LandRover Freelander -comments?

BillScarab

Hmm, not sure I'd agree that the Freelander has limited off road abilities. I've seen a couple at Off Road play days doing remakably well..

The TD4 engine is fine. A colleague has one with 130,000 on it and it's still going strong. However they do leak, another colleague had a five door and the underfloor boot locker was always filling up with water.

If you can find a TD4 where the rest of the car is in good nick you may be OK but buying a car that's done 100,000 miles is always going to be a bit of a lottery. Personally the Freelander would be bottom of my list if I was lookign at any sort of Land Rover, I'd prefer a decent, older Discovery. Although a Series Truck with a V* in would be even better!

One good thing about Land Rovers generally is there are lots of independent specialists around.

Hintza

BillScarab wrote: »

Hmm, not sure I'd agree that the Freelander has limited off road abilities. I've seen a couple at Off Road play days doing remakably well..

The freelander would not be your first choice as a dedicated 4x4 though. It could not live with the demands required and can only be described as a soft off roader. I could just about get the freelander to go anywhere a true offroader could but again it would come down to choice of tyres and ground clearance might be an issue.

Pssst

Hmmm...as i suspected. Perhaps i wont bother then. If i wanted a boat,I'd buy one.

MX5huggy

How about a BMW X3?

goldspanners

if i needed something like this i would go for the rav4. the early versions got great reviews if i remember rightly. not sure about more recent models.

markelock

The X3 is pretty ugly though isn't it? Even Clarkson said it's ugly, and he knows ugly.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

My mate has had both a Disco2 and a Disco3, with very few problems and around 30,000 miles a year. He loves them.

itsmeagain

Hintza wrote: »

The one thing to remember is tyres are one of the most important elemts in deciding how well a vehiclle will do off road if you are running on road tyres you will always struggle.

As for the freelander it has fairly limited off road abilities and without going into too much detail my short list of options for a soft offroader would be:-

Toyota RAV
Honda CRV
Nissan XTrail
and slightly lower down the Nissan Quashqai, Suzuki SX4, Fiat Sedici
Others include:- Subaru Forrester, Mitsibushi Outlander.

Why?

Better built and will hold value better (but that is now realtive in the current climate)

Thanks. Just to make sure i understand what you are saying here... If you were buying a 05 plate Freelander sized SUV with 100K on the clock, are you saying that the above list of cars are a better choice i.e, they are similar sized, at no higher cost AND "no less than the off road capability of a freelander"?
The reason why i'm asking is that i have a friend who runs 4x4's driving courses. My boyfriend knows some instructors and enthusiasts and they've said that when it comes to the freelander/RAV4 size category, nothing is as caplable and robust as Freelander off road. Rightly or wrongly, I was under the impression that many LR's are sold as a status symbol AND because the have 'true' 4x4 off road capabilty opposed to just looking like an off roader. Having paid a premium price for a off roader, most people dont use them off road.

Hintza

To be honest although I instruct 4x4 (but not for a year or so) I have never driven the Freelander so i can't really comment on its off road abilities. Although I suspect it might edge it on off raod ability.

But my advice is be realistic on the reasons you need a 4x4. If you can expand on that I or others might be able to advise you better. For most normal applications in the UK there will not be much difference between them all and they weill get you through.

But my original comment on tyres is the most important element. These vehicles will all come with road tyres which will be fine. But overall off road performance will be greatly enhanced by upgrading to chunkier tyres. This can be done in degrees from road to 80:20 to full off road tyres.

I currently drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee for towing purposes and it does fine but I would expect to get stuck in really heavy ground with the trailer and tyre combination that is on it. But for my purposes its fine.

If you are looking for a towing vehicle then you need to look at your weights closely.

So please expand on your likely uses and the amount of the most extreme driving you arelikely to do.

If you wanted something a bit chunkier then the Mistibushi Pajero Sport is supposedly pretty good. But it will not have very refined on road manners and is based on the L200 pickup but its fairly cheap.

movilogo

The pre-2006 (old shape) Freelanders were notoriously unreliable (just search on any car forum). The new model is much better though.

Freelander is a very capable off roader. Its unique terrain response system and electronic torque distribution aids allow even novice drivers to perform mind boggling level of off roading (I myself did that with no previous experience).

If you are intending to go off road, then go ahead and buy a post 2006 Freelander. There is hardly any competition at that price range.

However, if you only do school run, avoid this car at all cost - it's just not worth buying.

All the cars mentioned above (eg. RAV4, CRV, Outlander, Xtrail etc.) are far better choice than Freelander for day to day driving. However, if you consider off roading capability, they are just babies compared to Freelander. There are only few cars which are more capable off roader than Freelander viz. LR Discovery, Toyota Landcruiser/HiLux, Mitsubishi Shogun, Nissan Pathfinder, Daihatsu Terios (can't recall anything else now)