My 2009 Freelander has done 80K miles and was one of the export vehicles fitted with a DPF before they were fitted as standard in the UK.

As is well known, some of these early vehicles have DPF issues and I was finding that the dreaded limp mode was becoming a more frequent occurrence and I suspected that the DPF was full beyond the ability to perform an active regeneration.

As my nearest LR dealer is over 2.5 hours away and I suspect I can’t afford their charges, plus I managed to find a new, genuine LR DPF for a reasonable price, I decided I would change the DPF out myself and hopefully get at least a couple of trouble free DPF motoring years !...If only….

Living in rural France means either driving everywhere as if I have just committed a bank robbery which makes my wife car sick on the winding roads when over-taking tractors or driving for 30 minutes to get to the nearest motorway and then paying the motorway toll in order to perform an active regeneration at motorway speeds / rpms only to find that the regeneration hasn’t occurred !

I am hoping a new DPF might actually result in the “20 minutes at speeds of not less than 30 mph (48 km/h)” once the required engine temperature is reached as stated in Landrover’s Technical Training Manual as opposed to an hour on the motorway in order for an active regeneration to be successful.

I wanted to share the process I adopted in case anyone else is thinking of having a new DPF fitted, but can’t afford the dealer prices for this. The DPF replacement can be conducted without any special tools, and doesn’t require any particularly high level of mechanical aptitude.

If you lay off the pies for a week, it is possible to change the DPF without having to raise the car particularly high. I raised the front just 10-12 cms….because that was the thickness of the bits of strong oak I had ready to hand.

I started by removing the cross member support by undoing the four 10mm bolts, this makes it a lot easier to reach and release the high pressure and low pressure rubber hoses between the two sections of stainless tubing forming part of the differential pressure monitoring system. Changing the DPF is a good time to change these short hose sections as well as they commonly perish. I didn’t find it necessary to remove the skid plate.

Release the wiring for the pressure sensor from the frame that holds the two front DPF rubber suspension grommets and then remove this body hanger frame held by two 10mm bolts. This allows better access to the three 13mm nuts on the flange between the DPF and the catalytic converter, “better” is a decidedly relative term however and access is not great….but hey ho ! I wish they had put the studs on the catalytic converter side of the flange and the nuts on the easy to get to side….but that would be too logical.

Free up the collar clamp (Torca joint) holding the other end of the DPF in the mid section of the exhaust (rear connecting pipe). I had to clean mine up with a wire brush, and then heat the nut with a blow torch and loosed it using a spanner while it was still hot before the nut contracted. A few judicious blows with a hammer should release the semi-circular spacer above the nut that then allows the collar to be loosened. A simple DIY propane blow lamp is perfectly adequate for this process as the nut should not need heating up until it is red hot.

Access to the collar is much easier if the section of heat shield is removed from the DPF first.

Despite cleaning up the nuts on the DPF / catalytic convertor and using a penetrating spray for a couple of consecutive days prior to the new DPF arriving, there was no way these nuts were going to come undone before my knuckles were bleeding and so I decided early on to cut to the chase and to cut the nuts and studs off using a metal cutting wheel sold by Dremel, in fact I have a Proxxon tool but they fit just as well. I used a fresh cutting wheel for each nut as they aren’t expensive and it is better than having one fracture.

The two bottom nuts can be cut flush with the upper face of the flange (the non mating face) without too much difficulty. The upper nut is very difficult to reach but can be reached by holding the cutting tool parallel to the catalytic converter. Even from this position it was not possible to cut the stud through flush with the upper surface of the flange. If you cut through the nut however on a diagonal that should release enough tension for the nut to be easily undone afterward.

Removing the sheet of heat shield between the DPF and the prop shaft helps for the upper nut and only takes a minute.

The studs and nuts are a different metal from the flange itself, this leads to dis-similar metal corrosion, which is exacerbated by the large changes in temperature experienced by the exhaust components and so you may well find that cutting off the nuts offers a significant time saving. The downside of this is that if you want to sell the old DPF to someone else to re-condition then they would need to drill out and weld three new studs. Not the end of the world, but it may reduce the re-sale value.

If you decide to cut the nuts and studs off in the same manner please be careful to keep the cutting discs centered in the cut as the discs are very thin and if you re-enter a cut at an angle they may break. I used mine at between 9 and 11K rpm. I also keep my finger on the “off” switch on my Proxxon tool at all time when cutting these nuts without having the benefit of a clear view, or any view at all in fact, of how the cut was progressing.

