Thanks to everyone who responded to my recent requests for information. I am edging closer to ordering a new SD4 and am in discussion with a couple of local-ish dealers. no firm prices have been agreed yet. One dealer told me he would not come up with a price until I had been to all the other dealers first because he knew I would play them off against each other. He would then make his pitch - he wasn't golng to waste time being the first in the process.

I have noticed that some of the brokers have dropped their discounts to below £1000 on some new FL2 models. Does this mean it will be more difficult to get a meaningful discount now from a main dealer? I understood that at least 5% was possible. Any advice from members of this forum who have recently ordered a new FL2 would be very useful.

Regarding what colour combination to order, it is much more difficult now many of the colours offered for the facelift model are now unavailable due to the Japanese earthquake. My wife likes the idea of Almond leather, but practicality is a consideration. We are not so much concerned about keeping the leather clean, it is more to do with the plastic trim - i.e. door cards and wheel arch liners etc. My experience is the the quality of the plastic is more important than the colour when it comes to keeping it clean. I had a Nissan XTrail with grey plastic trim which was impossible to clean with any cleaner and any amount of scrubbing, including a abrasive pad on an electric drilll. On the other hand, my Subaru which also has grey trim simply wipes clean with any proprietary plastic and vinyl cleaner, however filthy it is. You cannot know how it will clean just by looking at it. What is the quality of FL2 trim like and will it clean easily?

On colour combinations, my wife has expressed a liking for grey and almond. I thought this a little strange, but saw a new Discovery 4 in the showroom in this combo. Any views on this from owners of similar would be appreciated - we want a change from black leather.

hi see if nfu have still got there offer of 5% discount on freelanders from land rover cost me approx 100.00 to join but got 5% discount on my 2011xs saved approx 2.400 quid  rainy-city
xs

Drive the deal still seem to be offering about 9% discount. MY 09 GS manual in Lago Grey, Wood Co arm rest and side bumper strips - now sold.

MY 15 SD4 SE Auto Orkney Grey with colour coded Bumper Door Mouldings

Including £350 of accessories that got thrown in (accidentally I think), I got a 7.3% discount on a new SD4 HSE with Premium Pack in March. This was an already built model and bought with the 2 yr interest free finance deal.

I agree with the dealer, I don't mess around by playing off other dealers, I usually get 3 quotes, on my last 2 purchases I have contacted my last dealer, my new local dealer and the site sponsor LPR. In the end you get a feel of the prices on offer. It's not about the headline figure, but the 'deal' which is important. Some peeps get so het up with the part-ex price, that they don't realise it's the total cost to change that is the important one!

As for colour combo, Stornoway and almond is a lovely combo. The interior plastics are very easy to keep clean and of very good feel and quality (could always be better!). Buying a LR you are moving up to a quality manufacturer and you will find from now, with any future car purchase, your expectations will have been raised buy owning a LR.

If I were you I would go for:

SD4 HSE Auto
Stornoway/Almond
Factory Privacy glass (v important in a vehicle made of glass) Don't do the film! Is the pano roof still standard on the SD4 HSE???)
Xenons.

About £38k, would pay £33-34k for it...... 2010MY Freelander 2 HSE Auto
Santorini Black with Ebony Napoli Leather

the pano roof is std on all HSE's

Definately go for privacy glass - really finishes the FL2 off nicely. I also went for Xenons and glad i did as some members have criticised the new projector standard headlamps. DONT FORGET THE SPARE WHEEL!!!!! Costs £150 but you get a full size alloy spare with jack and brace - its a no brainer really.

With regard to colour my last FL2 had the Alpacha interior which is similar to almond. I really liked it at first but noticed the leather seats got really dirty really quickly and was a nightmare to keep clean. Also the spot where you put you left foot (i had an auto) just wouldnt clean up. When my car went back after 3 years the spot was almost black!

I had a couple of courtesy FL2's with all black interior and started to prefer it. Looked at Almond when I went for my SD4 but compared it to an all black interior and it won me over. Very glad i went for ebony interior this time around (nice to have a change) but at the end of the day its all down to personal choice!  Now - 2017 BMW X3 M Sport Carbon Black
Gone - 2014 BMW X3 M Sport Space Grey, faultless!
Gone - 2011 Freelander 2 SD4 HSE Bali Blue with xenons
Gone - 2008 Freelander 2 TD4 HSE Rimini Red with bodykit

I've got black on Alpaca (similar to almond) and I really like the contrast and think a dark colout on light interior is a nice colour combo. The black interior just looks bit dull and bland to me but as said its down to preference

Obviouls lighter colours are always going to show dirt more, but i can personally vouch that even with 3 young muddy kids, using a bit of tender love and care and elbow grese - you can bring things looking(almost) perfect again. Freelander 2 TD4 Auto, SE, Narvik Black, Alpaca full leather, Rear Headrest Entertainment System, 6 CD, 18 HSE Wheels, Privicy tints

Thanks to all those who have posted useful replies.

