newbie, p38 wanting opinion, and autobox help please!!

Hi.
Im looking tobuy an X plate 2.5 dhse P38..
It is being slod with a few minor probelms and niggles, and so it reflects in the price.

It doesnt have any service history, and is showing 100K.
I have contacted the main dealer who supplied from new, have records up to 35K at three years old, (2005).

It has the damp drivers side carpet, but i have read it is fairly simple to fix..

But one the more worrying is the display flashes up "gearbox overheat, see manual".
Ive read this message comes up when oilabove 130C and goes when below 100C.
What is the most common cause for this?? what is the recomended fix??

If anybody can offer help or advice, or even an opinion as to leave well alone due to no service history, it would be appreciated.

Many thanks
Chris

Hi. I'm not a mech, but I know you have a pump and a filter in the box. Maybe you need to have them checked. I suppose you have checked the oil level.

not saying dont get it but they do have a lot of problems but when you get one right god they are great

thanks for your reply's.
Chris

Ive got a feeling that this error is caused by low battery voltage, and is nothing to do with the gearbox. Take another look and take a voltmeter with you. you shuld have a minimum of 12.5 volts when not running and 14.5 with the engine running anything less and you will get strange occurances. (Dont tell the guy selling it, use it as a lever to get another few £hundred off)
Do a search on low battery voltage and see what you find, and also gearbox overheat.

Eek, the dreaded damp carpet. It could just be a choked a/c drainer pipe allowing a build up of water but equally it could be the heater matrix O rings weeping (as you may do when you realise a main dealer would happily take over £2000 off you to fix - its a whole dash out job unless you can find someone who can do it the quick way by cutting a hole in the underside of the dash and doing a partial dismantle.) As said above the gearbox could just be doing with a service (flush and clean costing about £140 ish). Again, as you have been told, get a good one and they are just that. Equally, get a bad one and get a mortgage.

suzbug said:

It has the damp drivers side carpet, but i have read it is fairly simple to fix..

But one the more worrying is the display flashes up "gearbox overheat, see manual".
Ive read this message comes up when oilabove 130C and goes when below 100C.
What is the most common cause for this?? what is the recomended fix??

If anybody can offer help or advice, or even an opinion as to leave well alone due to no service history, it would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

The damp drivers side carpet will be heater o-rings, these are pretty easy to sort out as I guess you have now found out by doing a bit of research online.

How soon does the gearbox overheat message come up?? If its DEF the overheat message rather than the GEARBOX FAULT message then 99.9% of the time its just the sensor on the gearbox rad itself. Dead easy to change, only difficult part is finding a friend to help you lift the front bumper off.

-Wills

hi.
It comes up with "gearbox overheat, see service manual" straight away as soon as the ingnition is switched on...

Ihave read allot about the dreaded "O" ring on the heater matrix, some say £2k from dealer, wheras another member on here says 40 pence and some time.. i like the sound of the later more!

Thanks

As the message comes up straight away then its most definitely the sensor, as said, dead easy to replace. The part to fix it is ESR4330 and costs around £35ish from the dealer.

The dealer will charge you a bucket load to replace the o-rings, but, as you say, you can do them yourself for just the cost of the rings, STC3262 x 2 - around £3.50 altogether. You then just need to set aside a Saturday or something to attack the job and get it done - see RangeRovers.net • View topic - Heater o-ring replacement full procedure & new shortcuts for info on how to do it.

-Wills

wills, your a star!

you have just made me happier.
Thank you.
Can i ask your advice on my other question too?? it is a post titled, service history, how important??

Ive wanted a P38 for a number of years, and have been actively looking to buy one for the last two months. ive found allot of dross out there..

im hopeful about this car, but wanting to do my homework first.

Do you care to comment???

lol

Without a service history you need to be looking at some of the other indicators.

When I brought mine it had no service history with 116k miles, however it did have some paperwork, by working it through, looking at the dates owners etc, I worked out that the 1st owner from new kept it for 9 years, whilst I don't have any stamps etc I have reciepts for other work done accross that 9 years at the supplying garage (a landrover dealer), I've even got the origonal receipt showing list price of about ~£39k then for the next two years I've got old MOTs, various receipts - To me it inidicated the vehicle had been maintained pretty well for the first years of it's life at a maindealer and it had only has 2 owners in 11 years. Touching wood so far doesn't appear to have many dramas

The Heater O rings are a piece of cake, I did mine last week. The most expensive part of the job was I bought a plasterboard pad saw to cut the duct as described in the above link. I allready had the O rings as part of a set I bought for another job - (22 id x 2.5) my only tip would be to have a long handled screwdriver to remove the screw so you can get plenty of pressure on it to prevent rounding it off. Make sure the ends of the pipes are clean before refitting and dont overtighten the screw as this an crack the housing.

re wet carpet ,i have just sealed a miner crack in windscreen cover (bottom edge)and carpets are now drying nice,

Hi, my P38 had the Gear Box Overheat message display as soon the the ignition was switched on too. It was because the connector had fallen down from the mounting position in front of the power steering pump reservoir and had become full of oil that was leaking from the oil cooler pipe. I cleaned it up , reconnected it and the message went away. Hope this helps.