I have a feeling that the clutch on my 105,000 mile 07 is beginning to go.
Is there a reliable test?
I have seen the usual 'put it in 3rd gear and let clutch out slowly and the engine should stall immediately" but. I am wondering if the fact that because of the high torque of the FL2 engine this may not be a reliable test? Tattoos - Why would you choose to look like the wall of a public toilet?

Find a road where you can drive along happily in 6th gear, a very slight upwards incline, maybe, dual carriage way is ideal and keep steady around 2000rpm and then try to accelerate hard, if the clutch has wear or flywheel has a fault you will see the engine revs increase slightly momentarily say up 500rpm on the rev counter as well as hear the engine revs go up, then fall back to normal as the clutch bites again.

Thank you for the reply - what you describe is exactly what has happened a couple of times over the last few months so it looks as though I will have to get a few quotes! Tattoos - Why would you choose to look like the wall of a public toilet?

Happened on mine, it wasnt the actual clutch plate that was worn but the clutch auto adjuster not auto adjusting as it sticks, sometimes you might be lucky and it might free itself off until the next time it needs to adjust again.
Mine started acting up at 50000
Whatever, the clutch has to come out to fix the fault properly.
But as yours has done over 100000 on the clutch it could well be due to wear also

When my clutch was failing it didn't slip when racing in gear but was awkward to pull away or reverse. When I had to reverse it would frequently stall unless I dipped the clutch pedal. I ignored it until it decided to fail when I was in Torquay at traffic lights in a one way street resulting in me blocking the road. There was six cars behind me moaning but none of them would help me push my Freelander out of the way. I went around the corner to a quick fit garage who helped push couldn't thank them enough for there help as 2 tones is very heavy to push alone.

A good test i find is to do as above with the slight incline etc, but use 5th..

The gear before top gear (i.e. 5th) will be 1:1 with the engine so the rev counter needle and the speed needle should increase at exactly the same rate.. if the RPM needle goes uo faster than the speed then your clutch is slipping.. MY2011 Freelander 2 GS Santorini Black
MY2004 Freelander 1 Sport Java Black
MY1986 Defender 90 Stornoway Grey - Fully Rebuilt this Year

while the clutch is out, get the DMF checked/replaced

budget around £700-£900 for clutch/DMF/slave cylinder replacement depending on the garage you go to

don't use LR dealer as their costs are close to £1300 to do the job.

Browny90 wrote:

A good test i find is to do as above with the slight incline etc, but use 5th..

The gear before top gear (i.e. 5th) will be 1:1 with the engine so the rev counter needle and the speed needle should increase at exactly the same rate.. if the RPM needle goes uo faster than the speed then your clutch is slipping..

I have those symptoms as well but while the revs seem to rise those 500rpm or so, the car still accelerates. 65K miles on the clock.
I have had clutch slip on other vehicles and while the revs rose the vehicle didn't accelerate and if you kept your "foot in" the revs would just continue to rise up & up. My rev counter needle seems to come back to where it should be after a few seconds so I'm going to suck it and see for a while longer.
Oh, and mine seems more prone to this when it's very cold. Doesn't do it so much when everything has warmed up. MY13 Santorini Black SD4 HSE

Black tiger
I think you may be right, I will keep an eye on it as the revs do drop back to what you would expect after a second or two. Tattoos - Why would you choose to look like the wall of a public toilet?

Dorsetfreelander
The test using second gear - what were you told to look for? Tattoos - Why would you choose to look like the wall of a public toilet?