a bit too much fuel still in it, causing me to have a definite brown trouser moment.

Here is a you tube vid showing one of our Beta testers demonstrating the effect quite well on his drive, hopefully this gives you a visual idea of what i unexpectedly went through. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Bear in mind that when traveling, the effect was not as bad as when i pulled up to a junction.
YouTube - wiggsdisco's Channel

BBS Guy said:

Hiya all
Will get back to you shortly Rangiegal.

But talking of shorts, i just wanted to share a bit of my day with everyone.
As you all probably appreciate, i live here in Cyprus which is, or at least has been, a fair bit warmer that what you poor guys have been suffering with, or perhaps even enjoying in the UK.
I have been wearing shorts till now, but it's started getting a bit chilly over here, just 5 degrees this morning
I started out to work this morning in the Disco 3, turned all the heating up and heated seats etc.
Now the Disco 3 has a Fuel burning heater fitted and we recently added diagnostic coverage for that, which includes a priming routine that fills the thing with way too much Diesel that just stays there till you fire the thing up and burn it off. But that can get a bit smokey so we did not do that in our workshop, and hell we never need it here anyway, or so i thought. However this morning on my way to work the FBH decided to kick in by itself and from the result there must have been a bit too much fuel still in it, causing me to have a definite brown trouser moment.

Here is a you tube vid showing one of our Beta testers demonstrating the effect quite well on his drive, hopefully this gives you a visual idea of what i unexpectedly went through. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Bear in mind that when traveling, the effect was not as bad as when i pulled up to a junction.
YouTube - wiggsdisco's Channel

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that wouldnt look out of place in Thunderbirds, i was waiting for it to take off lol

It does sound a bit like a mini jet fighter winding up.

Rangiegal

Its a Thor engine rather than Gems, I believe. Re the facelift: I think it isn't, as I changed the orange front and side indicators myself to the white ones shortly after purchase. Can't check the side airbags as I'm nowhere near it at present, but if a facelift has the new indicators, then I'm pretty sure its not, as it had the orange ones.

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If you can just confirm your systems serial number, i can issue the codes for the bits we know about. I will Pm thenm to you if that is Ok.

The Thor engine uses the later Bosch Motronic 5.2.1 EMS ECU as opposed to the earlier one GEMS EMS ECU. However i was always under the impression that the Engine management change occured as part of the face lift.

Maybe i am wrong but for sure all the technology was replaced at the same time as the EMS so if it is Definately Motronic
GEMS vs BOSCH Engines - Discovery I, Series II, Range Rover 4.0 & 4,6 - Tech Tips at RoverParts.com
then it will definately all be the later ECU types. The Other ECU's that changed are the ABS, Airbag, Cruise control and Auto Box

I tell you what you might easily be able to recall seeing that would double confirm, On the outer side of the backrest part of the seats, sort of about at hip level, where the piping is, on the later models they stitch in a little tag with an embroidered picture of the Airbag on it.

Any News Rangiegal

theres a couple of other threads on here since ^^^^^ that yu might want to look at BBSguy.

BBS Guy
I missed your recent posts, sorry about the delay.
When I am back with the P38 this coming weekend (13/14 Feb) I will try to find the info you need - I always thought that THOR engines had the "bunch of bananas" top cover rather than the square slab of the GEMS, also the garage I bought it from years ago said it was the later BOSCH motronic- that being the case, mine is definitely the THOR. Have checked the link you sent and it is def the THOR. Will check the airbags when I am reunited with the car. Also what serial number is it that you want or where would I find it? My P38 was a special edition - 1 of a 100 made - first registered April 1999 AFAIK, will also check when I'm at home this coming weekend in case this is relevant.
Hopefully hear from you soon re the serial number so I can get it this weekend else there will be weeks again before I am back where the car is! Thanks.

Cheers MHM, Still getting used to navigating this board.

Rangiegal, no apology required, I understand you are a professional and probably have a lot better things to do

I just love your "bunch of bananas" description, as that is totally what they look like.
It's just your having not had white lights that's throwing me and i want to be sure. The last thing you want is me activating the wrong software for you and you not getting the system to communicate.

Regards the serial number, it's the one printed on the end of the vehicle server.

Thanks BBS Guy, if there are any other details I can look for please let me know. I'll bring the server back with me to get the serial number sorted. I've got a book at home somewhere giving all the background on all the p38s ever made other than Autobiographies, will hunt it out and see if there is info about the facelift and the upgraded electronics.