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Discovery 1 3.9 V8 intermittant starting problem


jetmorgan

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Can anyone help with possible causes of an intermittant starting problem I have on my S reg 1998 Discovery 1 3.9V8 ES. It has decided, when it feels like it, to not want to turn over when i try and start her....absolutely nothing...not even a crank over in sight. However the electrics all work perfectly fine. It's only done it 3 times since I got her in July...the first time I had left her in gear, so that was easily solved. The second and third times were when parked in the local Waitrose car park, unlock the car after a quick bit of shopping, turn the key and the electrics all come on but no engine. Check to see if it's in gear and no she's in park but still no engine...tried locking then unlocking and still nothing. Eventually both times I had to wait around for a while and she decided that she was going to restart...one time when the recovery man turned up and asked to see what the problem was. I had only driven about a mile from my work to the shop and she doesn't do it all the time.

I presume there is some electical problems somewhere but don't really know where to start so I'm looking for a list that I can work through or I can get the local spanner man to have a look at. Or is it a case that the engine might be just starting to get a bit warm and then when I swtich off an engine temp sensor thinks the engine is over heating so won't start. I know it's probably like asking how long a piece of string is.

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It's a classic symptom of a failing spider immobiliser, intermittent starting, maybe a single misfire (cutting out and restarting) when running and then failing completely and stopping the engine. Went through all that for a year until the engine stopped on the outside lane of a duel carriage way, fortunately for me I could crank the engine it was just the spark that was missing, so a very easy fix with a bit of wire at the road side got me going again, and later installing the wire in a permanent way in the engine bay.

If you can't crank the engine and the fault is with the spider,  the starting circuit that the spider looks after can again with a single piece of wire get u going again, there's two independent circuits in the spider of a D1 V8, starter and ignition, either or both can fail at once.

Unable to crank, of course could be an iffy connection on the starter motor or ignition switch or its wiring into the fuse board.

As far a any temperature sensor goes, it will never stop the cranking of the engine.

Edited by teabag
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As above, however, as yours is an auto it could be as simple as the start inhibit switch failing (the switch that tells the car if you're in park or neutral to allow starting.  Unfortunately it's difficult to test for unless the car is currently playing up.

Alternatively when mine had very similar issues (although mines a manual so i could live with it for a while by bump starting when it played up), it was the starter solenoid, i changed the starter and all has been well for 2 years.

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