In The Dark

Firstly I am a new member and found this site through necessity. We are very isolated nearest landrover dealer is a days drive. Big problem last night are lights failed. Very strange, on the master lamp switch we have side lights position 1 which work ok but pushing switch to position 2 head lamps everything goes - side lights, all interior dash lights but not indicators and main beam still works on the push lever. I have checked all fuses (including fuses under the seat). It happened while vehicle was in motion. The vehicle is a defender TD5 2005. Can anyone help me with this problem as self recitifcation is a necessity here as full lights must be used day and night. I didn't think it was going to be a fuse on checking today as the vehicle has rh and lh fuses.

On my old golf I had this problem and it was the contacts at back of the ignition switch.

Thanks could be a posibility but the electrics on this LR when you lift the bonnet are frightening got more wires than a house !

... or the actual light switch itself is faulty or has a bad contact on it. Sounds too new to be susceptible to all the dodgy earth problems associated with Land Rovers but if it's been off road or lives near the coast it won't take long before the earthing points on the chassis need a good copper grease cleaning! Where are you based?

Thanks Andy we are 700mtrs up a mountain in croatia. We are British, moved here 5yrs ago hence the age of the land rover. We had it kitted out by land rover LHD, winter pack, summer pack and various other bits and it truely is our life line as we are isolated. I used to be ok on the old land rovers but this one has got many bits of modern tech - I'm lost. Looks like tomorrow I'll be taking stirring column apart to check the switch. I'll let you know how I get on (if it's not snowing that is!!)

My 98 300 Tdi did somert similar last year, turned out the switch on steering column was knackered, don't know if Td5's are the same, might be worth a look though.

Thanks Grimmer, just about to get out there and have a go but guess what it's raining!!!