Background

NOTE: As of March 2011, I no longer own my Freelander TD4; I have moved to something a little more family oriented.  Unfortunately this means that I will no longer update or add any TD4 articles except corrections to serious errors or omissions.  There’s plenty of information out there on Google and various forums, some of which is such high quality and accuracy that I couldn’t possibly hope to match it.  If you’ve taken the time to read any of my articles then I hope they helped you – and if you commented or provided any kind of feedback, thank you.

I own a 2005 Land Rover Freelander TD4 Sport.  It has a 2-litre turbo diesel engine and an automatic gearbox.  While I’ve had no problems with the car, I’ve accrued a fair amount of knowledge about the simpler maintenance tasks that are sometimes required.  I have decided to make this knowledge (and what I have discovered from a considerable amount of research) available to the world.

The engine used in the Freelander TD4 from 2001 to 2006 is the 1,951 cc BMW M47, which was used in the BMW 320d from around 1998 to 2001, and the BMW 318d/td from 2001 to 2005.  A lot of information available on the engine as used in the BMW 3-series is applicable to the Freelander – although BMW did make some improvements which didn’t seem to make it to the Freelander.

Note that diesel Freelanders earlier than 2001 have an L-Series Rover TCie engine, and while it is also a 2-litre engine, it is badged as 2.0 Di or TD.

Safety and capabilities

The Freelander was designed as a ‘soft-roader’, i.e. to give the safety benefits of a higher driving position and 4WD, but without any real ability to travel off-road in the traditional sense.  However, the Freelander has proved surprisingly able when not on tarmac; and while it will never rival a Defender for raw off-road ability, it can certainly participate in light off-road pursuits such as greenlaning.  In addition, it is completely happy driving on wet grass; a much more common scenario than greenlaning, and one that can easily confound Discovery and Range Rover owners!

However, the facelifted Freelander (2004 to 2006) is just that – a facelifted Freelander; and as such, has the same safety features of a car (albeit highly-specified) that was developed in the early- to mid-1990s.  It has only two air bags, and it has disc brakes on the front axle wheels only.  Even most entry-level cars these days (2011, that is) have front, side and curtain air bags (for a total of 6), have disc brakes front and rear, and also benefit from most, if not all of, the technologies that Land Rover would have argued set the Freelander apart as a premium car: traction control (ETC), electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD), an anti-locking braking system (ABS), etc.

In addition to all this, the diesel facelifted Freelander kept the same BMW M47 engine as before, which was already six years old (and had actually been retired from the BMW 3-series).  In fact, BMW had made two significant revisions to the engine by 2004 (including a 40%+ increase in power from 114bhp to 161bhp), neither of which made it to the Freelander.

Improving the performance of the TD4

Although the car has no trouble starting up in cold weather, it is a little sluggish for a few minutes until the engine has warmed up properly.  Once the car was a few years old I also started to notice a general loss of power – nothing major, but I tend to drive with a heavy right foot, and so even slight differences are noticeable.

I decided to research possible causes for poor performance with the car.  Land Rover had told me there were no problems and the engine was fine, so I concentrated on upgrades/improvements rather than looking for solutions to problems that probably weren’t there.  Tasks completed to date are:

• Upgrade the air filter
• Clean / bypass / upgrade the EGR valve
• Clean the intake manifold
• Upgrade the PCV valve (crankcase breather)
• Replace the MAF
• Upgrade air intake hoses
• Fit a tuning unit

Maintenance

In addition to ‘generic’ service items such as oil and filters, the Freelander service schedule includes numerous other items, such as cleaning the sunroof drains, and refitting the rear wheels on opposite sides of the rear axle (as specified by a Land Rover technical bulletin regarding suspension).  For this reason I recommend servicing your car at a main dealer, or someone very familiar and experienced with the Freelander.

I have carried out the following maintenance myself:

• Oil and filter renewal
• Air filter renewal
• Brake pad replacement [new Feb 2011]
• Brake pedal position switch replacement

Links and further information

FAQs:

• I have compiled my own list here
• Freelander Club FAQs at http://www.freelanderclub.org/faq.htm
• LandyZone at http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f38/freelander-everything-you-need-know-46437.html

Parts:

• Famous Four – very good range of stock, fast delivery and pretty good prices
• Steve Parker – again, good range of stock, and fast delivery
• Aschcroft Transmissions
• Difflock.com
• Don’t forget eBay, though as always make sure you know what you’re looking for

Information and tuning:

• Tuning Diesels at http://tuning-diesels.com -  not a pretty site, and aimed mainly at the Rover 75 and MG ZT, but the Freelander gets a look-in and the information is all there; it’s run by RoverRon who is well-known and respected by the Freelander community (the Freelander stuff is at http://tuning-diesels.com/TD4/Td4.htm)
• LandyZone forum at http://www.landyzone.co.uk
• LR4x4 forum at http://forums.lr4x4.com – good source of information, but not the most helpful community