Freelander 1 Buying a Freelander - question on MOT advisories

Hi Everyone,

I'm finally in a position where I don't live in a city centre and I'm looking to buy a car again and I really want a Freelander.

I'm looking to buy a Freelander 1 that isn't too expensive and if it needs repairs I can either do them or go to a mechanic.

I've been looking on this forum a lot and it has been super helpful with what to look for and the advice is great. I've now found a car I like the look of but I am unsure about the MOT advisories and how costly they would be to get repaired. I don't mind spending a bit to get repairs done or doing some work myself but don't want to be spending £1000s on repairs as it doesn't make sense and there are other options.

This is the MOT advisories and any help you can provide, I'd be really grateful for and appreciate:

• Brake pipe corroded, covered in grease or other material ALL (1.1.11 (c))
• n/s/r park brake low on efficiency
• heavy brake imbalance across front axle 25%
• heavy brake waiver both front brakes but especially n/s/f just within MOT criteria
• o/s/r park brake not as efficient as n/s/r -- o/s very low on efficiency--

Sounds like replace all brake pipes, front discs, calipers and rear wheel cylinders and service rear brakes plus new pads and shoes.

All covered on this site and all fairly straight forward if you are able.

Say £500 all in tops I'd say if you do it yourself.

andyfreelandy said:

Sounds like replace all brake pipes, front discs, calipers and rear wheel cylinders and service rear brakes plus new pads and shoes.

All covered on this site and all fairly straight forward if you are able.

Say £500 all in tops I'd say if you do it yourself.

Click to expand...

Thanks so much for the quick reply, should be able to a few things myself just need to buy tools. Will have a look through the forums for those specific changes.

Welcome to the zoo of shame and despondency if you drive a Evoque.. Freelander 1 are little tough buggers but eventually due to age and wear need attending. My guess Brakes was overlooked over the years. If you are looking at the vehicle first look underneath at the drivetrain. You want to see two propshafts and VCU unit in the middle. If not walk away there loads of Freelander 1 that have this removed for various reasons. You will notice without one when driving being FWD only they act skittish when pulling away on gravel. Inside should be tidy and no smell of diesel when engine running. Windows fully functioning from front to back. All door locks work with the fob key and with ignition key supplied or replacement key for door lock.
If the Engine struggles to start after dash light SRS goes out walk away. Check when the vehicle been serviced with lists of replaced parts Filters Fuel Air Oils Water. Check the wheels for cambering worn outer or inner means replacements on all if the vehicle has Full drivetrain underneath.
MOTs only say the vehicle is safe to drive on the road in regards to brakes steering safety seat belts and exhaust emissions and lights windows etc. The cost to you if the vehicle drive train if knackered can be 1000s for a vehicle today merely a few hundred pending on condition. Insurance will love you and DVLA equally for your year donation to the christmas funds.

I assumed he was informed enough to read this, if not please have a look!
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/tests-new-freelander-1-owners-should-do-on-their-car.312863/

Jordann said:

Hi Everyone,

I'm finally in a position where I don't live in a city centre and I'm looking to buy a car again and I really want a Freelander.

I'm looking to buy a Freelander 1 that isn't too expensive and if it needs repairs I can either do them or go to a mechanic.

I've been looking on this forum a lot and it has been super helpful with what to look for and the advice is great. I've now found a car I like the look of but I am unsure about the MOT advisories and how costly they would be to get repaired. I don't mind spending a bit to get repairs done or doing some work myself but don't want to be spending £1000s on repairs as it doesn't make sense and there are other options.

This is the MOT advisories and any help you can provide, I'd be really grateful for and appreciate:

• Brake pipe corroded, covered in grease or other material ALL (1.1.11 (c))
• n/s/r park brake low on efficiency
• heavy brake imbalance across front axle 25%
• heavy brake waiver both front brakes but especially n/s/f just within MOT criteria
• o/s/r park brake not as efficient as n/s/r -- o/s very low on efficiency--

Click to expand...

