Help of Any Kind Needed

Freelander (Petrol) 1.8x 5dr station wagon 1999

I am now in very very desperate mode. I have posted a few messages on the thread of 'Loss of Power at 70mph'. However, this has now gone way way beyond this problem.

The gist of the story is that when you put your foot on the accelerator there is no power at all and you cannot move off without the engine spluttering and choking.

I have been without my Freelander for the last two weeks. Having replaced the, distributor, leads, plugs, rotor arm AND as last resort, fuel pump. The vehicle has been placed on a diagnostic machine at the local garage I use which is showing 'no faults'.

It has now been moved 100yds round the corner to the local main dealer. They in turn have spent 4 and a half hours (at £55/hr) looking into the problem. To-date they too are stumped and cannot find any fault whatsoever. The even made the mistake of suggesting it could be the fuel pump (hahahaha considering I changed that myself with my husband).

The next step, according to the service techician delaing with it, is to remove the head and see if there is a fault in that location. I am awaiting a price from them to do this before I say anything.

So all you experts out there, I would be grateful for any ideas at all.

Has anyone done compression test and sniff test....should always be done before removing head as is a very good indicator as to any problems within.....Costs a lot less too.

Hi Sue1962, Have you checked to see if there is any water on your dipstick when you check the oil? In other words is there a slight rainbow colour showing on your dipstick. If there is it could be your cars head gasket that has blown.

int a hippoo fly by wire?
wot about the throttle potentiometer?

the throttle body is also prone to oiling up - that might cause it - or any one of the sensors feeding back to the EMU.

Beat me to it hat man. Surely it can only be no air or no fuel? or wrong mix of the two? If the head gasket was bad enough that it wouldn't pull away the driveway would be covered in oil and water. You don't mention fuel filter could this be blocked? Duff crankshaft sensor would throw the fly by wire out wouldn't it? ie if it thought it was ticking over then it wouldn't supply the right fuel mixture? I drive duzzles now so its been a while ( pre electronics) since my petrol days.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. There is no oil/water on the driveway and no water on the dipstick.

The service foreman is phoning me later this morning to discuss next move. I will ask him to do all the things you've put forward.

Let you know what happens.

oxygen sensor springs to mind on this one, common on 1.8's that have done a few miles, this will not put the engine warning light on or log faults unless its totally ****ed, when "partially ****ed" it is reading the oxygen levels in the exhaust gasses and correcting AFR to suit but its not covering the full range, in some cases this will cause over fuelling and stalling/no power. i have seen some where an MOT tester can't carry out a cat test as the engine wont stay at 2500 RPM, it either revs its nuts off or goes to idle even though the throttle is pressed.

1.8 is NOT fly by wire as some have suggested, it has a cable and throttle body.

sue1962, get the muppets that are trying to fix your car to warm it up and get some readings of the oxygen sensor, it should rapidly switch rich/lean or 0-1volts (depending on their equipment). if it stays at a certain voltage or doesn't switch rich/lean rapidly then that will almost certain be your problem.

Hi Clutch

Thanks for that. The upshot of the last 24hrs is that they did a compression test and those were ok but could have been better. So they put it on a pressure test overnight. Next day when they put the plugs back in she ran as sweet as a nut for a while but then went, as they put it. 'lumpy' and finally stalled again.

The head had now got to come off so they can carry out a 'crack test' as they feel more now that this is the problem.

I have looked on line and a new head is £400 odd when they have quoted me £1,000 so am now getting the original garage to undertake the job as their charge rates are much more reasonable.

The worst case senario is that I will have to get a new engine.

Dont know if you have either bought this on finance or from a dealer but in either case you should be able to get them to fix it or pay for fixing.

Doobreydog, I purchased this last November from a Garage about an hour from where I live. It had 3mths warranty with it so don't think I will have any come back

Sue1962 said:

Doobreydog, I purchased this last November from a Garage about an hour from where I live. It had 3mths warranty with it so don't think I will have any come back

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Warranties arnt worth the paper they are written on have a word with your local trading standards (or local to the garage if different) they will probably be able to advise better.

