The FL2 I am referring to has been owned from new.
It has a habit of destroying the rear left wheel bearing. It is now on its 5th.

The first started to whine after only five months of service. The last survived only eight months having recently been replaced. All have been replaced by official LR dealers.

The other 3 wheels have never given any problems - still on the original factory fitted wheel bearing.

As it is highly improbable that 4 different LR trained service engineers from 4 different LR garages would have independently incorrectly fitted the bearing, or, have randomly selected 4 badly manufacture wheel bearings for fitment I would welcome any input to this thread re what could be causing this particular wheel to mechanically eat wheel bearings over what are relatively short and unacceptable timeframes.

Thank you.

You're either the unluckiest person in the country or there must be an underlying problem causing it to eat that many wheel bearings. Have the LR service departments not made any comments, surely they realise something isn't right?

Hi MartinP
Jump back 4 yrs and FL2 delivered in Nov. with Goodyear Wrangler M&S tyres the first garage told me it was only tyre noise. And again new wheel bearing fitted, and again tyre noise until in the following winter when we fitted Continental Winter Cross Contacts. No change in noise from one tyre type to the next. Then wheel bearing changed. Noise returned. Sought advice from second LR garage. This time it is those Conti's. Then next LR garage - it's the tracking. Tracking pains for to be checked on digital kit - absolutely as per LR specs. Tried next LR garage - fitted new wheel bearing. Always the left rear.

Then came the need to dump the GoodYears and the Conti's as both sets had worn down to 4mm. Moved onto Pirelli and changed the alloys to 18" for the summer set, and, moved to Nokian staying on 17" for the winter set. And the noise remained on the rear left wheel - new wheel bearing fitted only four weeks ago.

Noise remains. Spoke to the garage and they have asked that we "bed-in" the latest bearing by driving for a few weeks to if the noise alters or goes away. Always wishing to be cooperative we agreed.

There - that's the wheel bearing. And as you'll see we are now on the 3rd rear pinion bearing if you include the factory assembled one

Maybe Mike over on the LR customer relations forum can get someone technical in Land Rover to give some feedback. To me it would seem likely that both the diff and wheel bearings issues are connected, so there must be a big clue there to the root cause.

has the tracking been checked to make sure the wheel bearing isn't suffering extreme load all the time ?
Normally a bearing will only fail due to the following

Damaged or slightly shortened stub causing an excess load
damaged or distorted hub
incorrect fitting or incorrect method of pressing
incorrect wheel with incorrect PCD Jaguar x-type sport gone
Jaguar x-type 2.2d sport one of my best cars ever sadly gone
Freelander 2 GS auto 2008 most unreliable ever ! gladly gone
Freelander 2 GS manual 2013 only time will tell !

oldgeezer
Yes, I spent some decent money having the tracking thoroughly checked out by experienced hands on their digital rig. All wheels were found to be within LR spec.

By the way I have just been smiling at your "check-out shopping list" of faults you have suffered with your own FL2. I can feel your frustration and pain.

In less than 10 minutes I have discovered nine FreeL2 members who have had multiple wheel bearing failures, but what is most interesting that there is a recurrent theme here of the N/S/R failure being reported more often than most - the same location as our 4 failures.

And, that these failures have been reported to LR via their "Social Media Customer Services". So what the heck difference does it make if one gives or not a VIN or Registration number. The problem is well known Mike@LR Customer Relations Social Media.

Yaeh, outtheoffice had numerous wheel bearing failures within weeks of buying an FR2 including repeated failure whilst on holiday in France so he blew his out for good.

I suspect it may be a batch of miss machined stubs or shafts or hubs that puts the wrong preload on the bearing.

seen it many times in manufacturing, in fact the blippers have suffered numerous Crankshaft failures caused by incorrect machining and if you kick up enough fuss you get a new engine !

my first FR2 really was a pile of Junk ! if it had been acknowledged from new that things wernt right I could of accepted it more but i just had 4 years of complete bull from the dealer ! and the most unreliable car ever ! worse than my 1975 Hillman Imp Jaguar x-type sport gone
Jaguar x-type 2.2d sport one of my best cars ever sadly gone
Freelander 2 GS auto 2008 most unreliable ever ! gladly gone
Freelander 2 GS manual 2013 only time will tell !

