Fault Finding

Please bare with me. I have a SD4 freelander 2, when the fuel gauge got down to just above the 3/4 mark a reduced power fault appeared, when the fuel gauge got bellow the 3/4 mark the fault would go. On diagnostic it came up as a turbo fault. Had this checked over and had the fuel system checked as well. Now when the gauge gets to 3/4 I get a transmission fault reduced traction. Any idea I am baffled. And before the obvious don't fill your car up etc etc. I like my car to run right so any help would be appreciated

Is this the result from a diagnostic reader from the garage or from a bought reader.

Does it still drive as normal when the fault message displays? Engine power feels normal... Gear changes feel normal and occur at similar speeds...

This diagnostic is from a independent 4x4 garage and no the fault causes the car to have no 4 wheel drive now, before we got reduced power

There was another recent thread on a similar fault. I'm not sure he's solved it yet. It might be worth reading that thread to get some ideas.

Nodge68 said:

There was another recent thread on a similar fault. I'm not sure he's solved it yet. It might be worth reading that thread to get some ideas.

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When I saw this post yesterday evening, I dug out that thread out for a read. It wasn't quite similar enough to this and wasn't resolved so didn't link to it - but it maybe worth your while @Dunkp1 to have a search for recentish (last year?) references to fuel gauge in the Freelander forum to see if anything sounds familiar - totally ignore anything F1 related, they are completely different animals on most things, but especially the electronics.

One post I did find though @Nodge68 in relation to fuel gauge problems on F2....

Nodge68 said:

That's 2 in a week. I wonder if that's a sign of things to come?

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They do appear to be popping up quite regularly these days.

Evidently, if an F2 detects faults in its systems, the first thing it often does is to disable the traction related functions and throw up the "reduced traction" warning (or what ever the message is).

GrumpyGel said:

Evidently, if an F2 detects faults in its systems, the first thing it often does is to disable the traction related functions and throw up the "reduced traction" warning (or what ever the message is).

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It's enough to make me avoid the FL2 if I'm honest. I'm good with cars and electronic diagnosis, but prefer not to need too on my day to day car. I'll be sticking with the FL1 for a while yet I think.

It sounds like for this fault you’d need not only the fault code, but the conditions that led to it - freeze frame data.

Might be time for a dealer-level scan tool.

Nodge68 said:

It's enough to make me avoid the FL2 if I'm honest. I'm good with cars and electronic diagnosis, but prefer not to need too on my day to day car. I'll be sticking with the FL1 for a while yet I think.

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Yes, I’m often tempted by a passing FL2, but the horror stories of diffs, Haldexes and gremlins on here bring me back down to earth.

FL1 is all the car I need for now.

The "... reduced traction..." message ont FL2 is very much the same as the 3 amigo's ont FL1. It's telling you there's a fault which it can't resolve itself or overcome, and therefore something it wrong. Like ABS, TC, DSC, HDC... all needing to know what the FL2's doing in order to function, and it can't if abs sensors are failing. It puts the warning up to warn the driver the "systems" normally available are either not working or partially working. No different to TC and HDC failing when the 3 amigo's illuminate on the FL1. It's telling you the system is broke'd and something it wrong.

Rear diff's can fail and so can the haldex. The later rear diff had a larger bearing to help with the load. It's thought the smaller bearing wasn't strong enough. The larger bearing didn't stop all failures but it reduced it. There's always going to be some fail. Even the last 2015 models. Changing the oil in the haldex every 20k miles and the filter every 40k miles is preferred by many FL2 owners in order to reduce the chance of failure. Yer need to take the pump out and give it all a good clean. Also allows yer to get more oil out. When the filter blocks up it puts pressure on the pump, and things go wrong.

Every car has problems. It's a surprise how many come on ere thinking the fault they have is a result of bad design, but theirs is the only one we know of which is failing with that problem at that time. The web tends to only advertise the bad side of a car. Peeps with ole tratters moan when brake lines split but they're decades old and past their best. Everything will fail at some point. Even on a Freelander 1 or 2.