Since the weather has got cold I've had a sporadic issue with the gearbox on my 2003 4.4 V8. 116K miles

If its going to happen it will do it from cold and will occur on either the initial 'pulling away' or the next (second) pull away (ie at the first junction that I come to. Basically one of two things happen:

The majority of the time the car is in drive yet on pulling away it drops out and revs freely as if its in neutral (still shown as being in D in stick and on dash. No error messages just no drive. If it put it into park then back to drive it re-engages and works fine, operating smoothly, changing as it should in all gears/sport/manual/hi&lo etc.

Second thing that has happened on 3 occaisions in Exactly same circumstances (first pull away) is that I get the trans failsafe message and the car goes into either 4th gear OR neutral with No drive. If I turn the car off and restart it goes away and drives as normal . Again operating as usual no issues????

If it doesn't do it on the first or second pull away it will NOT do it at all ?

From the service history I know it had a fluid change in 2009?

I took it to an Indy who fault coded the trans fail safe and it shows 'stall error'

He seems to think a rebuild is looming but I'm sceptical (or optimistic!) that its a sensor problem or something less serious as it operates perfectly the majority of the time.

Any ideas? 2003 Vogue 4.4 V8 Java Black

You say the fluid was changed in 2009, does it say how much fluid & whether the filter was done or not?
If it was only a fluid change then only 6L will have been changed and the rest will be the original stuff. I would try another fluid & filter change to see if it makes a difference.

I've just done it on my 2003 FF as that was giving me the Trans Failsafe alarm 3-4 times a week, since the oil & filter change it's been fine (touching wood all over the place! ).
The stuff that came out of the box was a brown oil which you couldn't see through and the filter looked much the same. There was no smell of burning and the magnets had, what I would consider, a normal amount of muck attached to them.
I intend to run it for a year and then change the oil only to see what it's like. 

Ok mate, something to consider . You say you can only change 6l at a time? How much is full capacity? Just out if interest how much should an Indy charge for a fluid and filter change? 2003 Vogue 4.4 V8 Java Black

Full capacity is 9.9lts, you can get a full flush done which will do the full change for you and there are so recent threads on here about getting it done.
I've no idea how much an indy would charge, I did it myself and saved the money for something else (a new water pump as it turns out ).  

this sound the same as my mates first RR,that was an 03 as well, he never had the stall error but did have something like that, but it sounds the same, if it did not do it when he started the car it would not do it at all and only ever from cold..it turned out to be the gearbox ecu... V8 facelift Range Rover Autobiography 22" wheels.
1976 Harley Davidson Iron Head Sportster

Daveo did your mates problem get any worse ie does the ecu start to 'break down' and give other problems ? 2003 Vogue 4.4 V8 Java Black

as far as i can remember,no it did not get any worse, i can remember them tellinging him it needed a new box £7000 at the time, we are going back about 5 years. but i do remember him changing it when it was cold..ie jan or feb. i think he paid around £600 for the ecu but the chap said if it never fixed hi prob he would give him his money back... V8 facelift Range Rover Autobiography 22" wheels.
1976 Harley Davidson Iron Head Sportster