Alan TD5

New Member
Hi everyone, newbie posting here, bit of a story/rant about my new Disco 2 I bought a few weeks back in the hope anyone else looking for a second hand Disco wont make the same mistake I have.

I had wanted a Land Rover for a long time, but had spent the last few years playing with kit cars. I sold the kit car in the spring and the daily drive, a knackered old Mondeo was coming to the end of its life. So that went too and I persuaded SWIMBO that a Landy would be a good idea, especially having been stuck without use of the car for 2 weeks following the snow last winter. The disco seemed a good compromise for us as an everyday car that I could get my hands dirty with and start to get into some laning and pay'n'play days.

I looked at 11 Discos before finally settling on the one I bought, I read all the guides on here and around the internet, and thought I had took all the information in. I got a 2002 Facelift GS Td5 in Epsom Green, chassis in good nick, body tidy, sunroofs and rear door seal fine, drove fine, no warning lights on, service history etc. Bought it from a dealer about 90 miles away from where I live, and all has been well. Needs a few bits and bobs doing but I wanted something to keep my busy, I would get bored otherwise!

Anyway, had it about 6 weeks now, no problems with it, or so I thought. I was browsing the owners manual, (sad, I know :eek:) and read the bit about how the traction control light should come on when the key is turned in the ignition, then go out after a couple of seconds. I couldn't remember mine doing that, so I went out to the disco and tried it, no TC control light. Following this through, no ABS light or amber HDC light either when the ignition is switched on, all other lights fine. So no I'm thinking hmmmm, I wonder if I have the 3 Amigos and some sneaky ******* has disabled the lights somehow. I checked the HDC, no light of course but 3 bongs to indicate it wasn't working. I have not had chance to see if my ABS or TC are working either, I need to find a gravel car park or something to give them a try.

I had a search on here and couldn't find anything about the 3 amigos not coming on, even though I thought they should be, so set about trying to find out what was going on. I have checked every fuse in both fuse boxes, all were ok. My next thought was maybe someone has taken the bulbs out that are the warning lights for the TC ABS and HDC, but reading RAVE said they were LED's and therefore I thought they would be soldered to the circuit board of the instrument cluster and not replaceable. I decided to take the cluster out anyway. I took the plastic piece of the front and carefully lifted the black back piece up, the piece that has the dials painted on it.

I looked into the hole for one of the other warning lights and sure enough at the bottom of the hole was a little surface mounted LED. Next I looked into the hole for the TC light and found it stuffed full of silver foil to block the light! the ABS and HDC holes were the same! :censored:

Long story short, put it all back together, turned the ignition and the 3 amigos were looking right back at me. At least I know I have the problem now. (Along with corroded wheel nuts that are proving a pain to get off, but that is another story)

If you are a newb buying a Disco like me, make sure you check the warning lights all behave as they should when the vehicle is started!

Sorry if that has been a bit of a long rant, but I have been reading a lot of this site for info since I decided to buy a Landy, and while I'm sure it wont affect most of you, I thought it was worth sharing.

Right, I'm going to decided what to say to the dealer I got it from before I phone them and loose it. But does anyone know anyone in the Sheffield area with a code reader so I can set about looking at solving my 3 amigos. I have searched and read about all the things that can cause them, but I'm hoping a code stored would point me in the right direction of what to look at first. Of course I am going to try and get the dealer to sort it, but even of they do I don't have any confidence they would do it right so a quick diagnostic is probably a good idea anyway.
 
Hello and :welcome2: what a sh**er , if you drive along quite slowly with 2 wheels on mud/grass and the other 2 on tarmac and then stop quite fast you will find out if your ABS works, it wont, cant you then tell the dealer about this and state that you bought an unroadworthy/dangerous vehicle and that if he doesnt sort it free of charge you will report him, when was its last MOT? why didnt the MOT man not pick up on it?
 
Last edited:
Hi and welcome , Shame and name the dealer he had to know about that ,
I had the 3 amigos on a 51 plate disco adventure,r wait for it, with only 50k on the clock , turned out to be the hub assemblly and its not cheap cost me £400 fitted,
When we looked at the hub after removing it there seemed to be a lot of wet rusty residue coming out ,it had water ingress at some point
Also if you only do one side it aint long before the other side go"s
Make the dealer do both sides and dont take no for an answer , sale of goods act and all that
Hope you get it sorted ,oh by the way the RAC warranty i had told me to **** off as its a wear and tear item
Phil.
 
It's be well worth talking to your local Trading Standards people. A dealer should know that the lights come on as a check and even if it wasn't them that blanked them off they're guilty of selling you an unroadworthy vehicle.
 
Welcome... I knew someone that did that ...painted the warning lights black so they wouldn't show up...very naughty and not nice...
 
I had the same thing happen to me a while back never noticed for a while, black tape stuffed in the holes, I was selling it to but decided to sell it as faulty with the lights all showing so I wasn't hidding anything from the new owner.
 
I had the 3 amigos on a 51 plate disco adventure,r wait for it, with only 50k on the clock , turned out to be the hub assemblly and its not cheap cost me £400 fitted,
Also if you only do one side it aint long before the other side go"s

Really - had the N/S/F done 3 years ago and the O/S/F still seems fine, think the nearside takes more of a pounding with drains and potholes etc.
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, quick update on progress:

Finally contacted the dealer, amazingly he denies all knowledge of it! It could be true, but as one who reckons to sell a lot of Land Rovers as Daftlad and Iansoady said, I doubt it. I pointed out to him that as he was the one that sold it to me, the responsiblity lies with him. So he has asked my to take it to a garage/dealers and get it plugged in to the computer so that the codes can be read and an idea of what the repair is going to be can be made. Should have this done by the end of next week with any luck.

Sierrafery: Thanks for the link, I'm going to see if I can find soneone local to plug it and get the codes for me as well. As I said I would like an idea of what is wrong with it myself and I don't trust the dealer.

Not sure on naming and shaming them yet, I'm going to wait and see how it plays out first.

Mrnice: I have done a few tests to try and see what is or is not working on it at present. HDC is definately not working. Some sharp braking has revealed that the ABS is definately not working. I'm not sure about the TC, I have parked with 2 wheels on a wet grass verge and floored it (As much as you can in a Disco :) ) And no wheel spin at all, or any TC as far as I can tell, the thing just goes! I had no Idea how much traction these things have!

I have done the test where you start it with your foot hard on the brake and I can feel it judder where the system self-tests, so hopefully the modulator is ok. I have also checked my side and brake lights as I read somehwere that they can also be affected with the 3 amigos but they are working fine too.

Ah well, its getting a new rear hub assembly next week thanks to the corroded wheel nuts, maybe if I'm lucky that sensor will be the cause of the amigos and it will fix that problem too! (Yeah right!)

Thanks again for the suggestions.
 
Really - had the N/S/F done 3 years ago and the O/S/F still seems fine, think the nearside takes more of a pounding with drains and potholes etc.
Count youself lucky then mate cos less than 3000k later the OFS began to rumble so i did this one myself , i would have done the first one but as i thought i had a good warranty it had to be stripped for diagnosis at a dealer , then they didnt want to know, so thats both front hubs gone at less than 60 k:confused:
 

Similar threads