thanks very much most helpful  zx12r
bmw gs1200 adventure
defender 90 off roader

Hi all changed my starter motor this weekend ,what a nightmare
i have done alot of my own maintenance on the cars i have owned and this was by far the
hardest job i have done so far !!! zx12r
bmw gs1200 adventure
defender 90 off roader

Now you know why they charge so much to change it for you...  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

yes agree did save £500 i suppose though  zx12r
bmw gs1200 adventure
defender 90 off roader

How did you get the starter out of the engine bay? I have just got to that bit on a starter motor changeout.

any hints on how to change it then?

1. Disconnect battery.
2. Remove RH engine mount.
3. Remove starter motor.

Point 2 is several pages of stuff to undo/remove to get to the bit that needs undoing so you can remove the starter motor!

As luck would have it, mine has started messing around so it's booked in for Monday. Hoping LR's warranty will cover it again. I believe "book time" is 1.8 hours for the replacement. It was changed about 3 years ago and has been fine ever since (including doing wading). But a few months ago I had turbos changed and since then I've done some wading (<500mm deep so nothing silly). I think the breather pipe ("snorkel" in LR terms) has been damaged/dislodged during the turbo work which has allowed water in to the starter motor. The snorkel runs up behind the RH turbo to sit on the back face of the engine behind/below the oil filter/cooling manifold.

I'm tempted to jack it up this weekend and have a look to see if I can spot the snorkel and see if it is connected etc.

As far as I can tell, the snorkel was an added feature at some point in the RRS1's life - the manual states that if a starter motor is being replaced then a snorkel must be provided. This suggests it wasn't originally fitted. I wonder if the snorkel is one of the items that allow the later RRS1 to wade to 700mm rather than 500mm. 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

thank you

Do you know if the engine mount has to come out to allow the actual SM to get out of the engine bay, looking at it i reckon i can undo all the bits on it just not sure if the actual thing will come out!

Mine has the snorkel, RRS (D3/4) were always 700mm wading

No idea if the mount has to come out or not. I would expect that it probably does - you wouldn't write the manual telling a mechanic to spend an hour removing stuff unnecessarily.

Earlier RRS and D3 were not 700mm wading. They were 540mm wading in off road height. It changed to 700mm in the 2009 RRS owners handbook I think. 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

ok, my mistake, was only taking wading info off LR HUB,

apologies, didnt mean to upset on either point.

don't worry, it takes more than an internet forum discussion to upset me  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

i was intrigued by this so looked up wading depths again today.

Accoring to LR Hub, all T5 platforms with air suspension from outset were 700mm, coil sprung (some early D3s) were 600mm.

Strange that the owner's handbooks (available on Topix) should give a limit nearly 200mm less than that until 2009. I think the RRS lagged behind the D3 on this change.

I think they did some changes, including fitting a snorkel to the starter motor, that increased the recommended depth to 700mm. Certainly the workshop manual that I have (which was originally downloaded from Topix I guess) states that where a starter motor is changed then a snorkel must be fitted to prevent damage. A little process is given showing how to fit the snorkel. Looking at the location/height of the SM that would seem about right for the difference in wading depth recommendations.

At a guess, LR probably just decided to not inform the owners about the changes and just retro-fit the bits if/when it became an issue with individual vehicles. Let's face it, most RRS don't go wading so most owners will never know the difference.

My starter was changed 3 years ago following some wading at Eastnor - probably the first it had ever done. It's been fine wading ever since until a couple of weeks ago following some turbo work before Christmas. I've put 2 and 2 together and decided the snorkel was retro-fitted at the first SM change and then dislodged during the turbo work. Can't figure out how else to explain it. 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Oh, and I had a look at the SM change process again and it appears that the 2.7TDV6 doesn't need the RH engine mount moving. Only the TDV8 does. Presumably this is why the SM change is seen as easy (relatively) on the D3. 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Today I jacked my TDV8 up and took off the underbody plates to check the starter replacement. As I suspected, the breather pipe has not been fitted correctly. The pipe has been routed down below the gearbox rather than up behind the engine. Indeed, in its current position, the breather pipe open end is actually closer to the ground that the starter motor is! Any proper wading is likely to see the pipe exposed to water with the result being a shortened life for the starter motor. Another example of where reliability is reduced by the lack of care/thought/effort of the dealers' mechanics.

Tomorrow I shall be contacting the dealer to let them know that they will be doing it properly later this week. Looking at it, I have no doubt that routing the pipe correctly is a of a job and hence why it hasn't been done. But that's not my problem - if they want easy access to components then they should work as bike mechanics!

Whilst under the vehicle I noticed a few bit and pieces that hadn't been done correctly, including a trim panel that has been cut to fit around a coolant pipe (that serves the auxiliary radiator). This appears to have been done rather than just sorting out the pipe itself so that it fits in the clip that LR designed for it. The cutting of the panel appears to have been done with snips/wire cutters. It's that rough and ready.  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed