Freelander Failing To Start

Hi, really starting to get narked with this, I have a 2001 Freelander 1 TD4 ES and had several years trouble free driving. Just recently the central locking system failed to unlock the drivers door irritating but no bother, a few months later this February got in, key in the ignition, turned..click, click, click, click..all the warning lights on except the open door etc, I thought battery, it's a diesel and the receipt I have with it's history set the battery as being nearly 12 years old....so I turned on the headlights and tried again, same clicking but the lights didn't dim, odd!. Called out the mechanic who looks after it, he brought a starter pack connected it to the battery and it burst into life, he didn't charge me for starting it but I bought a new battery from him which he fitted later that day...Lion Battery Calcium Technology High Performance 100 70AH EN 620 CCA...had no problems for about 3 weeks then one morning clicking, thought, during this virus haven't been anywhere but the shop and back it hasn't had a good charge so I charged the battery, the charging meter stayed at zero indicating that the battery was charged but I left it on overnight, refitted it used vaseline on the terminals and away it went!..this morning wouldn't unlock the usual 3 doors so I unlocked drivers door with key heard a load of clicking and buzzing, put key in ignition turned it on and off now lights in the console whatsoever, tried to unlock the 3 doors with the fob and eventually it unlocked 2 of them each time I tried I was met with the wall of clicking and buzzing...needless to say the battery is off and back on charge but that isn't the problem is it?...I read on here about ignition switch problems but apart from changing starter motor (short) Altenator (short?) and buying a mini I am stumped...what was a reliable car is now a real head scratcher...any ideas please except the gallon of petrol and box of matches fix.
Thank you.

Sounds like battery problems to me, get it charged up overnight, start it up and check the voltage across the battery terminals.
Also if you're only doing short journeys at the moment it's probably not charging the battery sufficiently

Will do that, thank you..it should read 14 volts with the engine running shouldn't it?..I know diesels are killers of batteries and this lock-down we're having isn't helping. I think if this works then I will remove the battery when it's not in use and put it on trickle charge until it's needed, doesn't take five minutes to refit.

It should be around 14.4v on a modern car without smart charging which i think your car is

Great thanks..no my cars more in the "thick" category, the head linings coming down, the sunroof is leaking but it was always reliable, key in and bursts into life on the first swing..BMW motor built to last.

Just a note, while all the buzzing and clicking was going on I dropped open the fuse/relay box under the steering wheel and touched each relay to see if I could find out which one was buzzing and found it was the Black flush one above the flasher relay (6)...I cannot find out what that one is...any ideas?..it was buzzing away like a bumble bee.

Don't know sorry but it could be doing that if the battery is flat ie not enough volts to energise it properly

You might have a parasitic battery drain. You haven't had any accesories fitted which could possibly be live with the ignition off? You haven't got any courtesy lights staying on when they should be off, especially the one in the boot? Also, the starter solenoid contacts can give a little trouble. Search here for threads on repairing those, although that would be non-starting without flat battery symptoms I think.

I wonder if it is sitting on top of the malfunction control module and the fuse box is just cut away to allow it to fit.

Solenoid, hmm that might be a good idea, my social calendar isn't really full at the moment lol.

That seems to be a pretty common situation these days, lol.

Here is a picture of the fuse/relay box, on mine just above the large black indicator relay (on this picture are two black squares) is a relay Siemens V23081-C1061-X3 L00025.

I would second the solenoid. when you turned the key you say the lights didn't dim. A low battery I think would make them dim due to the extra drain with the starter motor trying to turn the engine. As for the mad clicking, any water ingress?

No water ingress, it's been as dry as a bone here and while I was under the bonnet everything was dry under there too.

Salachan said:

...put key in ignition turned it on and off now lights in the console whatsoever...

Click to expand...

Reminds me of this:
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/freelander-no-electric-problem.352898/#post-4708894

Jayridium said:

Morning Laura - I had something similar a couple of months ago, car completely dead, no lights on the dashboard or anything, let alone cranking/turning over. And that was despite having a fully charged battery... In my case when I investigated it I was able to sort it by cleaning a couple of contacts in the fusebox. Start at the battery, on the live terminal there are a couple of leads coming off it, one goes to the starter motor, ignore that one, t'other goes to the engine bay fuse box on the passenger side of the engine bay, this is the one you need to work on.

VERY IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTICE - DISCONNECT THE BATTERY AT THIS POINT!

The fuse box you need is at the back passenger side corner of the engine bay, remove the cover and you'll see the end of this wire from the battery coming in to an eyelet connection and bolting onto some metal strips, remove the nut clean the eyelet and the part of the fusebox it connects to with DRY scotch-brite / steel wool / fine sandpaper before refitting them. Now follow that bar along and there are "fusable links" essentially thin metal strips, remove them and clean them the same way. Put the link back on, put the cover back on the fusebox, reconnect the battery, pray this does fix it as the tailgate window is going to go down when you reconnect the power and you'll need the power to be back on to wind it back up, and hopefully your freelander should start now.

Click to expand...

That and the post that follows it should solve a lot of your electrical issues.

Another thing to look at for the bad starting is the skinny little wire that sends the signal to the solenoid, I've seen a few of them corrode where the spade connector goes on.

If the battery is draining overnight, I wonder if the central locking issue is causing the solenoids to draw power overnight, as in lazy solenoids arenot fully closing the lock and are instead drawing a trickle of power overnight as they continue to try and lock the door?

My fusebox suggestion should get the lights back on the dash, if its still not trying to turn over, look at the spade on the solenoid, and if its draining power overnight either diagnose or fix the central locking. I wonder if it'd be worth pulling the central locking fuse overnight.

A cheap digital multimeter and something like this would tell us a lot about your cars electrics:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/400433639239?ViewItem=&item=400433639239&ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:GB:1123

Thank you for that, I plan to go over the engine bay fuse box with a fine toothed comb this morning before I fit the battery. I don't think the battery is dead flat, maybe if anything a volt or two low, I have an AVO and measured the battery when I took it off...set the avo at0-30v and it showed 12volts, set the avo at 0-10volts and it didn't bend the needle it just went to 12 volts because there are a couple of extra graduations on the dial past 10, put a load on it..headlight bulb and there was no noticeable drop in reading, I know the starter totes a few amps draw and would certainly show a difference but I don't think anything is leeching the batter overnight...I will repair the central locking and the off side passenger door unlocks very slowly but locking they all thump down audibly.

Battery fully charged, removed, cleaned and lightly smeared petroleum jelly on all the fuses (big ones, not the small coloured plastic ones), tested with the avo continuity between the positive battery terminal and each of the fuses...all ok, Now there is no mad clicking but no instrument lights at all and a completely dead car, not even the ring where the key fits is lighting up...one puzzling thing though, if I hold the ignition key as if to start the engine the odometer works and there is a minute jump on the fuel needle???.
Going to sup a beer and phone the AA, I'm a member so maybe they can figure it out...I have disconnected the battery.

Fair enough. I'd be curious to see what they find? The symptops seem to denote a voltage loss somewhere, when I had that with out hippo I just followed the flow of power from battery to dashboard cleaning contacts as I went, and in my case it was that engine bay fusebox bus bars were the culprit.

Some clues suggest ignition switch maybe high resistance. Holding key and perhaps wiggling may show this up.