Charging problem

[mgwanderer]

Ok as a new member I have problems and hope to find some good advice here.

Charging light comes on occasionally when driving but it seems to be ok when I check the voltage it seems to be giving an output as the voltage is at the battery is 13-14v

The more important one is that I get "gearbox error traction is reduced" but the car drives well and appears to pull well but when I go to special programmes it tells me gearbox error. This is an autobox but gears change up and down on normal driving without problems.

When I try to read the faults with my obd reader it says no faults...

What can be wrong

Many thanks in advance

Clive

[Tanuki]

First thing - check and clean all the earths. The main one from the battery -ve terminal to the chassis, and the one from the chassis to the engine-block. If you get even a slightly-bad contact in the earth circuit back to the battery it can cause random voltage-drops which will throw all sorts of odd and inconsistent/unbelievable fault codes. Disconnecting and cleaning the battery terminals would be a good place to start [check you have your immobiliser/alarm and radio security codes before you do this as you'll need to know the relevant procedure: LR security sees disconnecting the battery as a hostile attack!]

Second - what mileage has the vehicle done? At high(ish) mileages - 70,000 miles or more, the brushes in the alternator can get worn to the point where they don't make reliable contact with the slip-rings. When this happens the alternator can intermittently stop charging properly - giving you the warning-light, and the sudden voltage-drop when you have to fall back to battery-only power can again cause various other issues of electronic confusion.