So we were driving the Defender up today for our much looked forwards to Driver Training with Land Rover at Eastnor, but didn’t even get quite as far as Somerset before it lost power and we had to pull over onto the hard shoulder. Initially I thought it was a problem with the fuel line feed. The first guy to arrive [following a call to Landrover Assist recovery service] looked pretty nonplussed and determined that the wagon needed recovery. By this time a few cold and wet hours had passed and we got the recovery driver to take us to OEC in the hope that there was a quick fix and we’d still be able to get up to Eastnor. However when taking the fuel lines off and cranking the engine revealed fuel was flowing we were all pretty much perplexed. A few phone calls to various ‘Land Rover people’ (thanks due to Ashcroft Transmissions and the mechanics at Roger Young Ltd) identified the symptoms though…..
viz Following loss of power whilst driving + Vehicle cranking but not firing + Temp gauge of the scale even though the engine is cold = a recognised problem [with Puma engined Defenders] due to, “An engine management fault. The vehicle will need a main dealer’s diagnostic tool to remedy it.”
Luckily it is a warranty repair (at less than 900 miles on the clock too)
Tomorrow, the Defender will be taken on a trailer down to Roger Young LR Ltd in Saltash tomorrow from OEC. We did think about car hire etc but pragmatically we need to oversee the Defender being transported and fixed (even if you could find a hire car in Torquay out of hours).
We are both really gutted as we were obviously looking forward to what was clearly going to be a crucial couple of days of top class training. Equally we are very disappointed in having to let people down with no notice. It really has been ‘one of those things’ that has bitten us (I’m trying to look at it this fatalistically otherwise I think I would be just too annoyed).
With introverted regard to our project it’s a real shame as we were then going on to Oxford Sat, Sun for Wilderness Medicine Training (hoping to sort something out for that – repair, car hire or train….. fingers crossed) and it would have been a good four-days ‘shake-down’. On the plus side at least we’ve shaken out this fault!
On the plus side the locking pins have been resolved by Paul on the tail-lift and it is just about ready to fit. That really is good news.