Broke, busy and bummed out
With new major parts required, a failed MOT, and a mishap with a gate, it’s not been altogether great for Mark
IT’S BEEN a while since I last updated readers on the Freelander and, in the interim, it’s kept me busy, the garage busy and my bank account depleted. On buying AF05 at 85,000 miles with full Land Rover service history, I had checked with the main agent who’d cared for the car about any major work done; there was none except for routine services, so I was fully expecting the clutch to give out at some point.
In fact, I’d had an issue with the clutch pedal already, with it (very rarely) getting stuck to the floor. Lifting it back up with my toe resolved this, and it happened perhaps three times in 20,000 miles. When the clutch plates themselves decided they’d had enough, the car simply became very much harder to nudge into gear, and unfortunately wear very rapidly ensued.
The BMW dual-mass flywheel clutch is renowned for being a complex and pricey beast, necessitating garage intervention, if you don’t have a lift. The labour cost overwhelms any penny-pinching with parts, so the car gets a new DMF, clutch plates and slave cylinder assembly. My local garage, Southgate Autos, took on the job, with the eventual bill being £1100.
Technician Matt wondered if the expense was worthwhile on a car worth perhaps £2300. It is. AF05 is a superb drive, steady as a rock, the engine in excellent fettle and returns almost 40 mpg on a long journey (around town, it’s thirsty, like most diesels).
Sadly, at its MOT a few weeks later, the car failed on the condition of the fuel tank cradle (I’d had my doubts) so a pattern replacement went on, for around £70 from Rimmers. Land Rover wanted something outrageous for a OEM part.
It was tyre time, too. The car had road tyres but I wanted a town-andcountry bias for the new set. The 17 inch wheels do restrict choice somewhat and, after toying with the idea of buying a spare set of smaller wheels, I decided I didn’t have room in the garage, and selected, from the meagre choice, four Kumho Solus HA31S.
Be aware that, on Freelanders, replacing all four tyres at the same time is almost a necessity, because any variation in the rolling diameter, wheel to wheel, will place undue strain on the transmission system. The first thing to give up is likely to be the viscous coupling unit, which generally becomes a permanent diff lock if overworked by unmatched tyres. From that point, strain on the diff and the very expensive IRD unit will follow.
At the same time, I bought a £70 Tyre Pressure Monitoring System from Amazon and fitted that. I was expecting some issues, but to be fair, it took ten minutes to fit and has behaved perfectly (Meipro’s solar-powered unit if you want one). It even tells me the exterior temperature around each wheel.
The Kumhos are simply superb. They’re quiet, great in the rain and have a tread pattern with a lot of deep lateral sipes, suitable for some greenlaning. They were mid-priced, and up against some highly-rated but expensive Michelin rubber, and I have no regrets.
Then the clutch did its trick again, stranding my missus in the middle of town until she remembered to lift the pedal with her toe, and I regretted not having also replaced the clutch master cylinder assembly, which plugs into the slave assembly. So that’s on the to-do list, at around £120 and an hour’s labour.
At the time, ’er indoors was angry with me for not having mended this intermittent fault, but she toned it down because, just a couple of weeks earlier, she’d casually swung into her father’s driveway and obliterated both offside doors, deeply dented and scored by the gate pillar.
On a car this age, repairing and respraying them makes no sense, because the scrapyards are full of ready-painted replacements. Except for one, small point; AF05 is painted in Giverny Green - a colour produced primarily for Range Rover and as a (rarely taken) option for Freelander. I hunted for weeks to no avail but eventually I opted to offer a £25 finder’s fee to anyone on a Freelander parts Facebook group for the location of two decent doors.
A few days later, a true gentleman of the Freelander world, Jon Green, in Norfolk, had found a pair of doors with paint code 734. I suggested a price, he knocked the scrapyard down a few quid and retrieved them. A holiday has intervened so I don’t have them at home yet, but I cannot thank Jon enough. He’s in the vehicle dismantling trade, and really knows his stuff.
So my doors will be removed, the door cards, glass and electrics scavenged, and the swap will be done in my driveway. At the same time, the long-broken power fold mirror on the nearside will be replaced – again with a used item – and I’ll let you know how that goes.
Until then, I have a scratched Freelander. Its previously pristine condition had my better half banning me from taking AF05 off road. But to celebrate the damage, I’ll just have to get some greenlaning in, watching the nearside carefully and letting branches drag freely along the offside...