garythesnail
New Member
- Posts
- 2
- Location
- Carmarthenshire
Hello all.
I've been lurking a while and have a 'thank you' to give to number of members for their posts - ones which didn't put me off owning a Land Rover.
Naturally, in order of desirability, I chose the least practical, least capable, and relatively most expensive to run version I could fine - not even a proper Land Rover.
I bought a relatively low mileage (46k ish) V6, 3 door, automatic Freelander with a very comprehensive history folder back in October 2019. I don't do big miles nowadays (thankfully - this thing averages 21mpg - there are more fuel efficient V8 cars out there) but the 17k or so miles since have been relatively uneventful.
We've also played a game with a VW Golf Mk 6 or 7. You know the game where you innocently drive along and another car tries to kill yours pulling out of a side-street? Freelander 1 - 0 Golf. NSF bumper was well dented and a clip on the headlamp had broken - some araldite, a blowlamp and few hours of swearing sorted that lot out. The other party accepted liability - didn't bother going through insurance as I didn't want the aggravation. Poor sod in the golf was driving her partner's car and the cost of the replacement headlamp and bumper bits (seems an awful lot of stick-on tat on modern cars) after adding paint would have paid for my Freelander
That's it. The biggest expense has been fuel, but this 18 year old car has been very good at being reliable daily transport. It tows quite well for what it is (haven't done more than about 1200kg) and while it's quite a bit quicker than a diesel from standstill, it certainly isn't fast.
Thanks
Gary
I've been lurking a while and have a 'thank you' to give to number of members for their posts - ones which didn't put me off owning a Land Rover.
Naturally, in order of desirability, I chose the least practical, least capable, and relatively most expensive to run version I could fine - not even a proper Land Rover.
I bought a relatively low mileage (46k ish) V6, 3 door, automatic Freelander with a very comprehensive history folder back in October 2019. I don't do big miles nowadays (thankfully - this thing averages 21mpg - there are more fuel efficient V8 cars out there) but the 17k or so miles since have been relatively uneventful.
- The stench of fuel for the first 50 miles after brimming the tank turned out to be a poorly fitted gasket/seal when the fuel pump was changed - I like this type of problem when cost to repair = £0.00
- The car has been losing small amounts of coolant, regularly. The heater always worked (really well - best cabin heating system I've ever had in a car), kept an eye on levels and carried on. I started cheap (expansion bottle cap), then replaced both bottle and cap after finding some cracks underneath the yellow warning sign of the original bottle.
- Six drop links (mostly my own fault for buying the cheapest I could find - the current pair of Delphi branded ones seem OK)
- Shortly after this (couple of months max) it decided to pish all over the works car park after I arrived at work. I think this happened as the engine was cooling down after the short run to work. Having some experience with a KV6, guessed the likely reason would be something to do with the coolant pipes in the V of the engine. This turned out to be correct and, unfortunately, the ones I happened to have in stock for my rough MGZS 180 did not suit the Freelander - the installation is slightly different to the one MG chose to apply. The correct replacement parts were sourced and installed. Naturally, the process involved damaging the fuel rail and sourcing a second hand replacement, reassembly included damaging the fuel rail o-rings . . .but got there in the end. While there's more room in the engine bay of a Freelander (compared to a ZS), I was surprised at how much harder it felt to work in the engine bay as the slam panel is much higher and the engine sits low in the bay.
We've also played a game with a VW Golf Mk 6 or 7. You know the game where you innocently drive along and another car tries to kill yours pulling out of a side-street? Freelander 1 - 0 Golf. NSF bumper was well dented and a clip on the headlamp had broken - some araldite, a blowlamp and few hours of swearing sorted that lot out. The other party accepted liability - didn't bother going through insurance as I didn't want the aggravation. Poor sod in the golf was driving her partner's car and the cost of the replacement headlamp and bumper bits (seems an awful lot of stick-on tat on modern cars) after adding paint would have paid for my Freelander
That's it. The biggest expense has been fuel, but this 18 year old car has been very good at being reliable daily transport. It tows quite well for what it is (haven't done more than about 1200kg) and while it's quite a bit quicker than a diesel from standstill, it certainly isn't fast.
Thanks
Gary
