Range Rover to Freelander??

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PhilDrew

New Member
Posts
28
Hi folks.

I don't know what to do. A couple of months ago we bought a P38 4.6 HSE. It's great fun. Has poke, does mud (I taking your average attemt to go off roading nothing big and serious) is really comfy and BIG!!

Thing is it also comes with huge fuel bills, (which I expected) big insurance and pricey maintenance.
Realistically speaking, I rather have more money in my pocket each month, and more to spend on maintaining our house - Will a freelander do this for me?
I really don't know anything about them, apart from this head gasket trouble they have. But what is good to run?
I want a bit of poke, also I really enjoy the comfort features. I want a good sound sytem like the RR's surround sound, heated leather, air con, stuff like that.
How are they off road??
Anyone give me some pointers on the freelander please.
Many thanks,
Phil
 
Hi PhilDrew,

One of my neighbours (now he has a Porsche Carrera4 cabrio and a softtop Defender) has had 2 Discovery's and his son had a Defender 90 (who now owns an Audi TT), when I got my Td4, back in january 2001 I did a testdrive with him and his first reaction was that his son better had bought an Hippo rather than the Defender, it is much more comfortable and handles much better than the Defender, on the road both my wife and I prefer the Hippo over our previous car (Mercedes 190E), especially to do long trips, going to the seaside with the Mercedes (about 120 kms) always resulted that my wife got backache, now with the Hippo we can do tours of even 600 kms and she comes out with no pain. As offroad is concerned, I have not done that with mine but one day I got along with the above quoted neighbour in his Defender to an old military tanktrack for offroading, on one of the obstacles there were 2 Discovery's which couldn't manage to take the obstacle where a Freelander, at the 2nd attempt just made it. When you read other forums you can see that the Hippo is capable for much more than people think. As for the "poke" as you call it, mine is chipped and has got about 145 bhp with a torque of 310Nm, this in combination with the autoSteptronic Jatco box (which seem to like much more the more powerful engine than the old one before, now it drives fluently and has no effort to make to move on) makes it a dream to drive, and when you feel for it and you really push the pedal to the metal as they say, you see most of the other cars in your rearview mirror.
Also cruising through terrible weather, heavey rain/snow etc.. where other driver's are cramped behind the steeringwheel, white knockels and everything, with the Hippo it is like a relaxation trip.
Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide and, imo, if you want to stay LR, go for it, if not the really unlucky number you get it will keep a lot more money in your pocket compared to the RR. (and heated leather seats, aircon, 6 speaker system etc.. I've got it all as well), one thing I still have to learn is to look down on RR owners, but that I won't do as I'm a too nice guy for that.:D :D :D

Ps: the more money to maintain your house is a good idea, just fyi. when we built our house, 20 years back, I drove an Opel Manta A of 13 years and 186.000 kms, to avoid too high bills I changed cars and bought a Citroën 2CV6, that was one of the least expensive cars one could find, kept it for 6 years and had lots of fun with it, it was an Hippo "avant la lettre".
 
Thanks for your reply Will. TD4 I'm assuming the obvious that it's Turbod Diesel yes?
What year is yours if you don't mind me asking? I believe that the older TD4 had a Rover diesel and wasn't so good, is that correct?
 
I have a 2003 (53reg) TD4, without chip..and i love it. It really does do all i could ever need it to and a lot more. However purely for "Vroooooooooom" purposes, im considering a tuning box :) it really doesnt need it...but thats the way i am (as if just over 110mph on the flat, confirmed by GPS wasnt enough).

The early Diesels were originally agricultural engines i believe, the later TD4 was a BMW 2.0 diesel...muuuuuuuuch nicer!

Go for the TD4 :)
 
What year did they start putting BMW units into them?
I have a 6 to 7 k budget (whatever I can get for my RR)
 
Also, what's the boot space like in them???
Are they much smaller than the RR in the boot?
Cheers.
 
Well i think its great boot space, probably a little smaller, but the seats fold all the way down and away.

Anyway, im moving to Prague for 2 years in a week...taking the car with all my belongings in it...ill let you know then quite how much you can fit in it ;)
 
PhilDrew said:
Thanks for your reply Will. TD4 I'm assuming the obvious that it's Turbod Diesel yes?
What year is yours if you don't mind me asking? I believe that the older TD4 had a Rover diesel and wasn't so good, is that correct?

Hi,
Mine is of january 9th 2001, the Td4 diesel engine (in fact the BMW M47 engine) is operational since end (october I think) 2000, the diesels before were the Xdi from Rover (modified Perkins). As DefUnct also said, the Td4 is able to do whatever you expect of an engine (with or without chipping, I have no powerbox but the chipping was done on the original chip on the ECUboard, taken off-rewritten-soldered back on again). As for the bootspace, sorry but never been in a RR's boot, don't know how it looks like but if you need details I guess you can find them in the car's specs on the LR site ?? Ciao.
 
Hi around yorkshire I have seen 2001 - 2002 (y - 52) plate td4 aroud the10k mark and 1.8s a couple of k+ less at indepents so depending on what you can wring out of them for your raro its all up to you paul
 
Have you considered converting to LPG? All the fun of the range but run on fuel at 37p litre. Perfect! :)
 
Hi guys.
Thanks for your replys.
Hmm. Well me 'n' the missus sat down and went back to the roots of why we wanted a 4x4. Decided we got carried away. We wanted a car that we could off road in, chuck everything in and go camping, etc. etc. RR is perfect for this?? Or is it? Don't know about you guys, but I hate the interior getting mucky, and don't want to scratch the paint work!!
So it's back to the drawing board for the time being!!!
 
Look at the Freelandr forums before you buy. We love our "lemon" Freelander.

Definetlly stay away from the 1.8's, V6's can be suspect and the TD4 which are the best are starting to give problems with age. My advice, keep the Rangie. You will not be happy in a smaller Freelander, not as comfy and a lot less room - we drive a Rangie a lot as well as the Freelander.
 
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