Case study: Repair of two hybrid Range Rover Sport (“Hybrid System and A/C Temporarily Unavailable”)
Range Rovers are some of the most robust and reliable cars ever made, but that doesn’t mean problems can’t sometimes arise. Since it is not common, there are not too many specialized companies that are able to repair the hybrid systems of these cars. For this reason, Servo Motors Adjust we received two Range Rover hybrids with battery problems from the UK, from Manchester and Cambridge respectively, with an error in the hybrid system that none of the locally consulted companies had been able to resolve.
Paul and Jody, the respective owners of the Range Rover Sport hybrids, found themselves with only a very limited use of their vehicles due to this system failure.
The Range Rover Sport vehicles, one with 24,617 miles and the other with 91,615 miles on their odometers, were both displaying the error message ‘Hybrid and A/C system temporarily unavailable’.
What does the “Hybrid and A/C system temporarily unavailable” error mean?
This error is shown on the vehicle’s display, and is caused by the hybrid battery, its BECM and the EPIC.
What does this error imply? This error means that the vehicle cannot be driven, because the hybrid battery does not supply voltage to the main 12v battery or to the auxiliary 12v battery that manages the CAN BUS. The main 12v battery, not having a stable voltage supplied by the hybrid battery, drops its voltage to 9 volts in five minutes. This main 12v battery acts as a starter motor, so the vehicle cannot be started.
In addition, this error does not allow driving in hybrid mode, charging the hybrid battery or charging the main 12v battery. In this case, the display shows a “range reduced” error.
How did we perform the hybrid battery repair?
The first step was to carry out a diagnosis of the symptoms that the hybrid vehicle presented, in order to identify the main cause. In this phase it is essential to carry out an exhaustive analysis to get to the bottom of the problem. Some of the tests we performed were:
- High Voltage Hybrid Battery Cooling System inspections.
- Inspection of the high voltage cable.
- Insulation test.
- Removal and replacement of the hybrid electric battery.
- Checking the status of the electronic power systems.
Once the problem and its solution had been detected, we sent a quote to the clients, since no repair is carried out without prior approval. In this case, it was very fast, since neither of the clients had been offered a solution to their problem thus far.
The display shows, in the bottom left-hand part, that the vehicle is braking in charge mode, which is charging the hybrid system’s high-voltage battery. In this image the hybrid is fully charged.
And the best part of all, the opinions of satisfied customers from all over Europe:
