Freelander 1 Strange Stuttering and Engine Management Light after high load.

Hi All

I recently purchased a 2006 Freelander 1 TD4 Auto with about 98k on the clock primary for towing our caravan in and out of muddy festival fields.

The first thing I did was to get our local garage to do a major service, replace the crank case breather, check the MAF sensor and we tested the VCU. All seemed fine.

When it's cold it seems reluctant to shift up a gear and will hold a lower gear to almost 3000rpm before shifting up. I'm applying very little throttle and barely accelerating. (20mph zone) but when it's warm it shifts much sooner, as expected. Is this normal?

When the engine is warm everything seems fine until you load the engine. The engine will speed up as instructed, but when the engine returns to lower rpm (below 2000rpm) or to idle it starts stuttering, loosing power and the orange engine management light comes on intermittently with the stuttering. It has even cut out at traffic lights once, but starts up fine again.

I have read a lot of the threads about fuel pump failure and leaky turbo/air hoses, but this issue seems to only occur after the engine has returned to rest, not during load.

The local garage advised a double dose of Redex with a full tank of diesel to clear out any dirty injectors and I am about half way down that tank with no improvement yet.

Is there any other wisdom out there, anyone who might have any ideas before I start spending more money investigating and replacing components that might not be at fault?

Thank you,
Q.

but when the engine returns to lower rpm (below 2000rpm) or to idle it starts stuttering, loosing power and the orange engine management light comes on intermittently with the stuttering. It has even cut out at traffic lights once, but starts up fine again.

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give the fuel rail pressure sensor plug / socket contacts a cleaning
see if that helps

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Thank You hd3!

I sprayed some electrical cleaner into the Fuel Rail Pressure Sensor and Socket. It was very dusty! Took it for a drive to warm the engine and then down the motorway a junction and back.

While driving back home through town where it would normally stutter and blink the engine management light, but this time nothing!

I will keep an eye on it, but for now your wisdom has saved me a lot of headache and money.

While driving back home through town where it would normally stutter and blink the engine management light, but this time nothing!

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cool ..

yeah .. that sensor' electrical current runs from millivolts to about 5 volt
so the electrical plug contacts need to be squeaky clean
water ingress to that plug .. is a known issue ..
leads to contact corrosion .. and sometimes corrosion in the harness wiring

google .. or see link in my sig. for contralube-770 ..
a smear of that on electrical connections can save a lot of hassle

glad it's sorted

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Hi hd3

It's been a few weeks since, but the weather and other priorities has meant that I have had to wait until today to replace most of the air hoses with silicone ones, and replace the EGR with a blank as I have heard most people on here advise.

I noticed that the air intake manifold that the EGR is mounted on is very gunked-up. What is the best way of cleaning it without having to remove it? EGR Cleaner?
Some of the hoses that run to and from (what I believe is) the intercooler seems to have a oily residue in them. I was wondering if that was normal or would it be advised to keep an eye on the new hoses and clean if necessary?

I'm still debating the Synergy 2a addition and will have to speak to my insurance first too.

In the meantime I'm going for a drive to see if all is still well after the EGR blank (Have I put all the hoses and screws back where they came from)

Thank You for your, and the other memebers on this forum's advice.

Quintin said:

Hi hd3

It's been a few weeks since, but the weather and other priorities has meant that I have had to wait until today to replace most of the air hoses with silicone ones, and replace the EGR with a blank as I have heard most people on here advise.

I noticed that the air intake manifold that the EGR is mounted on is very gunked-up. What is the best way of cleaning it without having to remove it? EGR Cleaner?
Some of the hoses that run to and from (what I believe is) the intercooler seems to have a oily residue in them. I was wondering if that was normal or would it be advised to keep an eye on the new hoses and clean if necessary?

I'm still debating the Synergy 2a addition and will have to speak to my insurance first too.

In the meantime I'm going for a drive to see if all is still well after the EGR blank (Have I put all the hoses and screws back where they came from)

Thank You for your, and the other memebers on this forum's advice.

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You need to clean the inlet manifold out properly. This entails removing it from the engine. It's only a 10 minute job and doesn't require any gaskets to do.
You can scrape the worst of it out with the back of an old hacksaw blade. The rest will need cleaning with a powerful degreaser. Some use oven cleaner, finishing off with a pressure washer. I use kerosene to clean the inlet manifold, simply because I have lots of it available. Kerosene for me really gets the job done.

Nodge68 said:

You need to clean the inlet manifold out properly. This entails removing it from the engine. It's only a 10 minute job and doesn't require any gaskets to do.
You can scrape the worst of it out with the back of an old hacksaw blade. The rest will need cleaning with a powerful degreaser. Some use oven cleaner, finishing off with a pressure washer. I use kerosene to clean the inlet manifold, simply because I have lots of it available. Kerosene for me really gets the job done.

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Where do you by Kerosene?

After to cans of Mr muscle , a bottle brush and a jet wash I used truck wash that stuff cleans anything

Madmustang said:

Where do you by Kerosene?

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From a large green oil tank in my back garden. One of the many advantages of living in a rural area.

The Inlet Manifold is off, scraped and soaking in oven cleaner. When I removed the inlet manifold I noticed the that passages into the engine that the inlet manifold feeds are just as gunked up, but I'm guessing that's not a easy job that anyone with a screwdriver and a socket set can do?

Next job is to find out why the rear parking sensors doesn't work. From what I read elsewhere on the forum they are prone to getting dirty. Hopefully a bit of a cleaning will sort them out.