Tony
Member Since: 20 Apr 2006
Location: Adelaide Hills
Posts: 183
  
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We had travelled up the Strzelecki Track to Innamincka and then via Cordillo Downs to Birdsville, towing our off-road camper van. The roads were a bit ordinary in places north of Mt. Hopeless due to 80mm. of rain a week or so before, but presented no real problems except for some very boggy patches north of Innamincka.
Birdsville was the usual Hell-hole, with hordes of Land Cruisers outfitted with every extra in the book and the drivers braying into the night about how many times they had to dig themselves out of the Simpson Desert, and prices at the Pub were unbelievable, so we headed south on the Birdsville track ASAP. Freshly graded after the rain, we were cruising along at a steady 100km/h when a large bit of plastic on the road and a broken suitcase with contents scattered in the wind distracted me and the D3 wallopped the biggest bull-dust hole I have ever seen.
When we came back to earth, the engine had stopped and the dash was lit up Xmas-tree fashion. Ignition off, quick prayer to St. Anthony, Patron Saint of Travellers, then turn key - a miracle, Lord; the trusty German V6 rumbled into life! But we had orange lights for ABS, airbags, etc., etc. - in fact, every orange warning light was on. So switch off, inspect underneath and under bonnet, disconnect battery and have a cuppa then restart - still the same. Cautiously engage drive and move off - so far so good, gear changes OK and slowly up to speed, which had to be obtained from the GPS, as the speedo was no longer working.
We cautiously continued for the 150km. into Maree, (meeting a Nissan Patrol slowly heading north, looking for the plastic top of his roof-top bin and the suitcase which had departed with it when he had hit the same hole earlier in the day). The Adelaide Dealer, about 800km. away and the nearest representative of Land Rover, gave the text-book LRA answer to our enquiry as to the wisdom of continuing: "Well, we've never heard of this happening to anyone else", and as Maree, which consists of a pub (of sorts), a store (of sorts) and a camping ground of barely describable squalor, was not likely to offer much in the way of diagnostic equipment, we decided to continue on our way.
Back in Adelaide, the dealer discovered (a) a blown stop lamp, and (b) a small stone puncture through the plastic wheel-arch liner directly above the ABS sensor cable at the RH Front wheel which had severed the cable! And $270.00 later, new cable and stop lamp fitted, all was back to normal!
So I do not know if the lights were triggered by the blown lamp or if the cable was the culprit, or if both had some how interacted, but the car behaved perfectly despite the warning lights. We were lucky the air bags did not trigger, as that may have presented a different scenario. And thanks to the Adelaide dealer, Solitaire Land Rover, for their fast service and supply of a loan vehicle. Ex Defender 110 200Tdi owner.
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 4th Aug 2008 2:29 am |
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SKP
Member Since: 07 Feb 2007
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 219
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Tony,
Interesting report 
Apart from the orange lights & the speedo failure, was everything else normal, i.e. did the suspension lower 
Steven
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| 4th Aug 2008 2:39 am |
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Tony
Member Since: 20 Apr 2006
Location: Adelaide Hills
Posts: 183
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As a staunch believer in the KISS principle, Steven, I bought the basic S model, with coil springs. I have fitted a set of King springs - these gave me a badly-neede extra 50mm. clearance and as a bonus, an even better ride. So no suspension troubles! (I've had the better part of my lifetime fighting air suspensions on trucks and trailers and I'm convinced that if God intended cars to be air-suspended, Holdens would be using it.) Ex Defender 110 200Tdi owner.
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| 4th Aug 2008 3:40 am |
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Bushwanderer
Member Since: 27 Nov 2007
Location: Northern Rivers, NSW, Australia
Posts: 2050
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| 4th Aug 2008 5:27 am |
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