What have you done to your Freelander today

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There was me thinking you had a crowd of buyers and you sold it to one of them!!!

You could have sent them to me.
My TD4 in black and V6 in silver are off to Mot next week then new homes wanted.
 
The prices are coming down, usually because of lack of owner maintenance. Which I can tell wouldn’t be the case for you, so bargains are around. Just look at it as a new chapter in the learning cycle:)

seems to me the FL vcu thingymebob is more trouble than my electrickery:eek:

anyway good luck in the search for a bargain.

J
 
marjon said:
The prices are coming down, usually because of lack of owner maintenance
Click to expand...
I bought a D3 with mediocre maintenance from it's one owner. That thing, although lovely to drive, cost me the equivalent of 3 FL1 purchases in three years, and that was just the parts.:eek:
marjon said:
Which I can tell wouldn’t be the case for you, so bargains are around. Just look at it as a new chapter in the learning cycle
Click to expand...
Maybe, but the subsequent repair costs would be higher than a FL1.;) And the L322 seems to rust, which is something I don't really need to worry about with the FL1.
marjon said:
seems to me the FL vcu thingymebob is more trouble than my electrickery
Click to expand...
The VCU is only a problem if incorrect tyre maintenance is done, and it's not replaced when it's tired. The VCU can live long (mine has 130K miles on it) and still functions correctly. I will be rebuilding my VCU later this year, so VCU isn't a problem for me, or most others in the know. ;)
 
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marjon said:
The prices are coming down, usually because of lack of owner maintenance. Which I can tell wouldn’t be the case for you, so bargains are around. Just look at it as a new chapter in the learning cycle:)

seems to me the FL vcu thingymebob is more trouble than my electrickery:eek:

anyway good luck in the search for a bargain.

J
Click to expand...

I only recently chaned mine at 156,000 miles. Being honest with you it probably should have been done sooner than that, but I believe the reason mine never created any problems is the first 88,000 on my freelander were long drives doing 30+miles each way commuting, for four years. The next 14 years its been doing mostly short journeys, so assuming the VCU was getting tired, I envisage it building up some latent torque in it, which it could then dissipate while stood still.

For example, if I drove it the 3 miles to my workshop for an afternoon playing spanner monkey, it would wind up a bit on the way there, then while I was at the workshop for say four hours, it would unwind while I played spanner monkey. When I drove home, 3 miles agian, it would slightly wind up again, but also unwind while stationary over night. Also being in north East Scotland, where the roads are usually covered in rain water and or tonnes of salt and grit, either or both of these on a roads surface effectively lowers its coefficient of friction, possibly allowing the small amount of torque wind up to disspiate by letting one of both axles slightly over or under rotate.

I think that if my freelander had continued to do ~22,000 miles a year in our ownership of it, as it did in its previous owners time with it, that viscous would have wrecked the other components in the transmission, namely the rear diff and the Intermediate Reduction Drive (transfer box) long before 120,000 miles. I also think that since the previous owner, and I both kept ontop of the tyre maintenance, and it has spent most of lits life running on relatively new tyres, that also helped eek the VCU out this long.

Living in scotland, a country that gets more rain fall per year than Borneo, I do not want to run on "semi slicks" as I call tyres on their last few millimetres of tread. Furthermore, its meant to be a mild offroader, while my freelander is never going to be an ultra-4 "Truggy" competition truck/buggy, but I don't want to get beaten by a damp muddy hill because my worn road tyres cannot get any grip, or stuck like an audi A4 quattro in 2cm of snow. So our one has usually ran either all terrains or mud tyres, change from muds to all terrains about easter, and back to muds about November, so the tyres aare changed and rotated twice a year.

I changed my VCU 156,000 mile VCU more to futureproof the cars reliability, than to remedy any issues experienced. It showed no signs of transmission wind up, but all the same, I was aware that at this mileage on it I was effectively playing russian roullete with the other components in the driveline by having such a high mileage VCU. I also know that making it to 156,000 on an origial VCU without problems is an edgecase and possibly a record? This "future proofing" is also the reason for a lot of other work I'm doing on the car just now, such as new wheel bearings, renewing and refurbing all the brakes etc...

However, if you budget on chancing your viscous at a more sensible mileage at somewhere between 80,000 & 100,000 miles, you are almost certain to dodge the transmission windup back diff and or IRD shredded bullet. and at say £400 for a new genuine GKN viscous with new bearings, assuming you fit it yourself rather than pay a garage labour rates to fit it, it works out at works half a pence per mile travelled, you probably spend more on screen wash than that? OR assuming your car does the theoretically typical 10,000 miles per year, its £400 every eight years, less than a pound a week to budget on the VCU. What ever way you crunch the numbers its not that much trouble if done properly. Neglect it though and it will bite a sizable chunk out of your ass, what are you looking at? A couple of grand for a recon IRD + Diff + new VCU & Bearings? Ouch!
 
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marjon said:
seems to me the FL vcu thingymebob is more trouble than my electrickery:eek:
Click to expand...
See this is where you non-Freelandery types show your ignorance - and you have been firmly put in your place by the Freelander faithful.

