I thought I'd start a new thread detailing the progress of my Freelander (upgrades/maintenance).

So first off. I had it booked in for a 10 year service to my local Landy indie for Friday 22 October. Service was to include all fluids and cambelt kit.

Dropped it off just before 9 on Friday morning and had a nice walk home across a bit of local countryside on a sunny, but chilly day.

I was pretty keen to get it all done, as the service interval on the dash told me it was 8000 miles overdue a service!, and I had no receipts to say the cambelt had ever been done in the 11 years and 180k miles.

I must admit, it's unusual for me to take a car into a garage, as I normally do all of the work needed myself (in a DIY home mechanic sense). But as I hadnt had it long, I thought I'd take it in and get an experts opinion on it at the same time.

The phone call came at 4 o'clock on Friday afternoon, to say that they were having trouble removing the crankshaft bolt to replace the cambelt. It wouldnt be ready, but someone was going to have a look at it on Saturday morning. After waiting until 11 o'clock Saturday morning, I thought I'd give them a ring to see how they were getting on and if I could collect it... No such luck.

The crankshaft bolt has snapped while they were trying to get it out, and they were waiting for someone to come in on Monday to drill it out. Marvellous. So, no car Friday, Saturday, Sunday and probably Monday (at least). Oh well, accidents happen I guess.

Its a bit frustrating as I had planned to do a bit of work on it myself this weekend. But that will have to wait until net weekend now.

- New bonnet catch (alarm randomly goes off)
- New boot switch
- Fix the (not working) parking sensors
- Fit an Xtrons android thing
- Fit a front and rear dashcam

Fingers crossed they can drill it out cleanly on Monday without any more drama.

Yes if those bolts are going to break that’s just what they will do hope it’s sorted for you soon.

I got the car back from the garage on Friday. they had called an engineer in to drill out the crankshaft bolt, and he managed to get it out nice and cleanly. So, 10 year service all done!

I had an issue with my parking sensors not working (constant beep on startup and 6 flashes on the P button when I pressed it). I plugged in my AP200 and it told me that outer front left sensor had failed. So, another one ordered from eBay and all fixed.

I also noticed I had a constant wet patch under the washer bottle and it was emptying itself after a week or so. So while I had the bumper off, I had a look around, and both washer jets were disconnected from the headlight washers! That would explain it the. Weird how both were disconnected. All fitted back into the washers, and work fine.

Next up is fitting the Xtrons unit, which I did...but. When connecting it all up, I noticed there were 4 bare wires poking out from a plug. So, I've fired a quick message off to the eBay seller, and lets see hwo quickly they respond.

Managed to get the Xtrons unit working, and swapped over the armrest covers with a couple I got from a Chinese seller on eBay. They really do put up a fight to get them off!