Hello,
New to the forum here so hi to everyone!

I have a Freelander 2, and I love my car. I'm fully aware of all the 'quirks' that come with owing a Land Rover having owned a few disco's before this car.

I have a slight issue with my gearbox / oil leaking.

Its an auto, 2007, 156K miles. I've had it 2 years now.

When I drive, there’s a noise, only a quiet one, like its over rev'ing, and a small smooth jerk when it changes gear (also a small delay when it changes gear). There’s also what I can only describe as a 'ticking' noise, like a rotating drum slowing down when I go downhill and am not on the accelerator. Husband can’t hear this and swears I'm going mad, but honestly it’s there!

3/4 weeks ago we topped up the gearbox oil. Then again last week. It seems to solve the issue for a short while but the noise and bad gear changes comes back. There’s leaked oil all over my radiator at the front, but not on the floor below, which to say how much its going through (at £40/litre) is odd.

So my questions are 2-fold.

We've been using land rover spec'd oil. Has anyone used Dexron 3 ATF oil instead? (husband is curious about that - apparently they are the same spec oil, but the ATF is cheaper).

Obviously I have a leak somewhere, but any ideas on what the typical leakage areas are? Husband has a business fixing discovery’s but not Freelander’s, so he knows a whole lot more than me, but is still not sure what it could be.

Could it be the oil reservoir that’s leaking? Is that common? Or a seal?

I have no idea if this is the original gear box or a second one, or if its been refurbished.

I’ve read in a few places that the oil needs changing every 10-30k miles (actual opinion seems to vary), but I can’t seem to find anything that tells me what the typical problems are when there’s a problem with leaking oil.

Any help would be hugely appreciated! I love my car and I don’t want it to go to the scrap yard in the sky just yet!!

Take it to autobox specialist as you are going to do more harm than good clutching at straws as loosing oil will do irrepable harm if not dealt with. They will inform you if it’s a economical repair but free advice from garages seems to be hard to find these days and maybe rightfully so. FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Oil should be changed at around 70k (LR suggest 150k but by then it's WAY too late), it's a pain to change unless you have the machine that removes the old oil and fills with new oil in one operation. Do-able just time consuming.

The oil is very specific, using the wrong grade can quite quickly junk the gearbox.

Oil leaks from Freelanders are a lot rarer than the rest of the Land Rovers, so help on that is going to be less forthcoming.
If the oil is not being thrown about it suggests it isn't getting past the drive shafts. There is a heat exchanger, near the front of the car, if this develops a leak it could spray oil forwards to the radiator. Maybe jet wash the engine bay (avoiding electrical bits) to give a better chance of spotting the leak. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

If the leak is at the front then my money would be on the heat exchanger area as well.

There are a couple of long threads on here about the different ATF that you can use - Get searching!

I have a 2010 and use the Toyota T-IV which is about £12.50 per litre and some on here use other stuff which is even cheaper than that.

Oh and welcome to the forum - Please feed back when you have solved the problem so that others can benefit  FL2 HSE Auto Galway Green
Evoque SD4 Auto Blue.
FL1 HSE TD4 Manual Black - Gone.
RR Classic V8 EFI - Gone