[Phil]

Yet another issue with my 3-month old DS today. This now makes 5 issues in 3 months - today's being the most severe.

In short, my car would not respond to either key fob this morning when I tried to leave for work. In order to get into the car, I had to pull out the manual key from the fob and let myself in the old fashioned way. Once in the car, it would not start and appeared to have no electrical power. I called Roadside Assistance and waited over an hour for a tow truck. Tow truck service tried to jump start my DS but the battery would not take the charge and there was absolutely no turnover of the engine, even after charging the battery for approximately 45 mins. There were no warning signs of a faulty battery or electrical problem prior to today.

After giving up on charging it, the tow truck drivers (there were now two on the scene) prepared to tow, but we could not get the car into neutral without starting the engine. I consulted the owner's manual but could not find a process that would work for getting the car in neutral without first starting the engine.

The tow truck drivers then attempted to get the car up on the flatbed using skates (the LR recommended method for towing when not in neutral) but could not safely align the car to do so. Another hour later, they came back with another truck and had to tow using tow dolleys. This whole process took up my entire morning.

I am very disappointed with my DS thus far. In the short time I have owned it, it has proven to be far less reliable than the 16 year-old toyota truck that it replaced as my daily driver. I bought this car based largely on its aesthetics and its performance during test-drives while ignoring or rationalizing LR's terrible reliability/quality issues. I will not make the same mistake again.

 

[LRD]

For that very same reason I have always been a bit skeptical about buying new vehicles since they have so much tech going on that limit what you can/cannot do along with just making the ownership experience not as streamlined as you would expect it to be.

Hopefully the tow truck company and others are aware of such things and come prepared, I bet even for them it can be tiring to play catch up into all the differences going on.

 

[disco808]

Good point, LRD. It's been difficult for me to find qualified installer to install aftermarket parts due to lack of knowledge of this brand new model. Many don't know what they're doing or don't have visibility of the proper documents.

Phil, sorry to hear the pain. I hope it's something minor as I heard some people had defective battery issues on their DS which was an easy fix.

 

[Phil]

Good point, LRD. It's been difficult for me to find qualified installer to install aftermarket parts due to lack of knowledge of this brand new model. Many don't know what they're doing or don't have visibility of the proper documents.

Phil, sorry to hear the pain. I hope it's something minor as I heard some people had defective battery issues on their DS which was an easy fix.

Thanks - I am trying to stay positive but am obviously frustrated. I have read about bad batteries on this and other forums as well. I am not convinced, however, that it is as simple as a bad batch of batteries. I am more inclined to believe that there is a semi-systemic problem in which one or more of the car's systems are drawing power from the battery after the car has been turned off resulting in a bunch of dead batteries. I made sure to voice this concern to the LR Service Advisor, as I do not want them to simply replace the battery and call it fixed. I want them to test for anything that may be drawing power from it.

Incidentally, the Service Advisor told me that the DS utilizes a special type of battery that is not yet common and that my local LR service dept did not have it in stock! They had to order it for overnight delivery. You would think that LR service department would carry batteries for their own cars in stock...

 

[mkzhang]

Wow sorry for your troubling experience :/

All of the british cars I've owned, none of them last a full week without a battery tender. The disco is the only british car I felt comfortable leaving at the airport parking for more than 5 days.

 

[DiscoDisco]

YIKES! Sorry to hear that!
Our DS was in the body shop for a month and was rarely started. It did give us a low battery warning one time when we picked it up. I just drove it and let the alternator do its thing. No problems since..Knock wood.
They had a batch of bad batteries but they should have had them cleared out by the time you got your DS,.....unless they got more bad batts. Then again, why wouldn't it have given you a warning? I have personally seen a low battery warning and you can't miss it. Keep us informed.

And for anyone reading this who might be considering a Land Rover....they ain't no Hondyota. So if that's your perceived or experienced benchmark for perceived or experienced reliability, don't buy a LR.

 

[Phil]

Update: Just got my car back. Land Rover installed a new battery and then tested to see if anything was improperly drawing on it. Tests were negative. They also tested the charging mechanisms to ensure it was charging appropriately when the car is running and everything tested clean. They think it was a bad battery and indicated that they have seen other cases of bad batteries including in the Evoque. Whatever the issue was, it is running great now.

