To be fair to the garage they have always said they will resolve this. It's just taking a painfully long amount of time. They had the car for 10 days for the original "same day" diff repair and then another 10 days just to flush the Haldex. Now it's not getting collected until the weekend, so I doubt I'll get it back next week, it wouldn't surprise me if it's August before I get my car back on the road following a straight forward nose bearing repair that should have been completed middle of June.

I had planned on doing some rust prevention work this month ready for winter as well as removing the swirl flaps. Next month I will be flat out at work so won't have any spare time from then until October.

To be fair to yourself Andy, you suggested oils seal failure in your first post, and this was something I very much suspected, but the garage told me they had removed the Haldex and there was no leak. But now I'm not convinced they took the Haldex off.

[quote="CED"]As a complete novice regarding these matters I feel I must be missing something. All this faffing about filling and draining is not going to be done on the production line. There must be a set amount of oil to add , end of story. Please correct my thinking.[/quote

You may be correct but this is page 326 of the JLR workshop manual

Click image to enlarge

Landy64 wrote:

As a complete novice here and reading this post i am confused.

Is one after filling the Haldex and running the engine for 5 mins to extract 70ml or not???

If what's been said regarding Volvo and Bell then why has LR not updated its procedure on this or are they totally different units made to suit the vehicle/s?

Very confusing to say the least...

While the Haldex unit itself is pretty much the same between Volvo/Audi/LandRover etc the differential housing, which is where the fill plug is, is completely different and unique to the Freelander/Evoque, so we don't know how the location of the Freelander fill plug relates to the quantity of fluid in the unit, it may be quite different to a Volvo.

Additionally Audi and Volvo have a way in their diagnostics to make the Haldex run through a series of cycles to bleed the Haldex of air, part of the process involves listening to the Haldex pump and waiting until it runs completely smoothly as this indicates air is no longer circulating in the system. Then you top up the unit, this will likely result in a very precise fill quantity. When you fill a Freelander Haldex and run the engine for 5mins the only thing that operates is the Haldex pump and then for only a few seconds at a time. The valves and clutches are not cycled so it is possible that small amounts of air could remain in some parts of the system until the car is driven and the system goes through all the different cycles, so the fill amount may be less certain.

Personally I would follow the Landrover procedure. I'm sure they came up with it the way it is for good reason, they are unlikely to have added the additional step of removing 70ml just to make life a bit more awkward. But also I doubt that the level is actually super critical. Provided the pump is getting fluid and there is sufficient remaining fluid in the unit to splash around to lubricate the bearings and clutches and then find it's way back to the sump for the pump I can't see the amount being mega critical. After all it has to still work on different inclines where the fluid won't be level anyway and at different speeds the amount of fluid splashed around will vary. The only thing that tends to be important is not over filling as parts that need to drain can't drain and this can put extra pressure on the seals. Or the level being so low that the pump gets starved or not enough splash takes place. But that's just me speculating.

As an aside regarding draining a Haldex in situ. If you remove the ECU from the haldex you can pull out the solenoid control valve. Then if you plug the valve and pump motor back into the now removed ECU and run the engine the Haldex pump will pump the fluid out of the hole where the valve normally is. If all you want to do is a periodic fluid change this is very easy, just two bolts. But of course it doesn't allow you to change or clean any of the filters.

This may well be a good interim move,
as when mine was change by Austin the bigger issue appears to be the oil degrading, DAVE.

merlinj79 wrote:

That's when I did mine for the first time (122K miles), it never gave me any trouble. I live in San Diego so similar climate to Oz.

Careful removing the prop shaft bolts, I sheared one off. Use a heat gun (or gentle heat with a torch) to help loosen them.