P38A Unable to start P38 Range Rover

Hello all,

I am new to owning a Range Rover and everything was working fine until a couple of days ago. I was driving along and got the "Alternator Fault" message appear on the dash, got it tested and it was pretty much dead. I got it reconditioned but either the garage disconnected the battery or the battery was flat as when I picked it up it was coming up with the window not set messages.

I should mention that since owning the car pressing the unlock button on the fob, the little light would illuminate and then only unlocked the rear 2 doors, both front doors and tailgate would not unlock on the fob. If I then unlocked the drivers door with the key that would open the drivers door and also the tailgate, the passenger front door would only open from inside.

All was still fine with the car until I replaced the battery cover on the key fob. The car was locked, I took off the battery cover, cleaned up the fob a bit which would have taken a couple of minutes, put the batteries back in with the new cover. I then went to go and unlock the car and nothing, the light on the fob does not illuminate at all. I then unlocked the car with the key in the drivers door and attempted to start the car when I got the "Engine disabled press remote or use key code" message, I tried pressing the button on the fob and nothing.

Unfortunately I do not have the EKA code, so I will have to get this tomorrow when I can phone Land Rover but my question is will this only allow me to start the car or will the remote locking work again after this (as well as it ever did, as described above)?

If anybody has any ideas that I can try then please let me know, especially if anybody has any ideas on how to get the whole central locking working correctly then that would be great. From what I have read it sounds to me as if the door motors have gone in the front as when the remote locking actually worked and I unlocked the car I could only hear the motors operating on the rear.

Check your battery (car) first - should be above 12v. The battery would have been disconnected as per any procedure with electrical components (the alt)

Your rf receiver isn't getting the signal from your fob - check you have a good battery (in the key - as it sounds like is isn't), make sure your key is working (i.e. it lights up on press), or use your spare. Check Fuse 15.

BECM lockout - ring up a dealer and get your EKA code - enter as per procedure in manual

I didn't actually check the voltage on the car battery so I will do that tomorrow, I did check the fob batteries and both were reading at just over 3v so I believe they are ok. When pressing the buttons on the fob I get no lights whatsoever on the fob now, this did however work fine before I changed the battery cover.

Sounds like you haven't fitted it correctly/upset the key. If the RF doesn't read the key (as its dead - not sending out any signal), you won't be able to start the car.

tgordine said:

I didn't actually check the voltage on the car battery so I will do that tomorrow, I did check the fob batteries and both were reading at just over 3v so I believe they are ok. When pressing the buttons on the fob I get no lights whatsoever on the fob now, this did however work fine before I changed the battery cover.

Click to expand...

Check that the batteries are in the correct way round. Check you haven't lost the contact from the edge of the battery holder that sends positive to fob board.

I don't recall seeing the metal strip on the new battery cover. Think I will have to try and remove it from the old one and see how I get on from there. I guess now that would explain why I don't get any lights on the fob when pressing any of the buttons as without it there wouldn't be a complete circuit from the PCB to the battery.

tgordine said:

I don't recall seeing the metal strip on the new battery cover. Think I will have to try and remove it from the old one and see how I get on from there. I guess now that would explain why I don't get any lights on the fob when pressing any of the buttons as without it there wouldn't be a complete circuit from the PCB to the battery.

Click to expand...

On the three eBay chinky replacement fob covers i have bought. Non have had the battery cover contact supplied. You have to take it from the old fob or make one if it is damaged or lost. If you have "Engine disabled" message on dash and the fob is not synced. You cannot resync the fob until the correct EKA code has been entered.

Yeah unfortunately the one I got was some cheap thing and it didn't have the metal strip, I will swap it over tonight and see if I can at least get the LEDs working on the fob again. I have emailed my local LR dealer to see if I can get my EKA code and then hopefully from there I can get everything working again.

Well the Range Rovernow works again, as well as it did anyway. All it was in the end was me being stupid and not transferring over the metal clip on the batterycover. swapped it over to the new cover and I can now unlock the car (the rear doors anyway) then unlock the drivers door manually and now the car starts fine. no need for any codes or resync which is good as it is currently chucking it down and I didn't really fancy doing that in the rain.

tgordine said:

Well the Range Rovernow works again, as well as it did anyway. All it was in the end was me being stupid and not transferring over the metal clip on the batterycover. swapped it over to the new cover and I can now unlock the car (the rear doors anyway) then unlock the drivers door manually and now the car starts fine. no need for any codes or resync which is good as it is currently chucking it down and I didn't really fancy doing that in the rain.

Click to expand...

You may have a problem with the door outstations. Maybe the white plug corroded behind the trim panel at base of passenger A post. Look at wiring diagrams in RAVE for circuits. Or get someone with a Nanocom to run diag on it.

I think this is the same issue (possibly same P38) that was posted on RR.net and I replied to there. Sounds like the door latch motors have burnt out - I think the OP PM'd me on RR.net about replacement latches - but I am still waiting on some others to come back to me for rebuilding before I could help him out on that side of things.

A good way of telling if there are outstation problems are seeing if the window/mirrors work - if they do, then chances are it isn't the outstation, as all the control for locks/mirrors/window comes from the BECM on the serial link. If that fails, then none of the above will work. If it's just a latch, then chances are it's the motor has burnt out previously from RF problems, as I've heard that they can cause the BECM to keep triggering the front door locks which burns them out.

Also the kick panel connectors don't have any of the wiring for the outstations going through them. However, a bit further up (and pretty much inaccessible from the inside) are the connectors from the body through to the door. If you pull the rubber cable gland away from the body (rather than the door end) you can just thread the connectors back out through the hole in the bodywork, and check them. They are also prone to getting wet/corroded and I have found a couple of times that if the serial link has failed between BECM and outstation, then it is in these connectors.

hope this helps anyone else with door communication problems in the future.

Marty