Yeh, I'd agree you need to replace all the brake parts at all 4 corners. The parts for this are surprisingly cheap and if you've not done it before may sound like a difficult job, but once again is surprisingly simple (when you have the wheels and drums off, take lots of pics so you know how it should all go back together). A mechanic would probably have the job done in a couple of hours - if you allow a couple of days (I would for me), you should be good

The pipework that needs replacing is not really mentioned. When I've looked at pipework in the past it has been really expensive - even just for the little bits that go from the flexible hoses to the cylinders on the rears (which you will almost definitely need to replace as they will break removing them from the cylinders). So If I was you, I'd see if you can find out which pipes need changing. Possibly, assume the worst case scenario - do you need to go from all 4 corners back to the ABS unit? But find our how much they cost so that you are happy at the price. I haven't a clue how easy it is to replace the long runs, whether clips break and what you do if they do break etc.

Get yourself plenty of brake fluid - when I replaced my rear brakes I needed 2 (of those 'standard size') bottles of brake fluid to bleed the system. All 4 corners needed bleeding and after 1 bottle that brakes were still terrible. Pumping the 2nd bottle through gave really good brakes. Get yourself 1 of those '1 man bleed' packs as well - normally you have 1 person on the peddle and another opening and closing the bleed nipple - the '1 man' packs have a non return thingie and empties into a bottle - the 1 I got worked a treat.

That link above is a must to read - even if just to see if its still 4WD. You can easily check the tyres, if they are worn or not all identical make model, you can work out how much that will cost to rectify. And budget on needing a recon VCU - iirc about £280 with support bearings. If you don't need it, then that's a bonus, but likely you will.

Seeing as you joined in 2016 and 5 years later you are now buying a freelander, I'm guessing you are an enthusiast and this vehicle purchase is scratching a long held itch, suggesting that you are likely to keep the vehicle for a long time, so I'm going to recommend you do this yourself, and go above and beyond what a garage will do, with the extra steps and relevant info in the bullet points below.

• When unlocking a freelander, one press of the plip only unlocks the drivers door, to unlock the others you need to press the unlock button a second time, however one press of the lock button locks all doors
• The brakpipes on a freelander use a weird mix of flares, mixing single flare iso with double "bubble" din flares, as you replace pipes check which end flare is on the pipe
  • Also note that there are special nuts used for some of the flares with different mating faces on them
  • Because of the pick'n'mix of brake pipes used you need a decent brake pipe flaring kit, with a selection of dies and mandrels, not a £9.95 eBay special
    • I'll lend you my Sykes Pickavant kit with all the dies, but I'd want a £300 deposit before sending it, and I'll return you £290 after receiving it back, with the tenner deduction being to cover the postage I'd have paid to send it to you
  • Andyfreelandy started a thread on this a year or so ago, very informative and worth digging up and reading through as it's got a lot more information in it than I'm going to smash into a couple of bullet points
• The brake pipes on from the ABS modulator on the inner wing to the rear axle are a pain to do, best to do them in two sections, so buy joiners and or a mix of male + female flare nuts
• The handbrake efficiency could be simply down to a sticky rocker arm, the clevis that the cable end goes into has a habit of sticking to the linkage it's attached to, this should be spinning free as a bird, it can be freed up but it takes a bit of faffing about with the part in a vice and lots of WD40 or similar.
• While you have the brakes in bits, it's a good time to replace the wheel cylinders on the back, they are inexpensive, but a pain to get the bolts off, brutalize them with a grinder either by using a dremel / die grinder with a carbide burr to remove the bolt heads at the back, or by attacking the cylinder at the front
• The front callipers slides tend to fail as for some reason one set of slide pins has a rubber seal on it that swells with age, but at least one set of new slide pins and refit the vehicle with two of the solid pins on each calliper as either one solid slider from the new kit and one from the original set or as two new solid sliders
• Replace the brake hoses while you have it all in bits, I'd suggest you get a set of braided stainless extended hoses from the likes of muddymods, not only will this ensure future reliability, this will also pave the way for doing a lift kit on the vehicle in the future
• The brake pipe clips for the pips running aft to feed the rear pistons are brittle AF, and almost certainly will fail when you go to replace the pipes they contain, best to have other pipe clips in hand
• Paint the brakes while you are going over them, painted drums and callipers looks a lot better in the gaps between the spokes than rusty ones. Simple hammerite paint works well as it is surprisingly high temperature capable. I say surprisingly as it's not marketed as such but trust me, it works on brakes.
• Similarly, while you have the back brakes in bits, clean, kurust and hammerite the inside face of the brake back plate, this will help control corrosion in future and make the shoes and associated linkages last longer.
• Be mindful that the adjusters for the brakes are "handed", with left and right threads, meaning one side tightens when the thread is turned clockwise and the other loosens when turned clockwise, and if you cross them up the brakes will be forever adjusting themselves off of the drums and you won't have back brakes. So when you have the brakes in bits, mark the adjusters up to keep them on the correct side of the vehicle during reassembly.
• Fit new bleed nipples to the callipers while you are at it, and grease the holes with copper clip.
• DO NOT use copper slip on the wheel cylinders as they are aluminium and copper + aluminium has a severe bimetallic reaction and corrodes the aluminium into a crumbly white mess that is very like stale bread. You can get either an aluminium grease for the bolts and nipples on the wheel cylinders, or ceramic grease.
• While you have the wheels off, in reassembly, grease the spigots where the centre bore of the wheel sits, normal, ali or ceramic grease, although I've seen people use copperslip with minimal consequences, but I wouldn't recommend it. But trust me, if you get a puncture, it makes a world of difference having the spigots greased as the alloy wheel almost falls off after undoing the wheel nuts, rather than having to lick lumps out of it to try and dislodge it.
• Do not grease the wheel studs as this can cause wheel nuts to rattle off
• Paint the wheel nuts while they are off the vehicle - Freelander wheel nuts do tend to rust up like crazy and look skanky on the vehicle, scrub off the rust with a wire brush ( or a wire wheel on a grinder) and ku rust them, then black hammerite them
• While you are under the vehicle doing brakes, look at the diff mounts, the front mount on the back diff is a favourite for cracking causing loud banging noises when transitioning from on to of from being on the throttle.
• Similarly, eyeball the rubber elements in the bearing hangers for the viscous coupling in the middle of the prop shaft, they tend to fail and can cause banging noises
• Bleeding the brakes on these vehicles can be a bit of a nightmare, I found getting a chinese clone of a delphi diagnostics tool from ebay allowed me to hook up a laptop and use the ABS modulator to bleed the brakes on my one first try. If you get one of those things I'll give you a heads up, it works the pump in the modulator hard and makes alarming sounds, but it's all good, although the first few times you use it like that it is rather nerve racking.

