Freelander 2.... for dummies !

Freelander 2.... for dummies !

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Discussion

pcn1

Original Poster:

1,209 posts

218 months

Thursday 29th August 2019
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Hi all,

I might be in the market for a new car soon. I'd like a newer Grand Cherokee but I don't think my budget would get me the year/spec Id like. (that would run me over £20K +)
I've got say £15K max to spend, and I want :

2014/5 year
Under 50K on the clock
4x4
Diesel
Auto
Leather
Heated seats
A few other toys would be nice .
Its not for hard core off road use, and I wont pay £500 a year road tax !!

Just looking at the Freelander 2, I know nothing about them, so what's to know, love or hate about these ?
I'd plan to keep it 5 years and do as much spanner work on it as I can to keep the costs down.

Any advice ?

Cheers

RazerSauber

2,262 posts

59 months

Thursday 29th August 2019
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With my 12 months of Land Rovers, my advice would be the following:

Don't.

Do you actually need the off road ability? If not, there are other soft-roaders that would make more sense.

pcn1

Original Poster:

1,209 posts

218 months

Thursday 29th August 2019
quotequote all
RazerSauber said:
With my 12 months of Land Rovers, my advice would be the following:

Don't.

Do you actually need the off road ability? If not, there are other soft-roaders that would make more sense.
I can find you folks who say the same about Jeep.

But I've had mine 7 years and its been great so far... but now the MOT/ repair costs may be more than its worth so time to let it go.

RazerSauber

2,262 posts

59 months

Friday 30th August 2019
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"You folks"?

It's an honest opinion based on my own ownership experience, as well as my job working with repairing vehicles. I see Land Rovers every single day without fail. From Series Land Rovers to any Range Rover you want to mention. All sorts of failures, electronics and suspension seem most popular but they aren't shy of throwing an engine & gearbox fault too.

If you don't need the off road ability, then there will be a suitable alternative that feels just as nice to drive on the road from a brand that will be more reliable. I have no experience of Jeep and can't comment on them.

pcn1

Original Poster:

1,209 posts

218 months

Friday 30th August 2019
quotequote all
RazerSauber said:
"You folks"?.
Ohh.. reading that again, it can be taken both ways ! laugh

But "Find you other Jeep owners" cant be miss-read wink

Its working though, I'll take your practical experience on board before I decide cool

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

189 months

Monday 2nd September 2019
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RazerSauber said:
"You folks"?

It's an honest opinion based on my own ownership experience, as well as my job working with repairing vehicles. I see Land Rovers every single day without fail. From Series Land Rovers to any Range Rover you want to mention. All sorts of failures, electronics and suspension seem most popular but they aren't shy of throwing an engine & gearbox fault too.

If you don't need the off road ability, then there will be a suitable alternative that feels just as nice to drive on the road from a brand that will be more reliable. I have no experience of Jeep and can't comment on them.
Ownership of what, what use and what issues did you have. Also what is your job?

As a counter to your argument, there are tens of thousands of happy Land Rover owners. Also grouping Series Land Rover's with Freelanders seems somewhat odd.

The FL2 is also largely Ford based major components. The diesel engines for example, you'll not only find in other Ford vehicles, but Peugeot, Citroen, Volvo and even Fiat.

Land Rover also built over 300,000 FL2's. I suspect the vast majority have been perfectly reliable and usable.

RazerSauber

2,262 posts

59 months

Monday 2nd September 2019
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
Ownership of what, what use and what issues did you have. Also what is your job?

As a counter to your argument, there are tens of thousands of happy Land Rover owners. Also grouping Series Land Rover's with Freelanders seems somewhat odd.

The FL2 is also largely Ford based major components. The diesel engines for example, you'll not only find in other Ford vehicles, but Peugeot, Citroen, Volvo and even Fiat.

Land Rover also built over 300,000 FL2's. I suspect the vast majority have been perfectly reliable and usable.
I owned a Range Rover Sport. Had every issue possible, however the Ford derived engine was, indeed, reliable.

For want of a better description, I work with car warranties.

The point was that I work with all manner of Land Rovers, and have noticed consistent themes that they all appear to have. This is all across the country with all manner of owners. I wasn't saying either that they're all destined for hideous reliability. I was using my own ownership experience and the experience from my work where I regularly work with all LR products, including Freelanders.

Drumroll

3,739 posts

119 months

Wednesday 18th September 2019
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RazerSauber said:
I owned a Range Rover Sport. Had every issue possible, however the Ford derived engine was, indeed, reliable.

For want of a better description, I work with car warranties.

The point was that I work with all manner of Land Rovers, and have noticed consistent themes that they all appear to have. This is all across the country with all manner of owners. I wasn't saying either that they're all destined for hideous reliability. I was using my own ownership experience and the experience from my work where I regularly work with all LR products, including Freelanders.

So you work in car warranties and you owned a Range Rover sport. So they can't have been that bad or why would you buy one? Also because you work in Warranties you only see vehicles with problems.

I case you haven't guest I am a FL2 owner. Never had a problem in 6 years of ownership. and goes off road quite comfortably.

FiF

43,965 posts

250 months

Wednesday 18th September 2019
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FL2 daily here, goes off road nearly every day, not stupid off road beloved of beards from Barnsley in boilersuits and muddy wellies but off metalled roads, typically farm and forest tracks, sometimes moorland. In terms of needing 4wd most days it would be manageable by an estate on decent tyres, except for ground clearance, got fed up with scraping exhaust and despite being careful.

