Disco 2 Hard to get started

Hello,

Fairly new to the LR game -- but loving my Disco 2 (Basic 2000-year model) TD5, which I picked up about a month ago. It runs great, once it gets going. As the weather has been turning nippier in the past 3 days, it is getting harder to get it cranking though. Not sure if there is a correlation. It is not cold enough to warrant the diesel to need heating up.

At this point, if I let the vehicle sit in ACC/II key mode for 2-3-5 minutes every time I am to start it up, it works just fine. While it is sitting in ACC/II mode, the battery and oil light will be solidly lit up; as it should.

If I don't give it a few minutes after trying to get it started in ACC/II mode it does not seem to start at all.

At first I thought it was the battery, but I checked and not only is the battery fairly fresh (manufactured in August 2018) it seems to charge and discharge just fine.

Otherwise the vehicle works great, except for that I have had to put a bit of coolant in every week, left speaker is busted, and it makes me feel like I am lording over all the peasants on the road in their BMW sedans.

EDIT 1: Amendment - the need to let the system sit for 2-5 minutes in mode II/ACC remains even if the vehicle have been driven for an hour or two, and then turned off for 5-10 minutes. IE even if the vehicle / engine is warm.

Madman2Swords said:

I don't know about td5 as I have Disco 1 300 tdi but my Disco has glow plugs with a dashboard light, if you have glow plugs
perhaps your dashboard light isn't working.

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Aye - I have the coils. They light up during the testing start phase — but do not appear necessary at this weather just yet. We've been around +3C (37F) for most of the week.

The Td5 has glow plugs in four of the five cylinders which are controlled by the engine ECU, via a relay. Unlike the 300tdi engine, the Td5 system measures the temperature of the coolant and powers the glowplugs for a suitable period; the colder it is, the longer the glow plugs are powered. The indication on the dashboard only shows that the ECU has triggered the glow plug circuit, not that power is actually applied to them.
The Td5 engine is also a bit critical about the battery voltage when the engine is cranking. If the battery volts drops below about 10.5 volts while it's cranking then the ECU won't trigger the injectors and the engine won't go.

Winter is pretty hard going on your battery so it might be a good idea to get that checked out before you go any further. If, as you say the battery is fairly new then maybe you should start looking at the earths between the engine block and the battery negative terminal.

Hi. First of all replace the air bleed valve in the rear outer port of the fuel filter head (WJN500110) then with ignition on II push down the throttle 5 times consecutively, the MIL will start to flash, wait untill it stops then crank it... the fact that it starts after it stays with ignition on II few minutes means it needs to purge some air out from the rail to presurise the system and this can be due to that valve or in the worst case from leaking injector copper washers so if the valve doesnt help replace the injector washers and o-rings. Also check the ECU red plug to not have oil in it and if it has replace the injector loom too while the rocker cover is off

Worth pointing out is this then, I should have done that in the original post (I will amend original post); the need to let the system sit for 2-5 minutes in mode II/ACC remains even if the vehicle have been driven for an hour or two, and then turned off for 5-10 minutes. IE even if the vehicle / engine is warm.

The valve and copper washers are still suspects even then but the washers are gaining some advantage now

On another forum, they suggested that it could be a fuel pump/pressure problem. Does the fuel pump run when the key is in the ACC/II position? ("Does the fuel pump run with the key in that position? If so, I would be looking at low fuel pressure. Running it for a couple of minutes might be allowing the pressure to build to an acceptable level." —mollusc; (I believe in giving full credit))

sierrafery said:

The valve and copper washers are still suspects even then but the washers are gaining some advantage now

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Alright, but would something like that happen so quickly? I had no problems whatsoever for a month, and then suddenly in the past 48 hours it became a constant.

I can't answer to that, if it happens it happens those things should be ruled out

sierrafery said:

I can't answer to that, if it happens it happens those things should be ruled out

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A fair and reasonable viewpoint and approach if I ever heard one. I will definitely look into it.

In the 9 years and 60,000 miles I've had my D2 it's never needed the glowplugs even when the Beast from the East was around. Just get in, turn the key and it springs into life.......

I'm probably doing it all sorts of damage and probably if I was in Dracula country it may be different....

Since a few days, the problem has not reappeared. Probably some connector that is wonky — if it works 90+% of the time, it will probably be beyond my abilities to figure out what is wrong.