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HDC System Fault - Complete death on my drive home last night...

HedgePig

In Second Gear
Hello all, first time poster. Apologies in advance if this has been dealt with, a thorough search of the forums hasn't given me the information I have needed, I hope if you're reading this you can help.

2007 Plate Freelander II, 183k and owned since new. In really great condition and never had a days problem until now.

With the snow and wet of late the gf used the car to drive to the stables and engaged the snow/mud drive control. No issues. On getting back and turning off the system (back to normal mode) the car kept on engaging 'snow mode' anyway, but only when you first started the car, a little annoying but it would turn off if you then selected normal mode. It did it every time for about 5 days. I drove the car last night to collect a BBQ (summer is coming!) and noticed the 'fault' had gone away, normal drive mode engaged and no drama. Happy days.

On the drive back, about 45 minutes into a 1.5 hour drive there was a sudden 'low power mode enabled' (I think that was the message) and the car immediately stopped generating power. I was in a absolutely HORRIFIC section of roadway with a sheer cliff and a stone wall on either side so did my best to freewheel off the road, not very successfully. JUST before the engine died and refused to fire again I saw the message 'HDC System Fault' (again, it may have been error instead of fault it just flashed up) and that was it. Hazard lights on and a call to the AA who I will always say are amazing. The police arrived about 7 minutes later at the request of the AA and closed the road and a lovely copper shouted out wheel orientation instructions to the light of a cell phone in the pouring rain until I was safely in a turn-off about 300 yard back down the mountain. Tried several more times to start the car and while the engine swung quickly and strong there was never a 'spark'.

AA tech pulled off something under the hood and hooked up a battery pack and the engine fired then died maybe 3-4 more times. (He sprayed some very petroleum smelling aerosol into the engine) He said something about diesel coming out of the fuel pump but I couldn't tell if that was meant to be good news as in 'there is a fuel supply' or bad news as in 'you have a leak'. He didn't seem worried.

The car was determined to be broken at that point and a recovery flatbed was sent. I did notice that with the now badly depleted battery and start attempts, I was getting 3-4 'HDC System error/fault' notifications and a few 'ping' warning tones. So it was definitely telling me something about the HDC.

It's been taken to a friends garage who is now waiting for me to tell him what he should do with it. It goes without saying that I want to fix it, but she's an old girl and I don't want to spend a fortune. A quick google tells me the HDC is the hill descent control, I can't for the life of me work out why the engine stopped running suddenly while at 50mph an a shallow incline due to a descent control??

Sorry again for the lengthy first post, much of what I have described is likely irrelevant but I am hoping one of the experts in here will pick up on something and go 'yeah its a drop in the doo-wop valve and you need to spray it with a magody-ease and it will be fine!'.

Thank you again. HP.

EDIT: I realise this may have needed to be posted under mechanical/workshop questions, happy if a mod needs to move/cross-post.
 
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Hi All Land Rover Lovers. I have the answer to the Nothern Lights lighting up HDC Error, Transmission Error, Suspension lowering, etc, etc. I have Disco 3 year 2005. This could be an isolated case but worth a try. I serviced the transmission (which was a good thing with the kms) and did all that like taking it to the mechanic and getting quoted a new transmission system etc. The error was in a tail light holder. I change it and my life changed with it. If you have this issue before you do anything, replace everything with original bulbs and check that they are working. Even a difference in bulb voltage can make life difficult. After fixing the electrical issues, no errors show up. Try this before spending losts of $$$
 
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