About a month ago the engine in my p38 began behaving like it was controlled by a ghost.

Hi everyone!
At the moment I´m living in Reykjavík Iceland and my name is Hjörtur Grjótgarð Sveinsson, but since my name is all most impossible for others then Icelander's to pronounce I use the name Tim, witch was given to me in Bangkok Thailand many years ago.

I am the proud owner of this 1999 Range Rover P38 2,5 BMW diesel


I've bean having a strange problem with my BMW 2,5 diesel engine lately !

I have been in contact with land rover specialist´s. I´ve had The Land Rover workshop here try to read the engine but they couldn't but they could read every thing else. Nobody has any idea what the problem is.

The engine starts every time but when cold it works badly, it often dyes 2 or 3 times when I'm trying to drive it, but it always starts up right away again. Then it sometimes the engine starts running quite fast on it´s own then often turns it self off again. After the engine gets hot it mostly runs ok but from time to time it still hesitates.
Has anyone had similar experience?
Does anyone no what the reason could be for the engine´s strange behaviour?

I´m on my way to take the computer that controlees the engine out and try to find out if there is something wrong with it.

Hello and welcome
best to ask over in the range rover section of the forum
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/forum/range-rover.10/
the p38 is not obd compliant, very few diag will talk to it, sounds more like a pump issue than ecu,
be careful with the ecu you will not see much inside and you could be in a world of pain if you mess it up as you will need specific dedicated diag to sort it out.

Hi and welcome!

brianp38dse said:

Hello and welcome
best to ask over in the range rover section of the forum
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/forum/range-rover.10/
the p38 is not obd compliant, very few diag will talk to it, sounds more like a pump issue than ecu,
be careful with the ecu you will not see much inside and you could be in a world of pain if you mess it up as you will need specific dedicated diag to sort it out.

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Thank you!
I all ready posted a requist in: https://www.landyzone.co.uk/forum/range-rover.10/ . And din´t get any helpful reply´s. It looks like nobody has ever had engine problem with those
symptoms.All most every thing has been tried and I´m told that most likely this is a ecu related problem. So before I have my Range Rover man ripping out the ecu and the main computer from an other car I´m going to take a good look at the ecu in my car to se if it looks faulty. I do have many years of experience in fixing computers, not this kind of computers thogh. So just maby I can se if something is wrong with it.

Best regardes: Tim

kermit_rr said:

Hi and welcome!

Click to expand...

Thanl you!

I'm not a diesel expert, but it doesn't sound like an ecu problem. Be very careful if you decide to take it apart, it's not something you can simply swap from another p38

kermit_rr said:

I'm not a diesel expert, but it doesn't sound like an ecu problem. Be very careful if you decide to take it apart, it's not something you can simply swap from another p38

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I know, it's unfortunately not that simple, but thanks for the tip!

Welcome to the forum

Thank you Senor Hippo!

Welcome.
When it all goes "wobbly" what volts is it on the battery?
How are the main earths?

Battery is fine, allways above 12.6 and earth connections are good

Tim Omega said:

Thank you!
I all ready posted a requist in: https://www.landyzone.co.uk/forum/range-rover.10/ . And din´t get any helpful reply´s. It looks like nobody has ever had engine problem with those
symptoms.All most every thing has been tried and I´m told that most likely this is a ecu related problem. So before I have my Range Rover man ripping out the ecu and the main computer from an other car I´m going to take a good look at the ecu in my car to se if it looks faulty. I do have many years of experience in fixing computers, not this kind of computers thogh. So just maby I can se if something is wrong with it.

Best regardes: Tim

Click to expand...

No sign of a post over in the range rover section, only your post in this section ( the introduce your self section)

Tim Omega said:

Thank you!
I all ready posted a requist in: https://www.landyzone.co.uk/forum/range-rover.10/ . And din´t get any helpful reply´s. It looks like nobody has ever had engine problem with those
symptoms.All most every thing has been tried and I´m told that most likely this is a ecu related problem. So before I have my Range Rover man ripping out the ecu and the main computer from an other car I´m going to take a good look at the ecu in my car to se if it looks faulty. I do have many years of experience in fixing computers, not this kind of computers thogh. So just maby I can se if something is wrong with it.

Best regardes: Tim

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I´m sorry, my mistake!

You were right!

brianp38dse said:

No sign of a post over in the range rover section, only your post in this section ( the introduce your self section)

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