Interesting oldgeezer.
I came across outtheoffice tale of woe last night - appalling. Your own bearing comments are very useful, and those of Mav71 are intriguing which he reported in December last year, and I quote: "LR replaced early type bearing with up rated version" end quote. However he did not unfortunately report the date that quality upgrade took place. Maybe if he reads this he could add that data here.

From one Owd Geezer to another oldgeezer at my time of life I could do without playing Sherlock Holmes only to discover that the folks at LR know all about both the repeated wheel bearing failure and the rear differential pinion bearing scenario and their consequential detrimental impact on other parts of the running gear.

It is time for the defensive obfustcation and opaque communication by LR, it's official dealers and their Freel2 social media interface to become transparent on theses issues. They know these problems exist, they have personal experience of handling these failures and therefore it is totally unnecessary and counter productive to place administrative protocol barriers in the way of expediting a simple procedural response of "check this or that" with your dealer.

Ummm....... I'm going to assume that the FL has two standard style ballrace bearings back to back, please let me know if I've guessed wrong.
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I would go for a new hub next time.
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Hubs are usually a casting that is machined for the bearing housing rebate on one side and then has to be turned around to machine the other bearing rebate.
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There is a risk of concentricity error or angular misalignment.
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Maybe that's causing the bearings to be working against each other giving premature failure.
Changing the hub would also take out the option of the wheel studs running eccentric
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Can anybody comment on the relevance of my thoughts?
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Kind regards from Fred
. 2010GS Auto ex Celeb, Santorini Black, 2011 facelift , spoiler, spats, mudflaps, LED footwell lamps, Witter detach,
Other cars:-
1958 & 1959 Austin J40 Pedal Cars under restoration (I make many J40 parts)
If you have an Austin J40 or Pathfinder Pedal Car looking for a new home pls PM me.
2009 Meriva

Just a thought...you say N/S rear. is it left or right hand drive? I say this because if it is the left side (as you sit in the car) bearing it may not be a coincidence that this is the hub bearing that gets disturbed when the diff is taken out. Maybe some more ham fisted mechanic work? John
07 HSE Narvick Black
Land Rover Series One
Triumph Rocket 111 (sadly gone!)

I’m with Fred on this one, but I don’t know how you would persuade the dealer to change the hub (or stub) as well if there is no obvious hub fault.
I’ve heard of a similar problem a few years ago on a small goods trailer a friend built. He went through a number of bearings on one hub over about three years (and quite a few thousand miles). In the end he got a new hub from a breakers yard (Mini rear I think). From what I remember the old hub (and stub axle) seemed OK when removed but never had any more trouble once the replacement (and new bearings) was fitted.
Maybe not a good comparison, a small 750KG trailer to a FL2, but the theory isn’t far off. Gone:
2002 FL1 TD4 GS Zambezi Silver
2007 FL2 TD4 GS Izmir Blue

I have a 2007 manual GS. All four wheel bearings have been replaced (60k,70k,80k,90k). Have now done 110k and touch wood still ok. After noise starts I would typically drive another 3k before replacing - passenger nearest bearing would moan !

My FL 2 has done 21K and the rear nearside bearing has started to whine. Warranty runs out in May so I'll be paying the dealer a visit soon

I am currently wafting around in a Jag XF, courtesy of LR.
The FL2 has gone back into Hunters for a rear end whine, tech guy thought wheel bearing, I'll find out tomorrow.

...the XF is very very nice, might be tempted.

Taz
Here we can get the XF Sportsbrake 4x4. I ran one for two weeks and found it a much more rewarding drive than the new RRS Dynamic which I also had out for a couple of weeks. The most disappointing thing with the new RRS is the use of cheap bright black plastic internal trim pieces. Very tacking considering the price tag. Plus side of the Sportsbrake is that it has more loadspace area than the FL2.