P38A Spurious Failure Warnings

ffs, im sorry to hear your misfortunes fella, your going to have agree with the becm repairers a time limit before they have to replace your becm with a fully functioning and guaranteed unit at their expense. Fücking idiots!! (sorry). :-(

So, the BeCM has been "fully tested" (>£200) and a week has been spent by an auto-electrician trying to determine the cause of the resets. Last Thursday it was NOT failing and he thought he had fixed it. Today it is failing again and resetting regularly on idle. On a car worth <£1500 it is entering "scrap-it" territory rapidly. SWMBO is not happy that good money is going after bad and if a bona-fide Auto-sparky can't fix it then I am unlikely to be able to either. Not good.

Sorry buddy,

Sounds like you've been ripped off over your becm.
I only know one person who charges to test a becm, & he can't test them, only diagnostically access the data.

You should of sent it to me, but then, this chap who declares to repair Becm's has ripped many people off in the past.

I bet the guys name starts with a T & has automotive at the end.

Sympathy. Check my earnest plea for help on here after a fusebox meltdown. It took out the alternator, engine ecu, lambdas and maf. Luckily my becm and others survived. The airbag warning came up as well. Just changing the fuse box got the ball rolling but without a diagnostic kit of some description you'll have a complete laugh. I had some some helpful responses to my fusebox problem if you have a look at the thread. I was in the south of Spain at timejust to compound the suffering. Regards. Peter.

Reading the previous posts here,

Someone mentioned Lynton Washer from all car electrics.

This is another wally who used to frequent my workshop, He owes me money, then disappeared & started advertising his becm repairs.

I can't warn you chaps enough. These chaps DO NOT know what they're doing & you're tossing a coin as to whether you're wasting your money.

Rick-the-Pick said:

Sorry buddy,

Sounds like you've been ripped off over your becm.
I only know one person who charges to test a becm, & he can't test them, only diagnostically access the data.

You should of sent it to me, but then, this chap who declares to repair Becm's has ripped many people off in the past.

I bet the guys name starts with a T & has automotive at the end.

Click to expand...

Ouch! It was indeed an outfit that is "T" and Automotive. Their claim is to have a fully specced P38 for comprehensive load testing!!!
I knew no better.
I went there because it purported to be their business and offered a rapid turnaround.
Rick, if you are able to diagnose and fix my BeCM (if its duff but fixable) what's the cost and turnaround time mate?
Happy to do business if you can help.

Dan,

Send it down to us & we will fully test it properly for you. This won't cost you anything other than postage. Our details are here, www.callrova.com
If we find anything sinister, we can repair this for you, & I'll contact you as & when if this is required. We don't charge for testing. If there's no faults within, you just pay the return postage.

With these other wally's, & I mean wally's, & as I said earlier they used to visit my workshop & watch me do their becm's on quite a few occasions, & we are good & made it look quite easy, with no nonsense, no messing around, we were straight in there, straight to the problem, & fixed it. I used to let them borrow my mobile diagnostic system. So when I say I know these chaps. I really know them & know what they're capable of. Then they disappeared & started advertising themselves after purchasing basic equipement.

I still get complaints about them to this very day. The minute I'm told " We sent our becm off to this chap or company" I know what's happened already & they never get their money back.

If we charged for testing we would make a small fortune with no comeback whatsoever. In fact we would make all our money this way & would never need to repair. The Main Dealers, & I have a list of them, send these modules down to us before they do anything, if just to rule the Becm out, as postage is cheaper than two or three hours a tech would charge. So can you see what I'm saying. Half our time is spent testing & we test a lot of Body control modules from P38's, Discovery 2's etc. TD5's Diesels ecu's etc etc. We also spend an hour or two per day advising on our helpline to establish if the Becm or BCU or ecu is at fault before it's removed from the car.
Our experiance also allow's us to reverse engineer the fault, so we can point the owner or tech in the direction of the primary issue on the vehicle.

The biggest problem keeping these vehicles on the road is receiving correct advice, & that's how these forums play their part. It's just to easy to keep sending parts away, to receive a large bill, & the vehicle is still the same as before. In my eye's this is a blatant rip off. These vehicles are quite easy & cheap to maintain if you get the correct advice at the correct time. If you get it wrong, your vehicle could possibly end up getting scrapped because of the cost.

