Gunter Shingleditch
Member
- Posts
- 21
- Location
- Brighton
Hello Guys,
I think I have solved the problem without spending loads of money for which I am very grateful to all the knowledge on this site. Though I will share my experiences here.
- car was sitting for 6+ months due to mechanical issues and was rarely driven around the block for first 3 months. - had mould in places - it is a 3 door and clearly there was moisture ingress even though all openings were secured
- bought the car and it sat on my drive for 2 weeks waiting to be fixed. I had alarm going off randomly - usually in the night. I unplugged the volumetric sensor in the roof - no change. I also remember that I would leave the car unlocked so the alarm doesnt go off but I could hear it re-lock itself! I have removed the horn fuse so the car was just flashing lights when alarm was going off.
- one time I went out of the house mid day and the rear wiper was on - there was a buzz from the blue socket relay under the OS rear quarter - I didnt know about the relay then so took negative off the battery to stop the wiper.
- car got fixed and I started driving it. I wanted horn so went to LR specialist locally and asked them to program the alarm to be OFF in the CCU - that was £60. That fixed random alarm activations and car was semi-usable. I have learned about the CCU on this forum.
There were still problems with the tailgate area though.
- I would stand there and talk to the neighbour and the car would unlock, drop tailgate glass slightly and 5 seconds later raise glass and re-lock.
- car would think tailgate is open and would stop operating anything on the tailgate - no wiper, no glass, pressing tailgate handle wouldn't cycle the latch, "door ajar" lamp on. I would just drive until locks would cycle and the lamp went off - randomly and everything would work - no re-learn required.
- sometimes the tailgate would fail with all of the above + the blue socket relay buzzing - removing the fuse to the rear wiper would change the pitch of the buzz and stop the wiper (parked randomly which is a problem on its own) but the buzzing was still there. Pulling the relay in and out made no difference, changing relay made no difference. I just left it out until the "door ajar" lamp would go off. Then re-insert relay, run rear wiper so it can park and window and tailgate would work until next time it broke.
- also very important - sometimes when the car would "fail" it would leave the internal lights OFF or ON randomly. If it would fail with lights ON you know what happened to the battery. I have unplugged both interior lights.
- I have noticed that the problems are worse when weather is damp or raining. On a 2 week sunny streak everything would work OK - maybe couldn't open tailgate first thing in the morning but get to work and it would work.
- I have also noticed that MOST of the time the problems above would manifest themselves when switching the car off. Literally the moment the key went to OFF position I would get CDL cycle, rear wiper relay buzz (NOT EVERY TIME THOUGH) "door ajar" lamp on the cluster and window would drop a bit.
- after dis and re-connecting the battery rear glass would drop window EVERY time and I had to re learn the rear glass. Problem was worse if the car still thought tailgate is open ("door ajar" light on dash) I couldnt re-learn and was stuffed with window open.
This is the fixing process:
- one day after disconnecting the battery the car didnt want to put the glass up thinking that the tailgate was open. Was about to rain so I had to take the car to LR specialist locally. They said that they are very busy so they didnt really have time to do anything but they managed to open tailgate, remove al lthe trim for me and made the car waterproof again but they just wanted to replace everything in the tailgate to a tune of £600+vat so I asked for the car back LIKE IT WAS with all the trim removed. They charged me £150 for it. I decided to do it myself.
- visually checked all the wires in the tailgate to the 3 plugs under the rear diver trim. Checked continuity on everything I was pretty sure that the cables were fine. I had the rear handle out, latch out, used battery booster to operate the window up and down to be able to work in the back. I have put a lenght thin picture wire through the eyelet of the door opening actuator and I could just reach in to the exposed tailgate and pull on that wire to unlatch the door and push it open. To close it i would apply voltage to the relevant wires on the orange plug in the rear quarter to drop window, close the tailgate and run the window up to seal it.
- read on here about the two relays under the rear trim. Downloaded RAVE and Freelander Electrical Library PDF from a link on here and tried to understand how the process works. I didn't expect much but went ahead and replaced both relays with used ones from ebay. Nothing changed.
- breakthrough moment for me was when I checked the blue relay base WHILST the relay was buzzing. I have discovered 6.2 volts between the Yellow and White wire and Black wire on the blue relay base. The Yellow and White is the wire that latches the relay for the main power feed to go to the wiper. 6.2 volts wasn't enough to latch the relay but it made the rear wiper motor work but it was just starting and stopping the motor really quickly. That made the CCU very sus so I decided to try under there.
- I have removed the CCU from behind the fuse box and I have discovered green snot on the biggest plug, on the socket and also a little bit inside the CCU itself. I have cleaned it a bit and IT MADE EVERYTHING BETTER. Still the same problems but it had to be really damp or I had to have the aircon blasting on arctic setting (the air duct is right above the CCU and it gets really "cold and condensated" when the aircon was running - you could feel the "ambionce" LOL to get really "wet" under there when aircon was working. Not using aircon was making it much better. Could the CCU be susceptive to that "cold and dingy" atmosphere under there?
- after that I decided to bite the bulled and spent £90 for a CCU where both lines of numbers matched mine exactly - in fact they were only a few weeks apart on the date code. The CCU also came with one fob meaning i had cental locking without having to pay someone to code my fobs in. The alarm is also active in this CCU but it has been 4 days now and everything is great. I can rage aircon, it is raining constantly and it is all good.
So my CCU must have shorted itself out with the green snot or something and it was intermitently failing.
Sorry for the long post but that is how I like to read these - with context and a bit of background as it is easier to compare to what the reader is dealing with.
Happy to answer any questions.