One interesting thing to note: For the past couple months, I would get a warning in the message center upon starting the car every time indicating that my tires were set for either light load or normal. Would simply hit enter to clear, but was mildly annoying and made me wonder if there was a deeper issue that started causing this. Since installation of the new battery this week, I no longer receive the warning upon start. I wonder if the battery weakness may have caused this warning to show. There is another thread somewhere on this forum with others complaining of the same. Maybe some of you with that issue have weak batteries as well?

 

[stzombie]

One interesting thing to note: For the past couple months, I would get a warning in the message center upon starting the car every time indicating that my tires were set for either light load or normal. Would simply hit enter to clear, but was mildly annoying and made me wonder if there was a deeper issue that started causing this. Since installation of the new battery this week, I no longer receive the warning upon start. I wonder if the battery weakness may have caused this warning to show. There is another thread somewhere on this forum with others complaining of the same. Maybe some of you with that issue have weak batteries as well?

That's very interesting... I'm going to have a chat with this with the local dealership when I go in for an oil change

 

[mkzhang]

Interesting, I get the same warning messages about light load for TPMS as well, always thought it was annoying because I have to hit OK every time I start the car up

 

[Phil]

Sorry guys - I jumped the gun. My reprieve from the tire load warning message only lasted a day. It unfortunately made its triumphant return today. I guess it is not related to the battery.

 

[DiscoDisco]

I get the light load message a lot, but not every time I start the car. Sometimes it's there, sometimes not... Sometimes I hit OK, sometimes I just ignore it and it clears itself....it seems to have a little mind of its own. Lol!!

 

[DiscoDisco]

Yep I took a close notice of it today. Does show up every start up and it will clear itself in about a minute if you just ignore it.

 

[LRD]

I get the light load message a lot, but not every time I start the car. Sometimes it's there, sometimes not... Sometimes I hit OK, sometimes I just ignore it and it clears itself....it seems to have a little mind of its own. Lol!!

If you live in Colorado it might be those sensors getting second hand high from all the weed smoke in the air!

 

[2Rovers_and_a_dog]

OK... I found a critical clue in solving the LOW BATTERY problem... the vehicle system is not going to "sleep" or shut down mode at night or during the day. But Ignition OFF power draw from the 12VBattery is worse at night. My 2016 Discovery is having this same problem. Key things I have observed when vehicle is locked, key fob is not near the vehicle, ignition is OFF...1) Yellow LED indicators at door panel Lock/Unlock switches never turn OFF; 2) red Hazzard Lamp triangle illuminates only at night; 3) Instrument Cluster LCD, only at night, turn ON for 5 seconds, OFF for maybe 1 second displays only "PARK" in upper right corner... the power of the LCD sucks the 12V battery down until Low Voltage Inhibit occurs then cycling stops .. hence we are all greet with a Low Battery message when we return in the morning. 4) I noticed that when doors are locked if one lifts the door handle, the instrument cluster does not wake up and display the mileage like other vehicles. OK by now you might have guessed, I'm an engineer. I hope the fellows at the JLR dealer relay this info the JLR software people. I know an collegue at JLR, but I haven't seen or heard from him in >7 years... I'll try to email him tonight.

 

[2Rovers_and_a_dog]

Took a week, but dealer was able to get a new software download from Land Rover to fix this issue...either someone at LR was working on this issue or responded quickly with a software fix based upon the observations. Either way...Yeahhh... vehicle is operating correctly now and no low battery icon & goofy key off display cycling.

 

[Niftyfifty]

YIKES! Sorry to hear that!
Our DS was in the body shop for a month and was rarely started. It did give us a low battery warning one time when we picked it up. I just drove it and let the alternator do its thing. No problems since..Knock wood.
They had a batch of bad batteries but they should have had them cleared out by the time you got your DS,.....unless they got more bad batts. Then again, why wouldn't it have given you a warning? I have personally seen a low battery warning and you can't miss it. Keep us informed.

And for anyone reading this who might be considering a Land Rover....they ain't no Hondyota. So if that's your perceived or experienced benchmark for perceived or experienced reliability, don't buy a LR.

i bought a 2019 Discovery Sport new in 2020 which always says low battery and says key fob batteries low also even after being towed to dealership two times. 360 camera does not work, strange alarms going off on it. Motor fan runs really loud after turning off vehicle at times like stuck. Shifter goes in limp mode at times while driving, really dangerous in busy traffic! Will pull vehicle back when trying to change lanes like it senses vehicle thats not there. Has totally failed once and steering locked had to be towed, after all of this the only thing dealership says it needed software update, but when returned was still malfunctioning and saying low battery. Tailgate also only works on Tuesdays and some Sundays.