Who'd have thought it!!!

This site contains affiliate links for which LandyZone may be compensated if you make a purchase.

Ian.V

Member
Posts
67
Location
Nottingham
Took my disco 3 to my local garage to see if they could sort out the PDC.
The system was faulty when I bought the 2005 motor about a year ago but I wasn't too concerned at the time.
However as it seemed to be the only fault I finally decided to give my local friendly garage a little job to see if it could be fixed.
I'd had a quick look round at fuses etc and decided to let someone else struggle with it.
I left the vehicle with them and after about three hours I received a call with "good news and bad news". They’d found a wiring fault after removing the rear bumper, but while they had it on the ramp they discovered damage to the offside rear tyre, so I asked them to fit the spare while they were at it.
One hour later I was driving home from the garage when I realised the speedo wasn’t working, plus five amber lights appeared simultaneously. Park brake - ABS - Suspension fault – DSC - Brake systems
As the garage was closing when I left, I went home, deciding to return the next day. Following a diagnostic check they replaced a fuse and all seemed well until a short distance into a test drive when all the symbols came back on.
After hours of investigation someone noticed that the tyre on the spare wheel they had put on had a different width to the one they had replaced, 225 not 255.
Just out of interest they put the original wheel back on and all the faults disappeared!
I can understand that this could possibly light up the abs but all the others? How crazy is this.
My motor now has four tyres of the same size and I've had no further problems.
The only downside for me was that I then needed two new tyres. One to replace the damaged one and another to replace the odd one.
Anyone need a good Budget 225-60-18 with plenty of tread. Free to good home.

I’ll end this tale with a note to the ‘stealers’

The garage refused to accept any payment, saying they should have found the problem earlier!!!!.
 
I had a similar issue with a Vectra many moons ago, front wheels were 55% aspect ratio and rears were 50%. All was ok until in three figure speeds (on private road obviously) where the TC (Traction Control) light would come on.
 
1x different width/size tyre will have a different rolling radius to the other 3 so will set off all alarm bells & could also damage the transfer/gearbox in time like winding it up until it lets go remove asap & find a matching size spare tyre
 
1x different width/size tyre will have a different rolling radius to the other 3 so will set off all alarm bells & could also damage the transfer/gearbox in time like winding it up until it lets go remove asap & find a matching size spare tyre
Many thanks.
It's become apparent that my time in tech college was clearly wasted!! But it was over fifty years ago and sometimes I can't even remember what I did the previous day.
Fortunately the offending tyre was replaced the following day.
 
1x different width/size tyre will have a different rolling radius to the other 3 so will set off all alarm bells & could also damage the transfer/gearbox in time like winding it up until it lets go remove asap & find a matching size spare tyre
Ideally all 4 should be the same, however different size wont actually damage the gearbox in normal road use, from a drivetrain point of view the only downside to running mismatched tyres is additional wear to the axle and transfer diffs as they will be working a bit more than usual, there wont be any additional stress on shafts etc as the diffs even that out.
If you are off road with the transfer diff locked then it's a different matter as it will wind up quicker and may be more difficult to unlock as well as additional stress on the drivetrain with the potential for damage.
 
Back
Top