On recovering a boat on a trailer on hard sand the front wheels just turned and started to sink. I tried a few of the settings without much success. The trailer was pulled up the beach by a tractor and l was embarrassed. This is a new car to me and l tried it in the sport manual gear 1 mode and some of the others. What am l doing wrong so all wheel turn.

All wheels should turn or 'drive' every time you move off as the Freelander 2 starts of in 4 wheel drive from a standstill. Did you try any of the terrain response settings, sand for example? What is the history of the car, how long have you had it, haldex been serviced etc? Any warning messages on the dash to indicate 4x4 not working?
Assume its not an ED4 model with 2 wheel drive as standard? Landrover - turning owners into mechanics since 1948

2014 Orkney grey Freelander SD4 GS.
2004 Zambezi silver Discovery 2 Td5 (Gone)
1963 Surf blue Morris Mini Minor Super de Luxe (my little toy)

You say "hard sand". Was this wet send near the edge of the water? It's not a hard surface at all, more of a non-Newtonian fluid if it's damp and if by digging down a few inches you get water in the hole.

No amount of terrain response modes will get you out of what is essentially "sticky water". Current driveway contents:
2021 V60 Cross Country B5
2009 FL2 dog bus and shooting wagon

On Order: 2023 Fisker Ocean Ultra - deposit paid.

sand mode locks the haldex to permanent 4WD doesnt it ? happy to be corrected though.

but if im right then in sand mode all 4 wheels should have been spinning, even it was just to dig themselves deeper into the sand ??

OP states just front wheels spinning all the time, which suggests no power going to the rear. Could that be because there was not enough slip detected to engage the Haldex, or because the Haldex is faulty

I’d say that if the front wheels were spinning enough to dig themselves holes that there was enough slip front to back for the system to detect and the system to ask for AWD. Perhaps the spline to the IRB that drives the propshaft has failed?

As mentioned, car starts in 4WD. When leaving home I have an uphill hairpin turn I have to give way at. Even in wet weather have never been able to spin a wheel other than the one time I removed the fuse in the boot. That was a new experience on the Freelander.

Even on sand the car basically works in normal drive mode. If the sand looks dodgy, yes, put it in sand mode, but most of the time it's not needed. Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

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Many thanks to you all. The information asked for was the sand was very firm and only after front wheel spin did it dig in a few inches. The car is a 2014 auto HSE 40k mileage full service history one owner. I’m sure it is me not doing something but l did notice the diagram on the screen showed blue front wheels so l presume this is telling me that the drive is only to the front wheels.