I posted in da udder fred, didnt see this.
Overnight compression and Crack test my a$$, sounds like yer dealers on crack.
Again my guess is leaky inlet manifold, or as Clutchdust said, lambda sensor or a CAT that has become blocked. They should try a diff CAT.

Lambda sensor or blocked cat should show up as emission warning light... Compression test shouldnt take all night should have similar readings for all cyliders (or by compression do you mean has pressurised system and left overnight to see if any leaks)

Dont sound like typical HGF

Dunno if Im chasing right or wrong thread here??? Is this the one not where you have now changed a lot of electrics???

Not the case Doob with the early 1.8, the later type late 2000 onwards has a 2nd lambda sensor downstream of the CAT, it would pick the fault up straight away. Loss of power at 70mph, runs for a few min then stops sounds like the CAT to me, seems like an air in gas out issue.

Well, I know it's been a while since the last installment. Just wanted to keep you guys up-to-date. Two months down the line, well two months tomorrow, I have actually driven my Freelander, yipppeee you hear me cry. Wrong, I was allowed to drive it from one garage to another lololol.

The short version of the story is:- I wrote to the garage where I purchased the car, after speaking to Consumer Direct to see if I had a case to do so. Anyhow, wrote them a stinking letter quoting Sale of Goods Act etc and Consumer Direct. They came back to me saying that I really should have taken the car back to them when things first started to go wrong!!! Trouble was, the first thing that went wrong was a simple rotor arm problem.

So they made a few suggestions which I took back to the other garage. Finally, cutting this short, they finally spoke to both the local Land Rover dealer (who had not been successful with mine) and the garage where it was at the time. The upshot was that they then said they would look at it and see if they could help.

Therefore last night I took the car 50 miles up the road to where they were. Have never had to drive as agressively as I did last night lololol. As long as I kept it abot 1500 revs it went like a dream, although, if you got into 5th gear and up to 70mph the power faded away and she struggled. The garage had warned me that I would have to keep the revs high.

It was different to say the least. Anyway, got there in one piece and now waiting game again. Will keep all those interested informed.

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I don't know if this will help or not, but I remember being told by a friend of a problem he had with a Discovery. An air intake hose had delaminated, and as the engine revs rose, it sucked harder and the pipe would collapse starving the engine of air.

Something runs in my mind that it was related to the turbo in his LR, but it could be something similar in your case.

Um.. .

I might know whats happening. . .Same symptoms on mine. You need to put an additive to your fuel.

It won't register on the cpu cause they only register limited information.

I'm betting on dirty fuel injectors. I've done the same in last week / distributor cap etc etc. . .

Now I put STP in and its working sweet. STP is a fuel injector cleaner fluid. Will cost you about 7pounds. Put it in the fuel tank and fill her up to the top. Have you been running on a low fuel tank lately ? Fill her up with an injector cleaner fluid. Should bring your compression back up to where it should be. But don't expect results imediatey. this might correct after one or two tanks. . .but its worth a try. Especially referring to those figures your suggesting in repairs.

My suspicion is dirty fuel, from dirty fuel sellers. This problem is happening to allot of people at current. Don't fill up at small stations because they are cheaper. The reason is that condensation builds up in their fuel delivery due to lack of turnaround.

JUST TO DIS-AMBIGUATE MY LAST COMMENT / DON'T FILL your tank full with cleaner fluid.

lol.

Well, the problem has finally been sorted. The garage where I purchased the FL last November fixed it within 3.5hrs !!!!!!! Shock Horror !!! You will never guess what the matter was. After everyone scratching their heads (even the main delaer).

The timing was out!!!! Yep, a simple thing that no one bothered to check it. One of the pullies (don't know which) had come lose and so this had knocked the timing out.

So, thanks to all those of you who offered assistance and advice. Am now back on the road working on full power Yippppeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope you havent paid them!!!!

If those muppets had the head off they would have reset the timing or at least noticed this was out of wack. Is your idle lumpy?? if so you have slighty bent valves due to the timing being out (depends on number of teeth out).

Anyway glad to hear its all sorted now

Martin