VCUs don't cause any problems.




Until they completely **** up your car :oops:

The problem with them is that if you don't know they are there, or how to look after the car because it is there, they will eventually turn expensive parts of it to iron filings. Unfortunately most Freelander owners don't know its there or how to look after the car because of it. This twit didn't, until I got a quote for parts that was more than I paid for the vehicle when it was quite a desirable motor.

If you know its there and how to look after the car, they are brilliant, fantastically reliable things, that when they do eventually wear out, are not very expensive and quick/easy to replace. Unlike the electrickery stuff which, all by itself, can cause monumental problems and expense - just ask many Freelander2 owners :eek:
 
GrumpyGel said:
See this is where you non-Freelandery types show your ignorance - and you have been firmly put in your place by the Freelander faithful.

VCUs don't cause any problems.




Until they completely **** up your car :oops:

The problem with them is that if you don't know they are there, or how to look after the car because it is there, they will eventually turn expensive parts of it to iron filings. Unfortunately most Freelander owners don't know its there or how to look after the car because of it. This twit didn't, until I got a quote for parts that was more than I paid for the vehicle when it was quite a desirable motor.

If you know its there and how to look after the car, they are brilliant, fantastically reliable things, that when they do eventually wear out, are not very expensive and quick/easy to replace. Unlike the electrickery stuff which, all by itself, can cause monumental problems and expense - just ask many Freelander2 owners :eek:
Click to expand...

Sorry marjon I didn't mean "to put anyone in their place" I was merely aiming to share my knowledge and expereince and dispel a few myths.
 
Jayridium said:
I only recently chaned mine at 156,000 miles. Being honest with you it probably should have been done sooner than that, but I believe the reason mine never created any problems is the first 88,000 on my freelander were long drives doing 30+miles each way commuting, for four years. The next 14 years its been doing mostly short journeys, so assuming the VCU was getting tired, I envisage it building up some latent torque in it, which it could then dissipate while stood still.

For example, if I drove it the 3 miles to my workshop for an afternoon playing spanner monkey, it would wind up a bit on the way there, then while I was at the workshop for say four hours, it would unwind while I played spanner monkey. When I drove home, 3 miles agian, it would slightly wind up again, but also unwind while stationary over night. Also being in north East Scotland, where the roads are usually covered in rain water and or tonnes of salt and grit, either or both of these on a roads surface effectively lowers its coefficient of friction, possibly allowing the small amount of torque wind up to disspiate by letting one of both axles slightly over or under rotate.

I think that if my freelander had continued to do ~22,000 miles a year in our ownership of it, as it did in its previous owners time with it, that viscous would have wrecked the other components in the transmission, namely the rear diff and the Intermediate Reduction Drive (transfer box) long before 120,000 miles. I also think that since the previous owner, and I both kept ontop of the tyre maintenance, and it has spent most of lits life running on relatively new tyres, that also helped eek the VCU out this long.

Living in scotland, a country that gets more rain fall per year than Borneo, I do not want to run on "semi slicks" as I call tyres on their last few millimetres of tread. Furthermore, its meant to be a mild offroader, while my freelander is never going to be an ultra-4 "Truggy" competition truck/buggy, but I don't want to get beaten by a damp muddy hill because my worn road tyres cannot get any grip, or stuck like an audi A4 quattro in 2cm of snow. So our one has usually ran either all terrains or mud tyres, change from muds to all terrains about easter, and back to muds about November, so the tyres aare changed and rotated twice a year.

I changed my VCU 156,000 mile VCU more to futureproof the cars reliability, than to remedy any issues experienced. It showed no signs of transmission wind up, but all the same, I was aware that at this mileage on it I was effectively playing russian roullete with the other components in the driveline by having such a high mileage VCU. I also know that making it to 156,000 on an origial VCU without problems is an edgecase and possibly a record? This "future proofing" is also the reason for a lot of other work I'm doing on the car just now, such as new wheel bearings, renewing and refurbing all the brakes etc...

However, if you budget on chancing your viscous at a more sensible mileage at somewhere between 80,000 & 100,000 miles, you are almost certain to dodge the transmission windup back diff and or IRD shredded bullet. and at say £400 for a new genuine GKN viscous with new bearings, assuming you fit it yourself rather than pay a garage labour rates to fit it, it works out at works half a pence per mile travelled, you probably spend more on screen wash than that? OR assuming your car does the theoretically typical 10,000 miles per year, its £400 every eight years, less than a pound a week to budget on the VCU. What ever way you crunch the numbers its not that much trouble if done properly. Neglect it though and it will bite a sizable chunk out of your ass, what are you looking at? A couple of grand for a recon IRD + Diff + new VCU & Bearings? Ouch!
Click to expand...
When driving yer vcu is sometimes under pressure from the front and rear props turning at differing speeds. A working vcu can accept the difference and take it out of the drive train. As soon as the props are at the same speed then stress applied across the vcu is gone. It doesn't need to time unwind as such. Theres no transmission wind up like ole tratters, which needs to be released. It's more a case there's stress in the transmission but only when pressure is applied because the vcu is resisting it. As soon as the pressure is gone the stress is gone.

