Freelander won't start at all! Help please.

Hi all,

Bit of a problem for my first post; I have a 1.8 Freelander which I use just for personal miles. I have a 90 as a company car but the Freelander is for the wife and kids and school runs and so on. On Saturday I was driving to a friends and suddenly, the rev counter dropped, speedo stopped working, brakes went, engine cut out and I had to ditch it at the side of the road. I left it for a few minutes and tried the key. Got nothing, even the hazzard warning lights went out when I turned the key. I left it a few minutes more, maybe ten or so, and on turning the key the lights stayed on and the starter motor could be heard clicking. I finally decided to try to bump start it which I did in reverse. Managed to drive it home and it felt 100% fine. All the dash lights working, all the brakes, wipers, indicators all fine.

Got it home and parked it up. About 20 minutes later I needed to move it to get another car past, turned the key and nothing. The lights come on on the dash, the windows will open and close, then central locking works, but the starter isn't even clicking now. I tried to charge the battery and it's reading as fine. It just seems dead like the immobiliser is still on. However, when I use the fob the immobiliser light goes out as it should.

Any ideas please guys. I've been scratching my head with this one big time.

Many thanks,
Duncan

sounds like a problem with the alternator and/or battery.

Have known alternators fail but the battery carried on powering the car until it was nearly flat.

Hiya,
Thanks for the quick response. Without rushing out and buying a new one and fitting it, is there any way this could be tested?

As OP mentioned, this may be an alternator problem! I had a very similar problem with my first FL! The white connector that should click into the alternator was full of gunk and didn't go in properly. It took a while to sort out cos it is virtually impossible to reach it without taking the sumpguard and then drivebelt off and unplugging it from underneath the car!

Duncansw said:

Hiya,
Thanks for the quick response. Without rushing out and buying a new one and fitting it, is there any way this could be tested?

Click to expand...

use a multimeter on the battery, should be around 12V when engine off, rising to around 14v with the engine running.

may well dip to around 10V while starting.

alternatively, you can use something like an ACT battery tester, but not worth buying as they are around £150. If you know any fire and security engineers, they should have one as part of their standard kit. The ACT will easily test a battery up to 200Ah, so can cope with a car battery. Takes under a minute to do. (don't test with the engine running!)

Where abouts are you ?

definitly sounds like battery check all conections especially the neg/earth one where it also goes onto the body if you do get it running put your all lights on full then put you foot on the brake pedel and look where the ignition light is if it is glowing then you alternator is on the way out hope this helps

Thanks very much guys. Appreciate all the responses. Will give it a good going over and let you know how we get on.

Thanks for the info, I will give this a go this afternoon. I'm up near Halifax.

I've tried and I've failed. The mechanic with all the diagnostic kit etc. is coming round this afternoon

Initial problem sounds like your alternator packed up. It then runs on battery power until this is too low and things stop working one at a time until it dies completely, clicking when trying to crank is classic battery until it gets too low then does nothing. Batteries do recover a bit if left so it can go from doing nothing to doing something in a short space of time?
My guess would be alternator failed, possibly over charged first, then buggered the battery which now won't take a charge! I've just had it on a 300tdi disco. But obviously without testing it is just guessing a mechanic with half a clue and a multimeter should be able to fix it easily. Or if you are in the aa call them out. It's the type of problem that they're pretty good at usually.

Got the mechanic out and in a nutshell a massive shortcircuit and burn out of all engine electrics. Things melted to other things, wires burnt out, fuses blown. Bit of a mess. He found the cause, had to replace the starter motor and now it's up and running and seems fine..... but it's a Freelander so watch this space