QuestionHi John,
I just purchased a 96 Discovery, 92,000 miles. The previous owner said they never had any major mechanical problems and have kept up with routine scheduled maintenance.
Today the "check engine" warning light came on and stays on. The owners manual says to "not drive at high speeds and get it checked urgently"
Any ideas of what it may be and is it serious? Do I need to take it to a land rover dealer? Should I continue to drive it on errands until it's fixed?
Thank you sincerely,
Jeff
AnswerHi Jeff,
A '96 Disco with 92K miles...I hope you got it for a good price. If you know the owners, ask them if they have ever seen the Check Engine light before.
The nice thing they have told you is that they kept the maintenance schedule up-to-date. You can confirm this by taking you Disco to the nearest LR dealer and having them check their online records. Sounds like the actual dealer who sold it to the previous owners, may not be that far away. Did you have the owners maintenance booklet with all the stamps?
The check engine light may have been triggered for several reasons. Sometimes, fuel related, sometimes due to a failing sensor and sometimes due to an actual component failure. If you check under the passenger seat, you might see a OBDII readout unit. IF the Check Engine light is set, this device will display the fault code. To read this code, you must perform the following simple steps:
turn engine off;
turn ignition key to the next-to-last position (just before engine turns over);
while in this position, all indicator lights will become active, sensors will start and the fault code will be displayed on the OBDII reader.
The reader is about the size of a thick deck of playing cards. It may have a 12" wire linking to it and it may be velcro attached to the underside of the passenger seat. You should be able to gently pull it out and read the code or codes.
If you'd like, send me the codes and I'll try to help you further.
As far as I can tell, you should be able to drive you vehicle with a check engine light. Normally, you'd be taking the vehicle to the local LR dealer.
To reset the Check engine light, disconnect the negative battery cable for just a few seconds then reattach. You'll have to reenter the security code for your LR radio - so don't do this if you don't have the radio code.
I have sometimes had a Check engine light, while off-roading, and to see if the light was just a temporary error of a real failure, I reset the code and then started the engine up. For example, some sensors don't like to be bounced around while off-roading. The Check Engine light gets triggered. I stop the engine, detach the neg.cable, reattach then start engine. If the code comes back on then I know I have a more serious problem. If not, my wallet and its contents remain safe.
Do you have the 3.9l engine or the 4.0l engine?
Let me know,
JohnMc