There is no eggspected life time of a vcu in miles. The best way to look after it is to do the One Wheel Up Test regular to get to know yer vcu's times, and compare that to future test times it order to know if they're getting biggerer. If so then yer vcu is starting to stiffen more and becoming a concern.
 
GrumpyGel said:
See this is where you non-Freelandery types show your ignorance - and you have been firmly put in your place by the Freelander faithful.

VCUs don't cause any problems.




Until they completely **** up your car :oops:

The problem with them is that if you don't know they are there, or how to look after the car because it is there, they will eventually turn expensive parts of it to iron filings. Unfortunately most Freelander owners don't know its there or how to look after the car because of it. This twit didn't, until I got a quote for parts that was more than I paid for the vehicle when it was quite a desirable motor.

If you know its there and how to look after the car, they are brilliant, fantastically reliable things, that when they do eventually wear out, are not very expensive and quick/easy to replace. Unlike the electrickery stuff which, all by itself, can cause monumental problems and expense - just ask many Freelander2 owners :eek:
Click to expand...
Freelander 2's int that eggspensive ter repair :p :D

They're not like D3/D4 and range rovers built after the big Freelander P38. They all like to snap their cranks for fun. If they do manage to get anywhere near 100k miles they're well feked, requiring a golden service. Betterer known as a ground up restoration.
 
Thanks for that @Hippo, I had it in my brain that the front and rear diffs were different ratios resulting in consant drag being felt by the VCU, which put load on the VCU and thus heated the fluid. As I understood it the fluid failed because it slowly got cooked and became overly viscous transmitting most if not all of the torque from the two diffs at different rotational speeds into each other. And as such, long drives like dual carriageway / motorway exacerbated things on an iffy VCU because the difference in the ratios front and rear,it was a constant load on the VCU heating it up making it even stickier allowing the front band back diffs to have an arm wrestling match.

Its interesting that they don't need too much time to unwind, but if they can unwind, that plays nicely with my thinking that short journeys will be better for them than longer ones, and having done half its mileage running around locally, that had probably helped mine at least even a little.

I'd been looking at D3/D4's... having read various comments off here I'm quietly going off the notion, as since I discovered the fate of our old disco I've been feeling an empty pang in my soul yearning for another discovery. To let you understand, we used to have 300tdi discovery, to which which I had done a new boot floor, both sills, partial floor pan, 4x new calipers discs and pads, retrofitted heated sats to it, fully lined the interior with sound deadening, new front bumper and rubber bull bar, snorkel, parking sensors, brand new sony bluetooth head unit and brand new speakers, including wiring in the tailgate boom box to a preamp out from the headunit,two sets of wheels with one having chunky tyres t'other having A/T's on them, we loved the vehicle and thats why rather than patch a bit here and there I had replaced whole sections of the vehicle.

I regrettably sold it to a guy that was a friend at the time, he duly ran it into the ground, taking off the alloys with chunky tyres and selling them on gumtree for £80, took off the rubber bull bar and was going to skip it complete with the brand new headlights, I saved it before he managed to take it to the dump, he put on a 2" lift partial kit, as in +2" heavy duty shocks and +2" heavy duty springs, in his own words the shocks would have been as well being straight bars of steel, it didnt have the extended brake lines or caster adjustment arms or cranked rear arms, so the geometry was now to hell in a wheel barrow. He then ripped out the sound deadening etc.... His mistreatment of the motor was one of many dickish traits that came to the surface withi him, hence he used to be a friend. There were many other things outside landrovers that he did that soured our relationship, but the final straw for me was when I recently discovered that when it needed a bit of chassis welding for its MOT, he had sold it on gumtree for "Spares or Repair" for £300.

You know as well as I do someone's going to buy that as spares, flog engine & Gearbox, the 24 spline axles, weight in the shell and chassis and call it a nice easy £500 proffit. So he killed my old disco, and I've since been greiving it, yearning for another disco, but equally aware that if I bought another D1 I'd most likely be starting at square one and need to stock up on welding supplies again. D3/D4 I thought hmmm....
 
As my daily drive, I use my 15yr old 140K+ TD4 every day. Some days it just feels worn out, every knock, rattle, uneven running or even creaking wipers make me worried about the possibilty of expensive bills. Other days however - like today - it drives lovely and smooth and everything works just as it should, even the folding mirrors and all the windows. I expect now I've posted this I'll be starting a new thread in the next few days about some new issue giving me concern.

Does anyone else have this sort of experience?
 
kernowsvenski said:
As my daily drive, I use my 15yr old 140K+ TD4 every day. Some days it just feels worn out, every knock, rattle, uneven running or even creaking wipers make me worried about the possibilty of expensive bills. Other days however - like today - it drives lovely and smooth and everything works just as it should, even the folding mirrors and all the windows. I expect now I've posted this I'll be starting a new thread in the next few days about some new issue giving me concern.

Does anyone else have this sort of experience?
Click to expand...

You're not alone. But I like to remember that I've had way more good days than bad. Plus, it's dangerous to think of 'expensive bills'. Try, 'exciting challenges'. ;)
 
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