The Rover-Landers of BC

Ok heres the issue..

I have only had my disco I 6 weeks or so..

last week, for the first time ever I had a starting issue.

We had driven to metrotown, I was parked in underground parking..
I started it up after shopping. It started, then immediately died, rpm's just went down untill engine stopped.
I started it again, same thing.
third attempt - I gave it some gas, now its back to normal..

Ok .. isolated incident, the next dozen or so times i've started it, been fine..

Until yesterday..

afternoon, its sitting in sun all day.. I start it up late afternoon, same issue..

very very low rpm, it doesnt stall, but its right at the stalling point..
after driving around for 10 minutes its back to normal..

ok today, i start it up.. starts fine, idle is normal at around 1000 rpm in nuetral 500 ish in gear..
we go shopping, park underground but its very hot in the parkade..
half hour of shopping .. come back.. start it up - its fine!
we drive home, i make a quick stop at 7-11 right before my house.
turn off the engine, come back - start it up.. oh no, super low idle, it dies.
start it again, keeping gas on its ok..
but - i notice a lack of power steering this time.. well not a complete lack, but turning the wheel is a lot harder then normal..

at first I assumed it was the fuel filter - I havent replaced it yet, however seeing that the power steering was affected (i think it was, i may have just been overly paranoid for little issues) im not so sure its fuel filter issue..

just throwing this out there - anyone else had a similiar problem with their disco?

I've searched discoweb but i'm still unsure of the cause.

IMO.....go through the EFI troubleshooting guide, step by step.... There are lots of things that affect idle....

Yes, lots of things. John is correct, it can be a challenge to find.

A quick check though,since you mentioned sitting in the sun, and with the hot weather we've been having... Do you have your air conditioning on? If you turn off the air conditioning, will it idle? If so, it may be a simpler thing than the EFI, could be the stepper motor is seized, dirty or needs adjustment. I had to run my Rangie with air conditioning off sometimes as the extra load of the air conditioning at low idle would cause it to stall or sometimes be stubborn staying running right after startup.

I'd be setting up an appointment with Don at Rovertech, Alistair at Hesp or Keith out in Langley, all of which have banner ads running on this site.

cheers, Dave

I had the same problem with my Range Rover and it turned out to be the fuel pump. It only happened after the vehicle had been sitting for a little while.

Great, thanks for the info guys.

I spoke with previous owner today, he says it happened to him once, but after cleaning the fuel injectors it went away.

I have used a couple tanks of "cheap" gas and pretty much it started after that..

I almost never use the air conditioning, and of course i start the rover with all fans/stereo off.


its my understanding that a dirty fuel filter will make the fuel pump work hard and thats why the fuel pump fails.. I'm going to see what I can learn about the stepper motor now (digs out rave cd)

I'll state it again...from personal experience. Don't just start randomly checking things. Go through the whole troubleshooting procedure. Seriously. There are multiple things that can cause what you have described.

so a bit of an update on this issue..

I did a road trip, added some kinda carb cleaner additive to my fuel.. i've been using the highest ocatane fuel and biting the cost.. the last .. 2? months, no issues, no low idle/stall at all.

today.. payday, i've held off putting gas in for weeks.. I take the wife out, and after some chores, almost home (no issues, started and stopped the engine multiple times)
gas up..
for some reason i figure on the cheapest gas "just to see" .. 40 litres of that and were good to go.. or so I thought, as soon as i start it up, drowww, idle drops down, it stalls.. rev it a bit on second startup, it stays afloat this time, but barely at 100rpm.. made it home without a stall but my final conclusion is..

expensive gas appears to be worth it!

nix on the gas idea..
nothing but high test for my baby the last month.. still .. very intermittent.. rough idle, and sometimes very low rpm..

going to replace fuel filter soon..

notice a gas smell recently when getting low idle issue.. any ideas?

Not much of a wrench hand, however, my 95 disco was acting up. I noted the lights would get brighter and dimmer, the fan rpm would go down and eventually the car started to stall and have hard starting.

checked the output of the alternator and although was close to normal, it was somewhat low. took a chance and changed the alty with a new one and its been and entirely new vehicle since.

I also charged the battery before installing new alt.

As I said, perhaps the symptoms appear with a variety of causes, but it worked for me.

I've had the same symptoms in my 87 RR and after going through the full fault check list found that the throttle pot was out of adjustment. A couple of turns with a screw driver and she was running good again.

I had a similar problem on the 3.9 in the 90. I ended up swapping the IAC valve out (got one from NAPA). Seems to be ok now but I've only driven it a few times before putting to bed for the winter. Next summers project is ditching the Lucas crap & fitting the Megasquirt ECU :wink:

Andy