Hello All!

So I am now the proud owner of a Freelander 2 HSE 2007 Diesel Automatic in Zermatt Silver. At 103,000 miles and in immaculate condition inside and out, I am delighted with my purchase. I've about 6 years of previous Disco3 ownership under my belt which always kept me awake at night with cost – but love the brand, drive and image… and hoping that on the whole, the freelander is more reliable and easier on the wallet!

The car drives beautifully with only one or two wee niggles, so a couple of things to seek wisdom on from the Freel2 collective!

Noise / yap / slip: The car has an intermittent noise / feeling to it. Specifically in auto going from 1st to 2nd and once when driving up a hill on what could be 2nd to 3rd as well. It makes a short “yap, yap, yap yap” noise… (not sure if this is the cha cha cha noise I read about – or the others). At the same time it makes that noise, its almost feels (not sure if its my imagination) like a mini skid or slip, perhaps feels like a momentary loss of traction until it settles. If I accelerate harder earlier, it doesn’t make the noise. If I go into command shift and manually go up the gears, it doesn’t make the noise. Sounds like its more passenger side. My wife describes it like a transformer robot noise.

Q: Appreciate there are a number of threads for me to search but if anyone can short circuit this, that would be great!

Fuel gauge: As we were driving up the road from Walsall to Paisley the fuel gage got to half way and stuck there – I stopped and filled up and it took 50 litres, so was much less than half full on a 68l tank. Once full the needle gauge only went up to about 85% and the range counted up slowly over the next couple of minutes. Never seen that in my disco. From searches, it would appear this is a common fault. However – The seller handed me a receipt for £882 worth of work carries out in December 2020, which claims to have found major CAN issues with dashboard / hybrid cluster which was sent away for specialist repair. In addition a Secondary fuel sender was replaced to fix an open circuit and the rear diff was removed and fuel tank dropped, stripped and reassembled. Apparently this cleared the faults and road tested okay… However – given the gauge gets stuck at half way and the range counts up weird – I can only assume the work carried out six month ago either didn’t fix the problem or was done badly.

Q: Any suggestion on either how to fix / live with (ie whats the typical tank range) or what I should expect of the seller or garage to address this?

Maintenance: Was recommended by Nodge68 to make sure the Haldex fluid and filter are changed, along with the rear diff, PTU, and gearbox fluids. So was planning to do this but in the service receipts, I see that this was done in March 2018, so just over 3 years ago. How often do I need to do these? Given the ‘YAP YAP’ noise – I was thinking I might just get these done anyway as this might help cure the noise?

Q: Thoughts on ‘Must do maintenance’ now given the above. Should i do the oils and fluids or save the money for something else?

Modifications: As its an HSE, it has more or less everything I need. I was surprised the Bluetooth connected with my iPhone 12 pro. So any mods will be cosmetic. Front bumper, light cages, steps… all under consideration.

Q: Looking for great mods to make on Silver, so any and all suggestions welcome!

I was a member of Disco3.co.uk and found it to be an amazing resource of collective wisdom – Delighted to see the Freelander 2 community is just as active, knowledgable and helpful. Thanks for having me!

Andy

welcome to the smaller LR madhouse, but hopefully with a lot less bills than a D3 (ive recently switched out of a D4 having achieved my aim of owning and running one for a bit, the Disco really is the best all rounder you could have but you need deep pockets or a big set of spanners for long term ownership )

Hello Andy, I too have just bought an FL2, 2010 HSE auto.
16 years on Disco 1 and Disco 2,
Miss the zDisco 2 but costing too much.
Love my Freelander, had in Taggarts this week for the Landrover offer of full check over, any updates and an oil/filter change for £149 inc vat, too me a good deal and a start on maintenance,
Glad to say only two minor items showed up.
I am sure I read that the distance to empty figures adjust depending on driving technique.
Will need a set of tyres for winter, all down to 4mm.
After the Disco 2 doing about 40 k on tyres the projected FL2 mileage of 25 k is a wee bit off putting.
Love the car.

All the best Jim A
Fl2 HSE 2010 auto
Disco 2Td5 auto 2002 gone
Disci 1 300Tdi auto 1996 gone

Welcome.

Depends what tyres you put on, I currently have 43k miles on a set of general grabber At3. I'd say that they will do another 5 - 10k. 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)

Hello and thanks for the Welcomes!

Lockdown oil service book in for next week @jim

Any thoughts on the 2 issues?

The previous owner has suggested (from his mate at JLR) to disconnect the battery for a couple of hours to 'reset' the fuel gauge issue. Any thoughts on this and what other problems might this cause?

Cheers!

Andy

Andy, the post lockdown service is good. Only problem I had was given to be about 2 hours.
Arrived at 0900 and told possibly 4/5 hours due to volume of vehicles.
Took me 2 hours to get home by buses.
Eventually vehicle ready about 430 and got a taxi back from Howwood.
Two advisories. Abs sensor needs replaced and knock from OSF suspension.
Local guy checked and new wishbone ordered along with new sensor.
No push from Taggarts and excellent staff.
Let us know how you get on Jim A
Fl2 HSE 2010 auto
Disco 2Td5 auto 2002 gone
Disci 1 300Tdi auto 1996 gone

If the previous owner thought he knew how to deal with the fuel gauge, why didn't he sort it?

Hi Sid

I think in fairness to the former keeper... since having the £900 repair done in December, he hasn't really driven it and its been SORN - so he probably never noticed.... either that or he perhaps was reluctant to go back to the garage to refix...

Disconnect battery for a few hours... sounds easy... however what other issues will this give me? Any ideas?

He mentioned "Also that if the gauge is not showing correctly, this can be caused by the sender being taken out of the circuit whilst the ECU is still live, causing the ECU to maintain the level information at the time of the circuit break. I asked if there was a fix for this and, it sounds as if the fuel gauge needs recalibration. This can be achieved by using a Test Book" (or the battery disconnect method...

Anyone know anything about 'test book'?

Cheers!

AC

Test Book was the laptop based diagnostic system used on earlier Rovers. It's not suitable for the Freelander 2 which uses SDD diagnostics.

I recalled that fuel gauge issues with the FL2 were not uncommon, and a search for 'fuel gauge' finds a several threads discussing the fuel sender, and replacement.

Spacebrodie wrote:

Hello All!

Modifications: As its an HSE, it has more or less everything I need. I was surprised the Bluetooth connected with my iPhone 12 pro. So any mods will be cosmetic. Front bumper, light cages, steps… all under consideration.

Q: Looking for great mods to make on Silver, so any and all suggestions welcome!
Andy

once all the niggles are sorted you could have the D posts wrapped,


 DAVE.

JonMs wrote:

Test Book was the laptop based diagnostic system used on earlier Rovers. It's not suitable for the Freelander 2 which uses SDD diagnostics.

SimonB wrote:

I recalled that fuel gauge issues with the FL2 were not uncommon, and a search for 'fuel gauge' finds a several threads discussing the fuel sender, and replacement.

Dave47 wrote:

once all the niggles are sorted you could have the D posts wrapped,