one of my headlight bulbs failed tonight - no huge drama however.. i was very surprised that there wasnt a dashboard light / alert to tell me it had failed. Is this not standard ? my 1st car all those years ago had dashboard alerts of bulb failures

is this not standard on FL2's ? do I need to get into the habit of checking indicators / brake lights for failures ?

Quentyn

no it isn't and sadly, yes you do. Amazing really my 15yr old BMW had this facility as standard!

gah my 30 yr old volvo also had this

so if an indicator bulb has gone you have no way of knowing till you check ?

It seems no lamp failure warning or brake pad wear indicators.
BUT, you will be warned about low screen washer fluid level, so it is not all bad news.

Joe Fix it until it's broke !

You get a warning to say fasten your seat belt then one to undo it again to shut the rear tailgate, handy.

Landiroamer wrote:

You get a warning to say fasten your seat belt

dont forget most mechanical parts have an early fail warning, its the expiry date of your warranty  

You'll get the warning.
Later versions has bulb failure analysis, but unfortunately you'll see the warning only if you read the DTCs....
And because the fault is stored into CJB, a generic fault code reader will not see the error. Only a dedicated one.

I had a headlamp bulb failure a few weeks ag and when I had the car in for a service last week they mentioned that they had seen it had been logged. You wonder what is the point of logging it but not telling you at the time. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

SakoQuad wrote:

Amazing really my 15yr old BMW had this facility as standard!

Bahhh.... my first push bike has this as standard too, if i rode along when it was dark, and the bulb went it alerted me with a sudden darkness and a tree branch hit me in the head  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Reminds me of the old joke about the twin engine airliner which has an engine failure. The captain announces that we are safe as the plane can fly on one engine but we will arrive two hours late. Paddy says "if we lose the other one we could be up here all night!" 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

I jumped in the car yesterday evening and "no headlights"

The Freelander halogen headlamp bulb failure issue is well known, so I checked the bulbs and sure enough both had failed (In fact they had both lasted for more than a year so they have done well!!) What is slightly alarming, is that the previous day I had travelled 200 miles in heavy rain and poor visibility believing that my headlights were on and nothing to indicate that they were not!!

I know that this is an old thread, but it is remarkable the number of things that our Freelanders will give warn us about but not a bulb failure, apart from the indicators.

Steve

back in the 90's I had 2 Astra GTE's a Calibra and a Carlton and these all had bulb check lights that came on when you turned the key. The brake warning bulb stayed lit until you pressed the brake pedal to check. It was a brilliant system and saved me hassle on more than one occasion.
So why cant they be on modern cars?