I know that's a lot of info to take in, and looks like a "wall of text", but don't be daunted, it basically boils down to do the brakes as a normal brake job, but be mindful that there are two types of nuts and flares used on the pipes, and since it's your own presumably cherished vehicle, paint and grease stuff as you go.

Pipework was in my estimate, just buy a decent flare tool, correct ends and a couple of reels of cupronickel pipe at a tenner a roll.

Now the time taken is another thing!!! A day for the lot I would say and that includes making them, replacing the clips that break and feeding them through the correct routes.

Thank so much everyone for the responses, I genuinely appreciate it so much!

@andyfreelandy I did read that thread first, but I wasn't too clued up on what everything meant when I was reading the MOT and how to understand it.

@Jayridium thank you so much for that as well! That is definitely a kind offer and one I may take you up on! You are right, you could say it's "scratching an itch" as it is a car I've wanted for a long time and I have done a lot of research and reading the forum especially to see the advice everyone gives. In the past I did my time as an apprentice Marine Engineer and worked on a few ships but didn't enjoy it and eventually changed career after a few years but hopefully I should still be capable enough to do the repairs myself!

Unfortunately, I did not buy the car I asked about today as when I went to see it, it just didn't feel right and felt like there was a lot more than with it that hadn't been mentioned.

However, I did buy another Freelander I went to see today, a Landrover Freelander from 2006, manual and diesel and I love it! I chose this car as it had a full service history, passed it's MOT with one advisory, test drive felt really good, the VCU and 2 prop shafts were there and tyres all the same. This was the advisory:

• Nearside Front Brake pipe corroded, covered in grease or other material (1.1.11 (c))

I will definitely be looking into everything you have mentioned @Jayridium as even if everything is fine now and "acceptable" I definitely want this car to be exceptional and kept in the best condition possible, so over the next few weekends I'll start looking at different parts and making sure everything is up to shape or I'll start making repairs.