If there's anyone I hate is a man who thinks it's ok to rip off another man. That's my rant for the day.

Hi Rick-The-Pick,

Will do mate. I have asked the guy that has the car stuck in his yard to take the BeCM out and send it to you at your Sillwood hall address.
He is my local AutoSparky and is a really nice guy (won't charge me for his time because there has been no fix yet).
If he calls up his name is Jamie.
The Car reg is T973 GDP its a 99MY Bosch Motronic 4.6HSE.
Most recent history is as per this thread, but before these shenanigans she has been draining the battery if left for too long. Not the RF receiver as its the newer model; and to be sure, I pulled the aerial lead off too.
Used to be lovely but since the first totally flat battery issue has fallen off a cliff in MPG on petrol and now the LPG refuses to run at all. Probably needs the ECU fixing too! Just my luck.

Very grateful for your instant response, I hope my man can get the BeCM to you ASAP.

Many, Many thanks.

Dan.

Dan, get him to box up the engine ecu as well. I'll go through that for you & we'll see what's going on.

I've told a few people now to not use a place starting with 'T' aswell.. or 'A'...

Whilst I don't offer BECM repairing, only really lockout resets (Rick/Callrova is who i recommend to everyone for that aswell)... I have had some people send BECM's to me for testing (I've built myself a bench tester, and have a GEMs and a Thor P38 which I can use for in-vehicle testing), I also never charge (other than return postage) for my testing time.

Anyway, that side of things aside...

Did you get a chance to check the wiring from the ignition back to the BECM connectors?
I had an issue on my first P38, over 10 years ago now where I finally traced it to one of the main feeds from the fuse box to the BECM having been trapped by a previous owner/garage when they'd replaced the fuse box. over time it had rubbed the insulation through and caused shorting out to the BECM, and had similar symptoms to what you describe. Unfortunately for me it had damaged the BECM internally, and at that stage, being in NZ with nobody there who did repairs, I had to replace it with a second hand one (still a lot of money back then!)

If it appears that it has had liquid in there before, then I'm sure Rick will have it sorted and back to you in no time!

Hi MartyUK,

Both the BeCM and EMS are on their way to Rick for attention.
The wiring has been gone though and there is evidence of water having got in there at some point with evidence of corrosion in many places.
It did begin to behave late last week but then kicked off again this week, so I having been bum-burgled by "T" "A" for a lot of money (>£180).....I am pleased to get a proper look done by Rick and any repairs as required.
I feel "robbed" but little I can do about it. I will just be happy & grateful to get my car back and working ok again.

Yeah, Liquid can be a problem, unless it's lucozade sport as this can make your range rover go faster.

To tell you the truth, the fact that you mentioned that it has been to them rings my alarms.
I just do not know what I'm going to find. It always surprises me, & then I see the problem staring me in the face.
Unfortunately, it has cost you. As Marty say's, We can't work out what's the problem until we test it. To charge for this, & to tell you nothing is wrong is just a blatant rip off. Half my week is spent testing ecu's.

Hopefully, my BeCM and ECU are both in the hands of RickThePick today, if not, they will be in the early part of next week.
My fingers are crossed for a good result and that both units are fixable/OK.

I will let you all know in due course. Thank goodness for Landyzone.

News has reached me via my Auto-sparky that RickThePick immediately found obvious and blatant problems with the BeCM (blown resistors & diodes like you get with an overvolt/over-current) and has fixed these.
No news on the ECU/EMS yet, but I am hopeful that this too will be fettled. If this fixes her I shall be a happy man. Especially if I can get back to running on LPG at some point.

Marty is a wonderful asset here from what I have seen.
I just wish he preferred the younger models

I got into a lot of trouble for preferring a younger model. He is a wise man.

DanClarke said:

I got into a lot of trouble for preferring a younger model. He is a wise man.

Click to expand...

The key is to keep them unaware of each other's existence.

Just to say that I sent my BECM to Rick, my old one was knackered but I have been sent a rebuilt one and all is good with the world. I cannot say thank you enough to him for sorting it out for me. One very top class chap doing us a great service, will be the only place I will ever recommend (well, and Marty )

Excellent news, glad to hear you got it fixed!
We'll have a beer next time I'm down if you fancy it!