Help please

New fault with my fu****g range rover. It is a 2.5dt. The battery went dead flat last week after no use for a week or two. Took the battery off last weekend and put on charge, refitted it tonight and now the dash lights come on straight away with nothing turned on, central locking doesnt work, when you turn on the ignition the only thing that lights up on the dash is the srs warning light. There are no warnig from the message centre. The abs pump wirrs away as usual. The headlights, windscreen wipers and horn work. The hevac unit buttons work but doesnt display anything. Somebody please help as I am at about the end of my teather and am about to take a large lump hammer to the bloody thing.
Luke

Go back and check battery connections are tight and secure.

Check all fuses and check all main grounding points.

The only thing lighting up, the SRS light?? Thats a bit strange, the only time Ive ever personally seen that is when I have my Rovacom system hooked upto the vehicle and its in diagnostic mode with the ignition off or in position 1 but the message centre displays DIAGNOSTIC MODE so I dont think its something wrong with the BeCM, certainly not yet anyway.

I think its something more simple though, as said, go and double check battery connections and all fuses, both in the BeCM and in the engine fusebox and then come back and tell us what you find. Remember to check all maxi-fuses as well.

Where has it been sitting btw?? In a garage or outside in the wet/damp?? Check for any signs of water ingress etc.

-Wills

Also check that your battery did charge? it could be faulty or your charger could be faulty. Electronics do strange things with faulty batteries.

Update
Have checked all connections all ok. The three feeds to the becm are all ok. All fuses ok. The srs light goes out after a few seconds as it would normally do after turning on the ignition. The abs pump works for a few seconds as usual. The hevac buttons light up when pressed but no display on the screen. I changed the battery and now the dash lights do not come on when it is recconected. Earths to becm are ok. Becm clicks when ignition turned on. When I turn the key to the start position there is a relay that clicks in the engine bay fuse box. It just doesnt make sense to me. The vehicle was fine before the battery went totally flat. Thought I had finished the damn thing and was going to book it in for mot today. Any body want to buy a cheap non running p38 ????

Can you find any help here ?

Range Rover P38/4.0/4.6 Common Problems and Fixes

cant find anything obviouse there. thanks anyway. Does any body know if it is pluged into rovacom or simalar would it show up any faults with there being no dash display ? And on that note is there anyone in the north cornwall area willing to help me out. I am more than willing to pay for your time

p38owner said:

cant find anything obviouse there. thanks anyway. Does any body know if it is pluged into rovacom or simalar would it show up any faults with there being no dash display ? And on that note is there anyone in the north cornwall area willing to help me out. I am more than willing to pay for your time

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Ive been sitting and thinking about your problem and if I was closer I would come and help but thats not going to help as it stands.

Im trying to find a thread which was very similar to this which eventually turned out to be a damaged fuse box. It had been corroding over time and eventually gave out giving symptoms like you describe but I cant find the posting so dont feel I should say go and replace the fusebox under the bonnet.

Have you checked all relays for signs of burning or smells or burnt electronics??

-Wills

Still no further forward. Have had fuse box out and checked and cleaned all terminals on the multi plugs underneath. Two or three coroded pins but nothing out of the way. All relays seem ok. Have swapped them all around. Have pulled and pushed all plugs on the becm. Have tried different batterys, the only strange thing that happens is sometimes when i swap batterys the dash lights dont come on !! Dont think there is anything else I can do so it is onto the trailor tomorrow morning and up the road to an independant garage. Not holding a lot of hope out that he will be able to find anything but dont know what else to do. Will let you all know how I get on and if anybody has any sudden brainwaves between now and tomorrow please let me know. Thanks for all your help so far.
Luke

p38owner said:

Still no further forward. Have had fuse box out and checked and cleaned all terminals on the multi plugs underneath. Two or three coroded pins but nothing out of the way. All relays seem ok. Have swapped them all around. Have pulled and pushed all plugs on the becm. Have tried different batterys, the only strange thing that happens is sometimes when i swap batterys the dash lights dont come on !! Dont think there is anything else I can do so it is onto the trailor tomorrow morning and up the road to an independant garage. Not holding a lot of hope out that he will be able to find anything but dont know what else to do. Will let you all know how I get on and if anybody has any sudden brainwaves between now and tomorrow please let me know. Thanks for all your help so far.
Luke

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hmmm, corrosion on some of the fusebox pins?? Did you unscrew it and open it up and look at the internal state of it??

-Wills

No didnt take it apart. It was only slight corrosion on the pins and wouldnt normally have worried about it. Have just been reading on rangerovers.net about the becm and as far as i understand the engine fuse box only supplys power to the becm and from the becm to the instrument pack.(probably not quite that simple) It is looking like I might have a fault inside the becm with one of the power transistors or relays. Will see how I get on with the independant tomorrow and if no luck with him shall then take the becm to pieces and have a look inside. (could be interesting) Wish i had the money to buy a rovacom or similar but am in the process of buying a house and really dont think the misses would understand how me buying one would be beneficial !!! Could always up the mortgage i spose.

Back again. Have taken it to James Tennants 4x4(independant and very good) He cant find any faults with the becm and thinks it is probably the instrument display panel. All feeds are getting up to the panel but no life there. He has a second hand panel which he is going to fit and see what happens. Hopefully that should cure it. Why it has happened he doesnt know. Just hope its not going to cost too much !! Will let you all know how it goes.

p38owner said:

Back again. Have taken it to James Tennants 4x4(independant and very good) He cant find any faults with the becm and thinks it is probably the instrument display panel. All feeds are getting up to the panel but no life there. He has a second hand panel which he is going to fit and see what happens. Hopefully that should cure it. Why it has happened he doesnt know. Just hope its not going to cost too much !! Will let you all know how it goes.

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woahhhh there, before you go fitting any second hand panels make sure you know the mileage of the second hand one! if you fit a second hand one which has some astronomical mileage while you might only have 100k or something then the second hand instrument cluster will update the BeCM with the new, astronomical mileage. You then might find the instrument cluster isnt the problem, fit the old one back again and the super high mileage got from the second hand one that got transferred to the BeCM will then get transferred back to the original instrument cluster and you will be stuck with a super high mileage vehicle.

the only way to fix a problem like that is to have a NEW instrument cluster AND a person unlock and reprogram the BeCM for you. So tell your man to be careful!

-Wills

Well it wasnt the dash or the becm. It did look like it was a becm fault and when James Tennant started looking into it he found a bad connection on one of the plugs to the becm. I thought i had checked all the plugs but obviously not !!! At least it shouldnt cost me to much. Shall pick it up tomorrow and drive it home. First time i have driven it any distance. Also had him mot it and it passed first time, things seem to be looking up. Will let you know if I make it home. Thanks for all your help.
Luke