It's now on 120k, not the most reliable vehicle I have owned, but a long way from the worst, a long long way. It's a vehicle which benefits from being looked after properly and serviced by an independent specialist rather than a JLR workshop.

OK if you want a decent steer on what to look for www.freel2.com is the forum to use. Ask and you will get a recommendation for a good independent workshop.

Avdb

176 posts

117 months

Thursday 19th September 2019
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I had a 2004 Freelander HSE for 8 years without any problems.

Would have kept it longer but unfortunately it was written off after a no-fault accident.

http://ruleworks.zapto.org/carguide/images/freelan...

chrisch77

615 posts

74 months

Thursday 19th September 2019
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A Volvo XC60 would probably be a safer bet?

pcn1

Original Poster:

1,209 posts

218 months

Thursday 19th September 2019
quotequote all
Hopefully I'll get out and view a few local examples soon. Seems the HSE spec has all the bits I'd want.

FiF

43,965 posts

250 months

Friday 20th September 2019
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Now got a bit more time, my thoughts in addition to looking in freel2.com

HSE auto is good spec suggestion. See from OP looking for auto, manual has a suspect clutch, ok for running around, but if any towing or off road hence possible manouvring is hard on the clutch.

Rear diff bearing, most of them need to be done with a bigger bearing, many like mine were done under warranty. Check if done. http://www.bellengineering.co.uk folks to go to when out of warranty, depends where you are.

Age you are looking at based on budget it will probably have had the extra earth lead modification by the manufacturer. If not by some chance this should be the first thing you do, the vehicle consumes a lot of electrical power, and if cold weather / battery bit low in charge or getting on a bit tgen on a cold start the voltage can drop and throw up all sorts of error messages which get a new owners into a panic. The extra earth lead reduces this. Essentially an extra lead direct from the battery earth terminal to a point somewhere near the starter, I used a starter motor mounting bolt. Thread of freel2.com about it, well worth doing.

Same reason as above, invest in a smart charger and give the battery a little trickle top up once a month in winter if you're doing short journeys.

Same as any vehicle, has the servicing been done properly. Equally are the tyres a decent make, if they're cheap budget things I would suspect what else have they skimped on.

Something that would be very important to me, you may be different, headlights. Again looking at budget you will be buying a facelift version which has the projector headlights. Personally I would not buy one which didn't have the HID upgrade, the standard projectors using incandescent HB3 bulbs are beyond dire. Would in that case have to do an upgrade to the bi-xenon HID lamps. Either you buy OEM lamp units which is really not cheap, or as some have done get some damaged lights from a crashed vehicle, strip the innards out and put into yours is how I understand it works if a bit fiddly. You then need someone with the necessary software to modify the vehicle CCF (car configuration file) to make them work properly. The ideal spec from my viewpoint is units with the bi-xenon dip / main beam lights and the separate extra main beam units using H7 incandescent bulbs, basically before tgey buggered around with the signature daylight running leds, but each to their own. I do a lot of night miles in the dark and empty boondocks, but that's just me.

As with any other vehicle you start reading the forums and the posts where people have issues exceed those where folks are saying it's not been a ha'porth of trouble, but essentially it's one vehicle where JLR got it right, ignore those who cite reliability of old series LR and Range Rovers meaning everything else with the green oval badge is tainted. It don't be as reliable as a Honda, say, but as before has been a lot better than several of my old main stream company cars, Ford, Vauxhall, Peugeot (Christ those Peugeots!) even a couple of Volvos weren't all that sparkling.


pcn1

Original Poster:

1,209 posts

218 months

Wednesday 25th September 2019
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FiF

Thanks for the extra info. Funny you mention the extra earth lead, something we all do to our older Ducati's as well !

As a side note, my friends had a Honda CRV about 10 years ago, and it wasn't that old when they got it but out of warranty. ECU died soon after and cost them £1000 for a replacement. I drove to work last year and a guy on a brand new Honda Fireblade was broke down on the side of the road.
I do wonder if the Japanese reliability story is a bit hyped up.

Cold

15,207 posts

89 months

Friday 27th September 2019
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There's a buyer's guide to the Freelander 2 in this week's Autocar. Despite the usual previous claims of LRmageddon and doom on here the mag gives it a positive review as a secondhand purchase.

Autocar can be purchased from a good newsagent near you, other mags are available.

Test driver

348 posts

123 months

Wednesday 9th October 2019
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The Freelander is junk, the discovery is a much better option imo as is the Jeep Grand Cherokee.


FiF

43,965 posts

250 months

stevemcs

8,593 posts

92 months

Wednesday 9th October 2019
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Dads FL2 was great, towed a boat, was the 2.2 Auto and had zero issues over 6/7 years, i'd rather take a chance with the FL2 over any VW.

pcn1

Original Poster:

1,209 posts

218 months

Monday 14th October 2019
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Thanks to all who post.
I'm hoping to sell on my old Jeep WJ this weekend then I can start to look at a new car.
At 6'4'' the first thing I do is just sit in a car and see if I fit comfortably !!

I'll go on from there driving

was8v

1,927 posts

194 months

Monday 14th October 2019
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As above its a Ford engineered car, based on the S-Max / mondeo / galaxy eucd platform. All the parts have FoMoCo labels.

A world away from from the body-off shenanigans of RRS or Discovery and million miles from 1980's british leyland fallout.

Its a good buy IMO.

You can't lump all LR products together, some are BMW engineered (L322 RR), some Ford (FL2), some 1950's developed (defender) some just assembled from a Rover parts bin (discovery 1, FL1) and some a terrible mish mash of all of the above.

Edited by was8v on Monday 14th October 16:54