Thanks so much for the warm welcome and I'm excited to be part of the community!

Well, small? Update on the car. It has a leak and the tool well is also full of diesel. I did buy it expecting there to be some issue but hopefully these are minor, will need to have a proper look tomorrow to see what’s actually wrong! The picture of the tool well is after I’ve put some old sheets down to dry it up but still really wet obviously.

Where is the leak? Most common one is the incorrect fitting of the fuel tank sender in the tank top.

Not sure how it got into the tool store though?? Usually this is full of water from the tailgate seal leaking.

I'd double check it is diesel in the cubby box.

andyfreelandy said:

Where is the leak? Most common one is the incorrect fitting of the fuel tank sender in the tank top.

Not sure how it got into the tool store though?? Usually this is full of water from the tailgate seal leaking.

I'd double check it is diesel in the cubby box.

Click to expand...

I will double check in the morning to make sure it’s diesel, as the colour of it when it was more full had a slight diesel/rainbow colour around it.

The leak is coming from the tank in the first picture where it’s really wet, not sure if you can see the picture I’ve uploaded? It doesn’t seem to be a huge leak though.

Surprised it could pass a MOT with a fuel leak like that.

I to wonder how a fuel leak could end up in the cubby box. Wonder if its something that was spilt in the cubby box and has leaked out?

I notice your tie down ring is quite rusty. Mine is to due to leaks around the back window I believe. This will settle in the cubby box, maybe the colouring is rust its picked up on its journey down there from the likes of the tie down rings.

I've went down and had a quick check on the cubby box and I'm now not convinced it is diesel. I have quite a weak sense of smell, so got my girlfriend to smell and she didn't think it was a strong diesel smell, more it's the back of the car and has a car smell. Hopefully, that means it isn't a diesel leak in there and it is just rust that has caused the colouring.

Checked my fuel level as well, I'm not sure it has went down overnight, or if it has it's genuinely minor.

I guess the next thing to do is take the carpet in the boot out and have a look there.

Plenty of threads on here, search for fishtank!!! Can't see diesel getting in the box. The wet underneath is the underside of the so called fish tank.

Some leak into bad weld around the box, others come in from tailgate seal. Mine leaked through the trim at top of tailgate door, down the sides and into car under carpet.

andyfreelandy said:

Plenty of threads on here, search for fishtank!!! Can't see diesel getting in the box. The wet underneath is the underside of the so called fish tank.

Some leak into bad weld around the box, others come in from tailgate seal. Mine leaked through the trim at top of tailgate door, down the sides and into car under carpet.

Click to expand...

thanks! I’ll take a look around for that and thanks for the name, I reckon that’s what I’ll struggle with most, terminology and names of things.

Just took the carpet off and now looking in the cubby hole and there is definitely a leak in there, just need to dry it out and see what’s going on!

Edit: also not sure if I have a fuel leak now either. Think I just got panicked when I seen the colour and everything... will need to check that to be sure but I think I was looking at the bottom of the fish tank where it is soaked in one of the previous pictures.

Going to need to learn where everything is and what it's called.

Another update:

have dried the boot last weekend and got a hose out to test it during the week and there was ok leaks. Checked all the spots starting from the top and working down. Took it to a garage to get checked and they couldn’t find anything either. I’m guessing there was just a big spill in the toolwell possibly.

The tool well is directly above the exhaust silencer. Even if you have no leaks you get condensation on the inside of the lid after a long run on a cold day.
I am sure you will see water in there again, but glad it's not fuel!

Water ingress is a popular past time for Freelanders.

It can come from many places - various places round the rear door, the sunroof, the poor welding/sealing around the fish tank, the heater matrix - and probably other places I've forgotten about.

Generally it finds its way to the lowest places, footwells & the fish tank - but I'm sure it has a mini eco-system recirculating it back round the inside of the vehicle with evaporation and condensation. The metal framing under/behind the dash can quite often be damp where this eco system condenses on the cold metal.

Today is a perfect day here to top up the eco system in my Freelander, a high of 6 degrees with an inch of precipitation falling as rain sleet or snow. A good day to be inside - which is quite handy as I'm in the raffle to win a MG 3 down the club this afternoon