Red Suspension Fault

[Gunnslinger]

Last Friday morning I drove my LR3 (2009) through the automatic car wash. To ensure clearance for the lights on the rack and the hi-lift jack, I put the car at access height and put it back to normal height after the wash and drove to work without issues.

After work, about 5 minutes into the ride home while sitting at a red light, I had a warning on the info screen;'Suspension in Extended Mode. Put in Normal after obstacle is cleared'. The car was not in Extended Mode. Five minutes later, at the next red light, i had a Red Suspension Fault indication and the info screen said 'Suspension Fault. Do not exceed 30MPH'. The vehicle dropped onto the bump stops. The car was still drivable but the tires (265x65x18) did rub in the fender wells a bit. I parked in the grocery store parking lot, turned the engine off and back on to try to clear the fault without success. There was also a yellow caution for the active headlights. I connected the GAP IID tool and read the faults (front sensors, rear sensors, compressor and headlights all had fault codes) I cleared the faults but the EAS system still had the Red suspension fault and 3 of the sensor faults came back up. I tried to Enable EAS using the GAP tool unsuccessfully and flashed the suspension ECU also unsuccessfully.

The following morning, the fault was still there.

I had the car towed to the LR dealer for repair. Today, the LR technician read and cleared the faults and the system has been normal since.

Maybe there was water ingress into one of the ECUs?

To restore my confidence in the Rover, I think it will be necessary to install provisions to manually raise the vehicle using a portable compressor.

Any ideas what may have been the root cause of the fault? Or input regarding manual inflation/deactivation of the suspension system, perhaps using the Green Oval EAS Emergency kit?

Cheers,

 

[ColoDisco]

Could be water ingress at one of the rear main connectors. They are behind the left rear wheel. Check wiring diagrams to confirm which connector. I would bet your problem is not fixed yet.

 

[Gunnslinger]

Thank you for the feedback!

 

[Gunnslinger]

This morning the front end was almost deflated and yellow suspension fault was indicated. Cleared the faults with the GAP tool and all worked fine. After a few hours at work the front droops, more prevalent on the right front but no faults, the suspension levelled and operated normally all the way home.

 

[Gunnslinger]

Had a red suspension fault this morning. I limped her home about two miles on residential streets at 5mph.
GAP IID tool could not clear the fault, restore EAS or inflate in build mode (possibly my misunderstanding with regard to the tool).
There were three suspension faults; Height sensors out of range, both rear and right front.
I was able to jack the rear of the vehicle, putting the rear height sensors in range, which changed the fault indication to yellow and allowed the compressor to lift the vehicle off the bump stops to off road height. Cleared the suspension faults with the GAPIID tool and now everything seems fine. Test drive and cycling the suspension from access to normal to off road were satisfactory.
No idea what triggered the initial failure.
It will be interesting to see what it does tomorrow.

 

[StreetsofCompton]

Have you replaced any of the height sensors or are they originals?

 

[Gunnslinger]

Have you replaced any of the height sensors or are they originals?

The truck had 50k on it when I bought it. As far as I know the sensors are the original equipment.

 

[StreetsofCompton]

Gotcha. Someone with more lr3 knowledge than me may suggest differently, but I changed all 4 of mine when one was causing a similar issue last year. i got all 4, OEM new sensors on ebay for the price of 1 listed every else. Requires an EAS calibration, but its simple and laid out in the GAP instructions. just my .02

 

[Gunnslinger]

Gotcha. Someone with more lr3 knowledge than me may suggest differently, but I changed all 4 of mine when one was causing a similar issue last year. i got all 4, OEM new sensors on ebay for the price of 1 listed every else. Requires an EAS calibration, but its simple and laid out in the GAP instructions. just my .02

Thanks for the advice. I will look into the sensor replacement, dropping to the bump stops is no fun.

 

[zelatore]

Quick question - are you running lift rods?

My bet is yes. This is not the source of your initial problem, but with rods if you do drop to the bumpstops for whatever reason (leak, fault, etc) it can sometimes drive the sensors out of range. Then if you use the GAP tool to clear the original fault that made the truck drop in the first place it still won't raise itself up because the sensors are out of range causing it to want to go to the bumpstops. Catch22.

The solution to this is as stated above - use the GAP tool to manually raise the truck off the stops; only takes an inch or so. Once off the stops you'll no longer be forcing the sensors out of range and the computer can take over as normal. This of course assumes you've sorted whatever caused it to go to the stops in the first place.

I just did this with a friend's LR4 a few weeks ago when we were snow wheeling. For whatever reason he got a fault that sat him on the stops. He cleared the fault but then couldn't get the truck to raise because it said the sensors were out of range. He had a GAP tool but wasn't familiar enough with it to do the manual raise so I walked him through it.

Alternatively, you can physically jack the truck up slightly to achieve the same effect but it's much more work.

The GAP tool can be a little awkward to use, so my guess is you may have been trying something wrong the last time when you couldn't manually lift the truck. I don't do it often enough to walk you through it step by step without having the app open in front of me.

 

[Gunnslinger]

I agree. The GAP tool (in build mode) can probably lift the car without using the jack. It looked like I never did actually get the tool in the "build mode". I will spend some time reading the users manual to get familiar with the process. Yes, the truck is running lift rods.