Mud-club
Vehicle & Technical => Freelander => Topic started by: Andy. on February 23, 2009, 17:41:07
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Hi all!
Bit of advice needed please as regards a possible new vehicle purchase?
Details are Land Rover Freelander 1.8 XEi 5 Door reg T 1999. Price is £1,995.
Any advice on purchasing the year of motor and perhaps problems to look out for?
Cheers all
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Make sure it's had the head gasket mod done. Ask the owner, and request to see the bill.
Check the VCU works... can seize with lots of road miles and they are expensive!
Check the rear tyres for uneven wear on the inside edges. And check the fronts too since we had one were the owner had swapped the worn rears to the front. Early Freebies had a diff problem that caused the blocks on the inside edge of the rear tyres to wear strangely. One block high, next one low, etc. When they get bad it sounds like a knocking CV joint. The 1999 car might be after they sorted this problem, but someone else might be able to advise.
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Cheers V8.
What was the head gasket mod?
And what do i look for to see that the VCU works?
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One way of testing the VCU, I'm told, is to get it on wet grass and floor it! If the front wheels spin like crazy, it ain't working. However, whether the owner would be happy with you doing that is another question :lol: The other, less aggressive way IIRC is to jack up one rear wheel and try to turn it. It should turn, but with quite a bit of resisitance. If you can't turn it, the VCU is seized. Am I right someone???
I'd prefer someone else with more knowledge to confirm what I've said though!
The head gasket had a habit of failing. I believe the LR kit replaced some plastic dowels with steel ones and included a modified head gasket. I seem to remember something about a thermostat relocation, but this might have been with other cars using this engine. The K series engine has a very small coolant capacity and any slight loss of coolant can create a failure. We never had any trouble with ours in the couple of years we owned it, but I often found myself watching the temperature gauge.... not great for road safety!
Most people, me included, would recommend trying to find a diesel. They tend to hold their value better than the 1.8's though.
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Crawl under the vehicle with a bit of chalk and draw a chalk line connecting the front and rear prop shafts, making sure that it extends over the VCU. Take the car for a test drive. If you can surreptitously drive somewhare where you can get a bit of loss of traction (patch of mud, grass verge, etc) so much the better. Then crawl under the vehicle again and check whether the chalk line is still aligned. If it is, then the VCU is possibly seized (or you've been spectacularly unlucky enough to stop at the exact point where the chalk lines all line up again ;)). If still aligned, drive it again to make sure.
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did all the things advised on here with mine, and all good. Have full service history with head gasket items on it 2 years ago, so should be decent. It's quite hard to get any wheel spin at all out of mine when on soft stuff, really very impressed.
DT.