Three Shops, £2.5K Quote, and Still a Dead Rangey

Customer rings us. Voice tired. He’s been through it.

2018 Range Rover Sport. Car won't start. Screen says “Smart Key Not Recognised.”

He’d already been to two local garages and finally the main dealer. The last place told him it needed a new KVM and BCM. Quote? Just over £2,500. Lead time? Two weeks.

He doesn’t sound surprised anymore — just done.

We say nothing fancy. Just: “We’ll come take a look.”

Pull up to the driveway. It’s a nice part of Reading. Car's clean. Looks like it’s worth every penny of fifty grand but it might as well be a brick right now.

We hook up the tools. Proper JLR stuff — not generic kit. Run a full sweep. Keys aren't syncing. But it’s not the modules. No water damage. No burnt pins. Just a silent little corruption buried in the EEPROM inside the KVM. Deep.

It’s not visible to most tools — maybe that’s why the other shops missed it.

Takes a bit of work, steady hands, patience. Rebuild the sync. Reflash it. Double-check. Then we press the start button.

Boom. Engine wakes up like it was never dead.

Customer doesn't say much at first. Just smiles. Then laughs. Tells us his wife thought he was overreacting about how mad he was getting.

We left quiet. No hero talk. Just another day, another ghost car brought back.

This isn’t a promo. Just a story.

But if you’re curious who we are — it was AJ Auto.

That’s it.