Sport Air suspension/HDC fault

Firstly I'm an idiot. Secondly, I could do with some advice, please.

Yesterday I picked up a late 2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8. Advertised as no lights, 11 month MOT with no advisories.

When I arrived owner had her friend who is a mechanic looking at it as it had been stood for a while with the battery disconnected. Advised that the air suspension light had come on. Apparently, it hadn't been on when it was parked up after its MOT, a new compressor had been fitted back end of last year and they believed everything was fine. It still happily going up and down if you press the buttons. Mechanics advise was drive it a bit and it'll probably clear. Having had nothing but problems with the air suspension on my old Vogue I should have said thanks and left but I decided in my infinite wisdom that it would be fine.

Driving back there was a pull to the right with the feeling like ABS kicked in and a dip in power. Only lasted a second or two then the HDC warning came up. After that the car drove fine and when I returned home I stuck it on the drive to deal with when the light was up.

This morning I turned it on and had the following warning straight away "SUSPENSION FAULT VEHICLE LEAN WHEN CORNERING". Still going up and down on command.

Took it for a run and after a couple of minutes had "HDC FAULT SYSTEM NOT AVAILABLE" then the ABS feeling and a reduction in power before "SUSPENSION LOWERED", "SPECIAL PROGRAMS NOT AVAILABLE". After that it drives perfectly fine.

Ran my iCarsoft on it and had the following:

C1B00 steering angle sensor
C1B03 directional control valve 1 (all valves reading 0a)

ABS comes back clear

I've also noticed that when the wheels are pointing straight ahead the 4x4 screen shows them facing slightly off to the right.

I've read a number of posts saying the battery can throw up faults. When the car is running the iCarsoft has it at 14.8v. I've also checked the rear break lights that are fine.

Before I go down the rabbit hole of trying to find a garage has anyone had similar, or any ideas?

Thanks

On some cars you have to reset the steering angle sensor for things to work after a battery disconnect? Has this been done?
Turn wheel lock to lock with engine running, i believe

kermit_rr said:

On some cars you have to reset the steering angle sensor for things to work after a battery disconnect? Has this been done?
Turn wheel lock to lock with engine running, i believe

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Thanks, yeah I did try that. Used to work on my own one but nothing this time.

On that year L322 the steering angle sensor requires resetting via diagnostics - most generic tools can do it, it's quite common for this to need doing if the vehicle has had the battery disconnected for some time.

Graculus said:

On that year L322 the steering angle sensor requires resetting via diagnostics - most generic tools can do it, it's quite common for this to need doing if the vehicle has had the battery disconnected for some time.

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Thanks for this. So I recalibrated it and the wheels on the 4x4 screen now face the same way as the actual wheels. Steering wheel is out of alignment though.

For clarity, OP has L320

Lackingsense said:

Thanks for this. So I recalibrated it and the wheels on the 4x4 screen now face the same way as the actual wheels. Steering wheel is out of alignment though.

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Post test drive and the same errors all occurred. Interestingly the ABS feel on the right (where it was originally was gone) there was just a lack of power as the HDC warning occurred. The warning light was flashing like it was struggling to make its mind up.

1988smithy said:

For clarity, OP has L320

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Apologies, should have been clearer.

Lackingsense said:

Post test drive and the same errors all occurred. Interestingly the ABS feel on the right (where it was originally was gone) there was just a lack of power as the HDC warning occurred. The warning light was flashing like it was struggling to make its mind up.

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That's classic traction control (DSC) behaviour, back off the power, apply ABS to 'spinning' wheel (i.e. wheel it sees going faster than it should for steering angle etc.) and flash warning light to inform driver.
L322 & L320 have the same system for this MY - have you checked tyre pressures are OK? have all the wheels got similar tread depths?
If the steering wheel is out of alignment, I'd get the front toe angle adjusted, then reset the steering angle again.
If you press & hold the DSC button for a couple of seconds, that should lessen, but not completely turn off the traction control. If the ABS activity lessens, then there is no real 'fault', just incorrect signal inputs.

Also, the C1B03 DTC indicates you have Active Roll Control, which is the cause of the SUSPENSION FAULT VEHICLE LEAN WHEN CORNERING message, this too can be caused by the steering angle sensor output being incorrect as it uses that to check the plausibility of the lateral acceleration rate sensors.

That's interesting so it looks like this could all be related (as most things are). I imagine the next step is going to see someone with the right stuff to sort the steering angle. I imagine I'd save myself a lot of hassle with a specialist?

Graculus said:

That's classic traction control (DSC) behaviour, back off the power, apply ABS to 'spinning' wheel (i.e. wheel it sees going faster than it should for steering angle etc.) and flash warning light to inform driver.
L322 & L320 have the same system for this MY - have you checked tyre pressures are OK? have all the wheels got similar tread depths?
If the steering wheel is out of alignment, I'd get the front toe angle adjusted, then reset the steering angle again.
If you press & hold the DSC button for a couple of seconds, that should lessen, but not completely turn off the traction control. If the ABS activity lessens, then there is no real 'fault', just incorrect signal inputs.

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I've not checked the tyres but will first thing when I can have a proper look. Thank you.

Lackingsense said:

That's interesting so it looks like this could all be related (as most things are). I imagine the next step is going to see someone with the right stuff to sort the steering angle. I imagine I'd save myself a lot of hassle with a specialist?

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Not necessarily - pretty much any workshop should be able to check the basic geometry (don't worry too much about 'tight tolerance mode' for the air suspension at this point) What you're aiming for is the car to drive straight and without pulling to one side or the other and the steering wheel to me level, once you have that, you can reset the steering angle sensor - even 5 Degrees off can trigger DSC activity. That should be an end to it, or at least give you a 'known good' baseline to continue diagnostics from, it's not unknown, although quite rare, for a steering angle sensor to 'slip' on the steering column, the steering wheel angle being off does point to a fundamental alignment issue though.

Graculus said:

Not necessarily - pretty much any workshop should be able to check the basic geometry (don't worry too much about 'tight tolerance mode' for the air suspension at this point) What you're aiming for is the car to drive straight and without pulling to one side or the other and the steering wheel to me level, once you have that, you can reset the steering angle sensor - even 5 Degrees off can trigger DSC activity. That should be an end to it, or at least give you a 'known good' baseline to continue diagnostics from, it's not unknown, although quite rare, for a steering angle sensor to 'slip' on the steering column, the steering wheel angle being off does point to a fundamental alignment issue though.

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I'd just posted looking for a specialist. I'll have a look and see what I can find. Thank you. Really appreciate the help. I'll also post with results.

Evening, just to close this down and confirm the solution for anyone in the future.

Took it to a number of garages today before I finally found one with a working machine. Had the wheels realigned and when they took it out for a test drive the error happened again.

They ran a code check on it and pretty much everything came up. Ran the SAS when I left and the wheels on the 4x4 display returned to centre.

With the steering wheel, wheels and 4x4 display all facing straight on the car was fine. Only managed 5 or so miles but all lights remained off and no strange breaking. Considering I had the suspension fault as soon as I turned it on and the HDC fault shortly after driving I think that is a result.

I'll post back should that change after a longer test drive tomorrow but I'm pretty confident is good for now. Hopefully this helps someone else and thanks to those who helped me.