Hey folks, really hoping for some advice / guidance with this please

A few weeks ago on my way home from work MY 07 FL2 Auto slowly came to a stop on the motorway long story short
The lift / low pressure fuel pump in the tank failed.

The in tank pump was replaced by my independant LR chap, and alas after changing the pump, they could not get it to start.
However it would start fine no problem when tested with the aid of easy start

After speaking with another Freelander specialist (details found c/o online) apparently its not uncommon if the lift (in tank) Fuel pump fails it can also take out the high pressure fuel pump in the engine Typical just my luck! Can anyone else verify if this is correct / can happen / or happen to them please? Or am i going to pay for something which doesn't need changing?

Fast forward again to last week, the replacement High pressure fuel pump (finally) arrives and gets fitted, but it still fails to start

Has anyone got any ideas, anything at all, I would be extremely grateful as been without the FL2 for nearly a month now

Thanks in advance

Tom

The in tank pump is not a lift pump. Due to the tanks shape because it sits over the top of the propshaft it requires an in tank pump to transfer fuel from one side to the other. If it fails it means that the Freelander can still have half a tank of fuel but will drain the other half of the tank and then the engine will die from lack of fuel. The pump itself can suffer from wiring faults so it would be worth checking that the new pump is actually working as it should. A quick way to check would be to ignore what the fuel gauge is reading and put a jerry can of fuel in the car to top it up. If the intank pump is faulty the car should still start once the tank has been topped up and the fuel filter has been bled. Good luck!

And if the fuel system has run out of fuel or if the pipe work has been disconnected the system will need manually bleeding (priming).

Richard FL2 07 TD4 GS Auto
Ex 02 TD4 Auto

First things first - is your car diesel or petrol? The petrol version does have an electric fuel pump, but as stated above the diesel's fuel pump is mechanical and driven by one of the engine's camshafts (exhaust if I remember correctly).

The following assumes your car is diesel. In principle the electronics should prevent the engine running out of fuel by first dropping it into limp mode, then by shutting it down if the fuel gets too low. This ensures that the fuel doesn't run out completely and should negate the need for bleeding the system, etc. So if there's sufficient fuel in the tank the engine should be able to start. I would add fuel (to ensure there's plenty available even if there's still a problem with the in-tank pump) and try again.

Next step would be to check for fault codes - it may be that the primary fault wasn't the in-tank pump and there's something else going on, and the codes may tell you what.

There is a Technical Service Bulletin for the well-known fuel tank wiring problem - Search on here will find it.
The symptom with this problem is that the car thinks it has no fuel and the gauge drops to just above zero and the satnav tries to route you to the nearest fuel station. Luckily for me, when I had this problem the gauge / range soon shot back up again but after 3 occurences I took it to LR who fixed it dirt cheap under goodwill. I do know that, in some cases, the fuel gauge / range has not shot back up again and the car has gone into limp mode or shut down.

As the fellas above state, no lift pump in the diesel tank and bleeding the system can be difficult. FL2 HSE Auto Galway Green
Evoque SD4 Auto Blue.
FL1 HSE TD4 Manual Black - Gone.
RR Classic V8 EFI - Gone

@ DonDiddy
apologies me using the term lift pump.

I put fuel (diesel) in from Supermarket the evening before i had the issue

To rule out the possiblity of bad fuel (this happened on a previous disco when supermarket diesel was used) 2Jerry cans of new diesel have been put in the tank and the fuel filter was also changed and bled.

@ Seagull1
Yes bled and primed - yet fires up with easy start but not under its own steam

@ Pab
Apologies yes diesel if fogot to mention at the start but please see above

@ Pedro
If I recall correctly, just before i came to a stop while i was slowing down I checked and the gauge was reading 64 miles of fuel in the tank. No occurrences of the fuel gauge playing up
Could this still be the wiring issue you mentioned?

As far as I am aware there are no fault codes, but will check with the garage in the morning

Hi all thank you for you replies, anyone else had this or a very similar issue, or can shed any light on how it was fixed?

Thanks again

Tom

I had the 'fuel gauge problem', the FL2 thinks that it is short of fuel and either goes into 'limp home mode', or shuts down, to protect the fuel pump from running dry and un-lubricated.

Details of LR notice in this link.
http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic32373.htm...gage+guage FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 79k+ miles) (MY2015)
Metro in its 11th Year of (Extended) LR Warranty / Full LR Service History
(Expensive, but Trouble/Worry free - hopefully?)

I have managed to run completely out of fuel in a FL2 in the past - rear end shunt had upset the fuel gauges which occasionally showed range with very little fuel onboard.
anyway the AA couldn't get her restarted even with two jerry cans of fuel added to the tank - towed to a dealer, who bled the system properly and she fired up OK - so no damage to high pressure pump.

On cranking the system should show the pressure in the high pressure rail if not then I would suspect the high pressure pump.
As an aside, the car will go into limp mode with less than 12 (20?) miles left in the tank. It will shut down when range reaches zero - irrespective of actual fuel in tank. And WILL NOT restart until it is happy that it measures that you have put at least 10 litres back in the tank, note I did not say that you had put 10 litres in, it has to be convinced that you have put 10 litres in - so check the range. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

cars ! too "clever" by half these days


It would really help if the car actually bothered to tell you why it was going into limp mode/shutting down with a short information sentence like:

"You've run out of fuel, you muppet"


Mind you, if Boeing cant get information systems right then there is little hope for the rest of us. Jules

Generally the car will tell you via the fault codes, but you need the right equipment to read them as not all parameters are available to generic readers. With the right equipment you can also monitor various parameters in real time so, for example, you can see the fuel rail pressure as the engine is trying to start (assuming it's getting as far as actually cranking). Real time monitoring can also show up problems with various engine sensors and other components and in the right hands can generally pinpoint faults fairly quickly.

The one that really gets up my nose is blown bulbs.

The car CPU turns on the lamps using transistors on the actual circuit board and measures the current, too little and it knows the bulb has blown, too much and it knows there is a wiring fault and shuts down the transistor.
But considering how dangerous blown brake lights can be, and the number of cars with defective lights, that the car knows if a lamp is out and why it's out, and the manufacturer doesn't display this on the central display that 99% of modern cars have seems to be a cavalier attitude to all our safety.

Rant over

But yes it's not difficult to incorporate the diagnostics into the dash display, but why would you ever visit a franchised dealer if the car could tell you in plain English what was wrong. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

I cannot understand why the info display does not have a plain English list of recorded faults available.

Surely the customer should be given the information in an understandable format and allowed into the decision loop.

Modern processing of data and a little artificial intelligence makes this an easy task.

Not knowing the extent of a cars underlying problems could be seen as a safety issue, and probably is. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 79k+ miles) (MY2015)
Metro in its 11th Year of (Extended) LR Warranty / Full LR Service History
(Expensive, but Trouble/Worry free - hopefully?)

Thanks folks esp Pab! will keep you posted as the saga continues

I had the fuel tank issue a while back. Fixed the fault and after re assembly poured clean diesel into the intake side of the fuel filter.
Car started no problem. Hope this helps.  Now at the point when I learn something new something old is lost out the other side !
Now retired so it doesn't matter anymore.
Freelander now gone.