Freelander 2 (LR2) Pros and Cons...

Harold 4x4 said:

There's no getting away from electronics on modern vehicles, that be true.... However, Land Rover don't seem to have the same reliability with electrics as most other cars. Maybe it's just my perception.

All said and done I don't like the Japanese alternatives so I'll be hoping to find a descent F2 to sleep under at weekends

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True LR of old did have a few electrical issues. However after Ford took over things improved massively, even though the actual electronic stuff got much more complex.
A FL2 is no less reliable, electronically than something like a Mondeo.

Utlimately, as far as I can tell, so far the only stand out issue that the F2 has seen on LZ has been the rear diff. It is its weak point, in the same way HGF is on the K Series F1. If I drove a F2, I'd be waiting for the rear diff to go and need replacement - just like I would driving a K and waiting for HGF. I'm sure most cars have their Achilles Heel - eg even though my L Series has been superbly reliable - I constantly worry/think about the drive belt tensioner.

The F2 is more complex, both mechanically and electronically, than most 'cars' of its era - by the nature of its 4WD system and the add-ons that LR put into a 'semi-posh' car. More things in it - more to go wrong. The reliability of LRs isn't fantastic, but not as bad as most think.

The F2 is 10 years old now. I'm sure by 2007 there were more F1 problems reported on LZ than there are for F2 now (going by the number of historic threads that get found/brought up). That would indicate that F2 is more reliable. It may in part be because F2 went 'posher' and pricier so people are still just handing cars over to garages for fixes rather than looking into it themselves. I don't know if there's any big difference in the number of F1s and F2s built that might affect stats on problems reported.

So its really 'the same old' - you may get lucky, you may not. Being able to change the duration of interior lighting ain't going to make it any easier to fix problems - just make it a bit posher and another component to go wrong! When there are problems, the 'codes' or 'messages' coming back may help identify exactly what's gone wrong, they may point to an 'area' that's gone wrong, or indeed it may just be the monitoring or networking systems gone wrong - just like on F1.

Nodge68 said:

I don't recall anybody saying anything about a diagnostic tool stopping electrical gremlins or even OBD for that matter. The tool I had was a fully functional diagnostic device. It uses a custom App that does all the work for you. Hell you can even upload later software, adding features that didn't arrive at the time of manufacture. The tool I describe can even change the length of time that the interior lights are lit. The same can be done for the headlights too. There's so much that is reliant on software, it's reassuring to know it can be checked and fixed if needed, even by a novice.


See above ^^^ . There's no longer a need to be technically minded to find out what's up. Developers have done all the hard work so the user can now simply use a diagnostic tool to find out what's wrong.

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Talking of Bluetooth o d snap

Nodge68 said:

I don't recall anybody saying anything about a diagnostic tool stopping electrical gremlins or even OBD for that matter. The tool I had was a fully functional diagnostic device. It uses a custom App that does all the work for you. Hell you can even upload later software, adding features that didn't arrive at the time of manufacture. The tool I describe can even change the length of time that the interior lights are lit. The same can be done for the headlights too. There's so much that is reliant on software, it's reassuring to know it can be checked and fixed if needed, even by a novice.


See above ^^^ . There's no longer a need to be technically minded to find out what's up. Developers have done all the hard work so the user can now simply use a diagnostic tool to find out what's wrong.

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Talking about snap on OBD Bluetooth diagnostics, what's the name of your tool and the app you're using with it?