Thanks for all the knowledge here guys.
I think I have solved the problem without spending loads of money for which I am very grateful to all the knowledge on this site. Though I will share my experiences here.
- car was sitting for 6+ months due to mechanical issues and was rarely driven around the block for first 3 months. - had mould in places - it is a 3 door and clearly there was moisture ingress even though all openings were secured
- bought the car and it sat on my drive for 2 weeks waiting to be fixed. I had alarm going off randomly - usually in the night. I unplugged the volumetric sensor in the roof - no change. I also remember that I would leave the car unlocked so the alarm doesnt go off but I could hear it re-lock itself! I have removed the horn fuse so the car was just flashing lights when alarm was going off.
- one time I went out of the house mid day and the rear wiper was on - there was a buzz from the blue socket relay under the OS rear quarter - I didnt know about the relay then so took negative off the battery to stop the wiper.
- car got fixed and I started driving it. I wanted horn so went to LR specialist locally and asked them to program the alarm to be OFF in the CCU - that was £60. That fixed random alarm activations and car was semi-usable. I have learned about the CCU on this forum.
There were still problems with the tailgate area though.
- I would stand there and talk to the neighbour and the car would unlock, drop tailgate glass slightly and 5 seconds later raise glass and re-lock.
- car would think tailgate is open and would stop operating anything on the tailgate - no wiper, no glass, pressing tailgate handle wouldn't cycle the latch, "door ajar" lamp on. I would just drive until locks would cycle and the lamp went off - randomly and everything would work - no re-learn required.
- sometimes the tailgate would fail with all of the above + the blue socket relay buzzing - removing the fuse to the rear wiper would change the pitch of the buzz and stop the wiper (parked randomly which is a problem on its own) but the buzzing was still there. Pulling the relay in and out made no difference, changing relay made no difference. I just left it out until the "door ajar" lamp would go off. Then re-insert relay, run rear wiper so it can park and window and tailgate would work until next time it broke.
- also very important - sometimes when the car would "fail" it would leave the internal lights OFF or ON randomly. If it would fail with lights ON you know what happened to the battery. I have unplugged both interior lights.
- I have noticed that the problems are worse when weather is damp or raining. On a 2 week sunny streak everything would work OK - maybe couldn't open tailgate first thing in the morning but get to work and it would work.
- I have also noticed that MOST of the time the problems above would manifest themselves when switching the car off. Literally the moment the key went to OFF position I would get CDL cycle, rear wiper relay buzz (NOT EVERY TIME THOUGH) "door ajar" lamp on the cluster and window would drop a bit.
- after dis and re-connecting the battery rear glass would drop window EVERY time and I had to re learn the rear glass. Problem was worse if the car still thought tailgate is open ("door ajar" light on dash) I couldnt re-learn and was stuffed with window open.
This is the fixing process:
- one day after disconnecting the battery the car didnt want to put the glass up thinking that the tailgate was open. Was about to rain so I had to take the car to LR specialist locally. They said that they are very busy so they didnt really have time to do anything but they managed to open tailgate, remove al lthe trim for me and made the car waterproof again but they just wanted to replace everything in the tailgate to a tune of £600+vat so I asked for the car back LIKE IT WAS with all the trim removed. They charged me £150 for it. I decided to do it myself.
- visually checked all the wires in the tailgate to the 3 plugs under the rear diver trim. Checked continuity on everything I was pretty sure that the cables were fine. I had the rear handle out, latch out, used battery booster to operate the window up and down to be able to work in the back. I have put a lenght thin picture wire through the eyelet of the door opening actuator and I could just reach in to the exposed tailgate and pull on that wire to unlatch the door and push it open. To close it i would apply voltage to the relevant wires on the orange plug in the rear quarter to drop window, close the tailgate and run the window up to seal it.
- read on here about the two relays under the rear trim. Downloaded RAVE and Freelander Electrical Library PDF from a link on here and tried to understand how the process works. I didn't expect much but went ahead and replaced both relays with used ones from ebay. Nothing changed.
- breakthrough moment for me was when I checked the blue relay base WHILST the relay was buzzing. I have discovered 6.2 volts between the Yellow and White wire and Black wire on the blue relay base. The Yellow and White is the wire that latches the relay for the main power feed to go to the wiper. 6.2 volts wasn't enough to latch the relay but it made the rear wiper motor work but it was just starting and stopping the motor really quickly. That made the CCU very sus so I decided to try under there.
- I have removed the CCU from behind the fuse box and I have discovered green snot on the biggest plug, on the socket and also a little bit inside the CCU itself. I have cleaned it a bit and IT MADE EVERYTHING BETTER. Still the same problems but it had to be really damp or I had to have the aircon blasting on arctic setting (the air duct is right above the CCU and it gets really "cold and condensated" when the aircon was running - you could feel the "ambionce" LOL to get really "wet" under there when aircon was working. Not using aircon was making it much better. Could the CCU be susceptive to that "cold and dingy" atmosphere under there?
- after that I decided to bite the bulled and spent £90 for a CCU where both lines of numbers matched mine exactly - in fact they were only a few weeks apart on the date code. The CCU also came with one fob meaning i had cental locking without having to pay someone to code my fobs in. The alarm is also active in this CCU but it has been 4 days now and everything is great. I can rage aircon, it is raining constantly and it is all good.
So my CCU must have shorted itself out with the green snot or something and it was intermitently failing.
Sorry for the long post but that is how I like to read these - with context and a bit of background as it is easier to compare to what the reader is dealing with.
Happy to answer any questions.
Thanks for all the knowledge here guys.
