My car is a Land Rover Freelander 2 HSE TD4 2008.

On Monday 26th August my car broke down, on the road from Lourdes towards Pau, in France. The traffic was slow. The previous day we had journeyed from Andorra to Lourdes across the mountain passes of the Pyrenees. During this part of the Journey, the car gave a little shudder, twice. I thought nothing of it.

When the car broke down, it was simply a case of the engine cutting out, and the car rolling forward to a standstill, with no power steering and no power assisted braking. An immediate attempt to restart the car, at the side of the road failed. After 5 mins , I tried again and the car started as normal and off we drove. Five minutes later, the engine cut out again, and we glided to the side of the road. An immediate attempt to restart the car failed, again. But, wait five minutes, and off we drove with the engine sounding quite normal. I decided to drive into the next garage A.S.A.P. We found a Norauto garage ( a bit like a a few miles down the road. I parked the car near the service bays, and the manager kindly let his engineers work on the car. A mechanic drove the car into the workshop. There seemed to br nothing wrong with the car. No error codes were detected. Then the car just stopped. No error codes. Then 3 mechanics got to work. I authorised the fitting of a new Diesel fuel filter, just in case the Shell top grade fuel I bought in Andorra was dirty. The fuel was pulled through by a machine, and the engine re started. The TDC sensor was pulled off, cleaned and replaced. The fuel flow from the diesel tank was checked by removing the feed to the filter and throttling the engine. It was OK. All seemed to be good. So I drove round the industrial estate and back to the garage, and then we set off for our campsite. The cut out happened again and then we set off again (after the 5 minutes rest) and finally the engine cut out on a roundabout. So, we called the RAC European Assistance number.

The car was taken to a garage in Pau, France, by a recovery truck. The garage there said it was working properly. After all, it was driven off the recovery vehicle by their mechanic. No error codes on the OBD11 reader. Your car is working fine, said the mechanic. Just wait, I told the mechanics. A few minutes later, the engine just stopped. The mechanic tried to restart the engine. I said he needed to wait 5-10 minutes, and it will fire up just like normal, and it did.

The above scenario was repeated at a Diesel/Bosch specialist (but, not a proper Land Rover Garage), in Tarbes, near the Pyrenees. They quoted €900 to change the fuel pump and replace the fuel filter. This was changed to
€850 when I informed them the Filter was changed the day before! Anyway, the fuel pump was changed, and that did not solve the problem (but charged €1200 ish ). Apparently, they also removed and tested the High Pressure fuel pump, and removed and tested the fuel injectors .... ????

On Friday 25th October , my car was repatriated, and is now on my drive.

So, is anyone out there who can tell me what is wrong with my car, and how to fix it?

I would be most grateful for any thoughts on this unsolvable problem. Richard  Freelander 2 HSE. Santorini Black. Roof Rack, Running Board, Auto.

I can't help I'm afraid, but I hope someone else can. That sounds frustrating, and scary. FL2 TD4 GS 60 reg Facelift - so many issues
2019 DS. Terribly unreliable.
Sold DS for a 2021 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Fingers crossed....
Sold Outlander for a 2014 SD4 SE Tech because I’m mental
Now greatly regret selling the Outlander. MPG of the FL2 is atrocious and so are the fuel bills. Fun though 😎
Couldn’t afford the fuel bills so back to an older Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Significantly better than I remembered it to be…

all the symptoms of crank sensor,ive experienced this kind of fault on other vehicles at the roadside ,with and without fault codes,crank sensors will fail and then car will restart and sometimes go for days without reoccurring .any way yove got to start somewhere.£10 upwards

oops ive just seen that's been done?or just cleaned ?

My brother-in-law had a similar behaviour many moons ago with his petrol Jag x-type. Turned out to be a fuel hose that collapsed when warm thereby starving the engine of fuel. As it cooled (after a few minutes), the hose returned to normal cross-section and would allow the engine to start and run for a few minutes until the hose warmed up and collapsed again... and repeat. Took some finding.

Similar problems that I have read about on forum seem to point to using the correct type of fuel filter.

Read the 2nd post in link by alex pescaru

https://www.freel2.com/forum/topic33989.ht...uel+filter

It is hard to think of much which so accurately temperature sensitive and stops the engine with no trace of error codes. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 79k+ miles) (MY2015)
Metro in its 11th Year of (Extended) LR Warranty / Full LR Service History
(Expensive, but Trouble/Worry free - hopefully?)

Last edited by IanMetro on 27th Oct 2019 8:51 pm. Edited 1 time in total

I had exactly the same symptoms on my wife’s Diesel Golf last year. I had to drive to her work, swap cars and attempted to drive it home. Same as yours, ran for 5 minutes or so, cut out, wouldn’t restart, waited a while, started etc etc. In the end I called the AA to get me home. When the AA came, turned out we had a mutual friend and got chatting while waiting for the car to cut out and sure enough, it did. He went to his laptop, entered the car and symptoms and it came back with a possible cause based on previous problems. It told us to check a certain relay under the steering wheel and it even gave us the location and markings on the relay. He gave it a wiggle while it was in the non-starting phase and it fired up straight away. It was the ignition control relay that was overheating. Just a generic one and he replaced it with a secondhand one he had in his box of bits that he'd robbed off of a scrap car. That got me home and the next day I bought the correct one from VW and it cost just £14. Perhaps there's a similar relay that’s overheating on the FL2? Perhaps try swapping identical relays about? Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
Evoque SD4 Dynamic Lux Auto
Present: Audi A3 S Line.

sid wrote:

all the symptoms of crank sensor,ive experienced this kind of fault on other vehicles at the roadside ,with and without fault codes,crank sensors will fail and then car will restart and sometimes go for days without reoccurring .any way yove got to start somewhere.£10 upwards

DubVulture wrote:

My brother-in-law had a similar behaviour many moons ago with his petrol Jag x-type. Turned out to be a fuel hose that collapsed when warm thereby starving the engine of fuel. As it cooled (after a few minutes), the hose returned to normal cross-section and would allow the engine to start and run for a few minutes until the hose warmed up and collapsed again... and repeat. Took some finding.

Yikes ... i'd better check that out ... . Thanks for the tip. Richard Freelander 2 HSE. Santorini Black. Roof Rack, Running Board, Auto.

Richard H wrote:

It was cleaned with a cloth .... I might just get it changed ....

Crank Sensor or possible could be the Relucter Ring. I’d go with crank sensor first. Search Relucter Ring, it has been known, it has been known eclectically with having no fault code. p****d off with a Digital Keyboard Warrior

Chuckalicious wrote:

I can't help I'm afraid, but I hope someone else can. That sounds frustrating, and scary.

It is !!!!!!  Freelander 2 HSE. Santorini Black. Roof Rack, Running Board, Auto.

alex_pescaru wrote:

Richard H wrote:

It was cleaned with a cloth .... I might just get it changed ....

Change it, alright!

Cheers, Alex.  Freelander 2 HSE. Santorini Black. Roof Rack, Running Board, Auto.

Chuckalicious wrote:

I can't help I'm afraid, but I hope someone else can. That sounds frustrating, and scary.

.... It is ... scary !  Freelander 2 HSE. Santorini Black. Roof Rack, Running Board, Auto.

ad210358 wrote:

Crank Sensor or possible could be the Relucter Ring. I’d go with crank sensor first. Search Relucter Ring, it has been known, it has been known eclectically with having no fault code.