I still have a few reservations over fuel consumption, which is of course a major criticism of the Freelander auto. I see that the official combined mpg figure has improved from 35.8 to 40.4 (for both TD4 and SD4). Being a bit of a cynic I don't trust govt. official figures and am somewhat sceptical about a 190 ps engine being as economical as a 150 ps one. I see that web sites such as Spirit Monitor give actual user average mpg figures for the 'old' 160 ps engine as 29.5 auto (min 28.8/max 31.05) and 32.85 manual (min31.02/ max 36.55). It is too soon to find any useful figures for the 'new' engine as there aren't enough results in yet.

The figures above surprise me as I have seen posts here from users getting quite reasonable figures - although one or two members seem to get dreadful figures of around 20 mpg! Is it down to driving style as much as anything. I live in the country and have a light right foot - I get about 26 overall from a 2.0 petrol turbo 4x4. I need more reassurance that I can get mid 30's on average from an SD4 (or new TD4 if that is more realistic). Am I being over-optimistic?

Your thoughts are welcome as always.

Currently averaging 30.6 when driving reasonably spiritedly. I tried driving more economically initially and was getting 33-34. Since even this was less than I had hoped for, and was getting a little frustrated with rate of progress I accepted that economy was not going to be what I had expected and I would enjoy the car. This is a mix of town and motorway, but as with all MPG figures, it's so hard to compare between individuals.

Honestly my SD4 seems to be doing 34-36mpg mixed A roads and motorways, less around town but I don't do much of that. got 48mpg this morning in the 25 miles after filling up but I was driing like a saint SD4 Sport LE Firenze Red - no options or modifications yet, but it's early days.

George while MPG figures are important to a certain extent (I am 'disappointed' with mine, having owned a D3 & RR Sport which got similar results but waaayy bigger!), if it's a frugal car you want, a 4x4 probably isn't the way to go. From an expenditure point of view, whether you get 30 or 35 MPG out of a tankful isn't going to make a huge difference to your budget. You could just drive it less or buy the manual The bigger elephant in the room is depreciation, showroom tax, VAT @20%. If you buy new, then expect to lose at least £6k in the first year on depreciation alone. If you want to drive a great vehicle, to your exact spec and enjoy your hard earned cash, then I say you won't let the difference of a few mpg's disuade you from just getting on with it and buying a fab new FL2.

I'll put my money where my mouth is and say that from an SD4 Auto you will get 35mpg as an average. But if you do a lot of very short, start stop journeys, in town, without the engine getting warm etc etc, then you won't get more than 20 something mpg. But this sort of driving isn't the norm, so you can't expect it to give you an average in the 30's.

If you give me your spec, I'll gladly get you a quote from my dealer for you to compare with yours.
 2010MY Freelander 2 HSE Auto
Santorini Black with Ebony Napoli Leather

SimonB wrote:

Currently averaging 30.6 when driving reasonably spiritedly. I tried driving more economically initially and was getting 33-34. Since even this was less than I had hoped for, and was getting a little frustrated with rate of progress I accepted that economy was not going to be what I had expected and I would enjoy the car. This is a mix of town and motorway, but as with all MPG figures, it's so hard to compare between individuals.

I came to the same conclusion Driving economically I was getting about 35mpg on our regular journeys while running in, a mix of town and A roads. I now have a bit of fun when driving, and still averaging 33 - maybe I need to try to enjoy the car a bit more and get it down to 30mpg

I've been able to sustain 45mpg+ on a few occasions, but this was sticking to 50mph in the slow lane of the A2 - this was to extend the journey time so our 6 month old would sleep and not be grumpy when she woke up.

We all know official figures are to be taken with a pinch of salt, but for me at least, getting 5mpg less than official figures compares well getting 10mpg less than office figures on my last car (Vauxhall Antara 4x4 - 2ltr turbo diesel, 150ps - official 32mpg - my average 22mpg!)

GeorgeG wrote:

Thanks to all those who have posted useful replies.

I still have a few reservations over fuel consumption, which is of course a major criticism of the Freelander auto.

[/quote]
The thing with the FL2, I've found, is the frontal area / wind resistance. mpg goes down like a stone with higher motorway speeds.[/quote]

Most of my driving will be Motorway, sadly, what sort of effect does it have, 70, 80, 90 Hypothetically of course

Would be interested, i have slowed down recently, mainly because so many others have, but enjoy tootling along occasionally.

Paul

Triple7 wrote:

George while MPG figures are important to a certain extent (I am 'disappointed' with mine, having owned a D3 & RR Sport which got similar results but waaayy bigger!), if it's a frugal car you want, a 4x4 probably isn't the way to go. From an expenditure point of view, whether you get 30 or 35 MPG out of a tankful isn't going to make a huge difference to your budget. You could just drive it less or buy the manual The bigger elephant in the room is depreciation, showroom tax, VAT @20%. If you buy new, then expect to lose at least £6k in the first year on depreciation alone. If you want to drive a great vehicle, to your exact spec and enjoy your hard earned cash, then I say you won't let the difference of a few mpg's disuade you from just getting on with it and buying a fab new FL2.

I'll put my money where my mouth is and say that from an SD4 Auto you will get 35mpg as an average. But if you do a lot of very short, start stop journeys, in town, without the engine getting warm etc etc, then you won't get more than 20 something mpg. But this sort of driving isn't the norm, so you can't expect it to give you an average in the 30's.

If you give me your spec, I'll gladly get you a quote from my dealer for you to compare with yours.