My wife and I purchased a 57 reg Freely a few months ago from Marshall Land Rover up North and had it delivered down. The car's been great although recently my wife says there have been some strange noises coming from the gearbox - clunking or something like that. It's in at Landrover Wimbledon now to be looked at and they say that to test it, the oil has to be changed which we have to pay £200 for. If the problem persists then the gearbox will likely need to be replaced which would be covered under warranty. We bought the car with 18 months of what I think is the select warranty and I think it has about 60k miles on it.

I just want to check that LR Wimbledon's first call suggestion of replacing the gearbox oil at £200 sounds like appropriate action before I tell them to go ahead and do it. Been stung by dealerships before and am wary to sign off on bills on a car that is meant to have a warranty (of course I realise oil comes as a consumable).

Its under warranty so I would not be handing any money over, if they say in order for them to test it they have to replace the oil well thats a cost to them as its only way to test for a faulty worn gear box. If its ok after an oil change then I would be prepared to meet them halfway for the cost of the oil.

Also if you have bought it on finance the Finance company is also responcable to get it sorted as the car is not fit for purpose dont let a dealership cal the shots. HSE TD4 Stornoway Grey ★ Rear Spoiler ★ Black Leather Interior ★ Panoramic Roof ★ Navigation with Bluetooth ★ 19 " Alloys ★ Alpine Stereo 10 Disc Auto changer and Ipod connection and lots of other nice toys ★

For my money if it is close to the interval that LR say it needs an oil change, then why not?

The rub is I didn't thnk there was a suggested interval for gearbox oil change on a 57 auto FL2. ie leave it in till the gearbox fails!
Similar gearbox fitted to other manufacturers cars require an oil change every 60K, so someones got it wrong.
Personally mines coming up to 100K so I am going to replace mine very soon.
A local LR dealer wanted over £300 to change the oil so £200 sounds like a bargain. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

Thanks for all the feedback. We went for the oil change in the end but got the price down a bit. I'm a bit unclear about things but my wife said that she was told the noise was quite common and nothing to be worried about. They did say that should thing go awry with the geabox, they would reimburse us. One thing that I thought was really strange and only found out about afterwards was that they charged my wife for the courtesy vehicle. Not much, only about £25 and she had it for three days but still, I was very surprised. I've had beemers before and never had to pay for a courtesy vehicle.

Some garages charge for the insurance cover on loan cars, some say you have to replace the fuel used and some don't charge for anything

Welcome to the club Spanky. I've had the clutch done at 52,000 miles, so doesn't make any sense to go manual either. Just accept it's a part of being a Land Rover and it will make the £1000 bills easier to swallow. Next job is to sort out the drivers window, seems like the motor. Done the boot switch and a couple of other things like parking sensors, rear brake light that washed the parcel shelf instead of back window. Slow cranking when cold is another job, extra earth strap mod imminent. Vibrates like 1500-2000 rpm. You are not alone believe me. Funny thing is I'm always on the local dealers website looking for another. Thing is I like the 57 SE. It's not a bad car, just annoying sometimes. 07 SE manual, Narvick black.

Just had a courtesy vehicle (Evoke) for a few hours: No charge (there appeared to be a couple of small charges on the form but he ignored them). However there was a £1000 excess, with quite a steep daily fee for the waiver, which I refused. Maybe the waiver is what your wife was charged for.