Once all three flange studs are free, lower the DPF enough to ensure the cut ends of the studs are free from the face of the flange and don’t scratch it when you are wiggling the other end of the DPF free from the mid section of the exhaust.

Remove the third rubber grommet that holds the DPF, I found it easier to remove the actual bracket that holds the rubber grommet. Support the mid section of the exhaust whilst wiggling the DPF free to avoid stressing the silencer connection at the rear of the car.

My replacement DPF had some rust on the mild steel flange face and so I cleaned this up using fine wet and dry paper (400 grit and then 600), making sure that the DPF front aperture is suitably blocked with a scrunched up tax demand letter whilst cleaning the flange face.

Clean and dress the other flange face on the catalytic converter as best as possible, paying particular attention to where the metal gasket will be positioned.

I took the opportunity to fit a new temperature sensor because I didn’t reckon on my chances of getting the old one out without damaging it. I also added some protection around the temperature sensor wires where there are held in a metal clip on part of the heat shielding as I found that the old wires had nearly abraded through at this point.

I used high temperature copper grease (rated to over 1000° C) on the simple push fit and clamp male / female join between the DPF and the mid section exhaust / rear connecting pipe. I would suggest that nothing is used on the DPF / catalytic converter flange as the metal gasket should give an as good a metal to metal seal as is needed.

Fitting the new DPF is quite easy as the hardest part of removing the old one is getting the end free from the mid section of the exhaust and with the copper grease, this is easy to refit. I removed the heat shield from the down stream end of the DPF as this makes it far easier to tighten up the Torca collar clamp. This heat shield is fitted using five Torx screws.

If you struggle to separate the DPF from the exhaust pipe, then it should be simple enough to remove the rubber grommets on the rear muffler and drop the whole exhaust and take the unit out from underneath the car and separate the two with a bit more space to twist and pull the two apart.

Torque values for the three nuts on the DPF / Cataytic converter flange are somewhat irrelevant in my opinion as I defy anyone to manage to get a torque wrench in there to tighten them. For the purists I believe they should be 25Nm.

Pay attention to which pressure sensor hose goes where because in the Freelander 2 workshop manual the high pressure and low pressure connectors on the pressure sensor itself are wrongly annotated. In fact the hose connector on the pressure sensor unit that is closest to the bulkhead is the high pressure (upstream of the DPF) hose and not the low pressure connector as shown in the workshop manual diagram. If in doubt, the pressure sensor itself is marked “HI” and “REF” where I assume “REF” refers to the close to ambient DPF downstream pressure.

After changing the DPF, I suspected that you have to let the ECU know, I hope to use a function on my Icarsoft LR2 OBD tool to do this and to clear the OBD codes associated with the old unit. This should also allow the ECU to reset the distance between regenerations in case the readings from the differential pressure sensor don’t trigger a regeneration.

All in all, not a particularly difficult job as it turned out, it took about half a day but quite a lot of that was what most of us refer to as “critical preparation and planning” and what my wife refers to as having tea breaks and a smoke !

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Thanks for taking time to post up .

Mark 2009 FL2 TD4 SE (Sadly gone)
2007 FL2 TD4 GS (The wifes , gone after 8 great years)
2012 FL2 SD4 SPORT LE(Gone and missing it)
2015 DISCOVERY SPORT 2.2SD4 HSE (Now gone)
2014 Ford Bmax 1.0 ecoboost ( Gone but what next )
2014 Ford Focus 2.0tdci Zetec S (Gone,but what a car)
2020 Ford Fiesta ActiveX 1.0 Ecoboost
2024 Skoda Kodiaq 1.5 Tsi SEL

Nice write up. Thanks. "Critical preparation and planning". I like that.  Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
Evoque SD4 Dynamic Lux Auto
Present: Audi A3 S Line.

Thanks for the detailed post.

Well done and very interesting. What did the DPF cost you ? FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Nice one, " the scrunched up tax demand letter" was classic

Excellent write up too  09 FL2 GS TD4e Current
16 DS HSE Black Current
13 FL2 GS TD4
11 FL2 GS TD4
10 FL2 XS TD4
56 FL1 TD4
72 S3, 6cyl 109 Truck Cab

An excellent write-up thank you!

Hi Yorky Bob

It was £400

Cheers Martin

Beautiful work. Thanks mate.