Freelander 1.8 52 plate 4 wheel drive not working...i think

Thanks for the advice. Bloody thing

Do you ever travel down to the South West?
I would think if you gave Bell Engineering a call they could book you in to give it the once over (its a little trek, but could help in the long run, 125 miles ish from Donnie)
Its all they do VCUs, IRDs and Diffs

I'm in Barnsley so not far from Donny. What kinda price we talking to get it all checked out? Yeah tbh I'd rather have someone give it a once over so I know where I stand

They do know their stuff. I got my vcu from them.

Have a look on their site (its free!) but im guessing you need to give a call first and not just rock up.
Ive recently had a VCU/Bearings from them and am in no way associated, but I think its your best bet if everything is confusing at the minute - as my posts show, it took me a little while to get my head around all things VCU / IRD

I get the general gist of what the vcu does but it's all confusing to be honest ha. Yeah think I'll give them a call. Ya can't beat peace of mind

Good ol Landyzone.

New guy asks a question, Someone (Grumpy Gel on page 1) gives the most pertinent reply and gets quietly ignored then there is 5 pages of bickering. Nothing changes.

Its clear from the original post that the guy doesnt know anything about his car - thats not a sleight against him, after all thats why he is here asking for help.
So he gets told to dick about in a muddy field, do handbrake turns, lift it in the air.....Not technically wrong advice, but pretty useless.
Given that he knows nothing about the car, he will not know how a freelander SHOULD behave, handle and react in various situations, has no idea of the capabilities of a working one and will not be able to tell much from how his actually behaves. At best he will learn nothing, quite possibly he will mis-diagnose something and given that he knows little about 4x4, is running Toyo T1 tyres and potentially only has two wheel drive, might very well end up stuck.
Lift it in the air? Yeah, that would tell him things, but just because some people on here can do that, doesnt mean everyone else can or should. I think you would be surprised at how few people have the space, equipment and knowledge to safely get all four wheels off the ground without going to a garage.

Or he could do the one wheel up test - takes minimal tools or knowledge, is relatively safe and will tell him more than enough about his car. OK, it wont show a difference between a free-wheeling VCU and a stripped IRD pinion, but given his knowledge levels it will tell him enough to be able to make a decision about what to do next.



And inevitably in a few days or weeks some other new person will sign up and do a search for help with their transmission, find this thread and ten others like it that are heavy on guesswork, opinions and rambling and light on facts, so they will ask for help, and the cycle continues........

I don't think anybody has said this yet, but the Freelander works the opposite to most 4x4's.

To get the rear to work you need to get the front wheels spinning.

Most people naturally lift off the gas at this point. On the Freelander you need to keep the gas applied otherwise the rears just will not start to work. It goes against the grain to let the front wheels spin, but then the tears kick in and off the car goes. The Freelander works extremely well in mud and on wet grass, sometimes better than a similar age Disco & Defender because it has the TC to stop the wheels spinning.

I have done the 'handbrake test' whilst on some wet grass near my house, the car simply stalls and fails to go, no front wheels spinning. I then progressed to a larger area with wet grass and let my partner drive the car so i could take a look at what was happening. As suggested by *Epicuser* i got my partner to get the front wheels spinning to see if the rear wheels kick in, so to speak, and they did. From my point where i was stood, the rear drivers side wheel started to spin, looking like it was trying to get traction, and the car progressed through the wet grass area. It seems my problem is the actual tyres. They are Toyo t1 sport tyres, and before anyone starts giving me a rant, yes i am fully aware these are not suitable for messing around in fields etc and i will be changing the tyres to 'General Grabber GT 225/55R17' or possibly downgrading wheel size to 16". From my initial post i could only describe what the car felt like it was doing or was not doing. As stated by *dave21478* i have no idea how the car SHOULD drive as i have never owned 1 before. The car will not be used as a play toy to simple mess around in, it is an every day use car, but then again if the mood takes then why not have a mess around or go to an appropriate destination to have some fun. It's 1 of the reasons we own 4x4's. I will also contact Bell Engineering to get them to take a look at everything for me just to be on the safe side. Thank you to everyone who has given advice and being patient with me. I appreciate your help. We've all got to start somewhere.

It sounds to me rightly or wrongly that you have proved that your 4x4 is working and it's unsuitable tyres that are the problem. You need to now check the condition of the vcu to make sure it's not seized and will do further damage down the line. You can do the one wheel up test to do that or talk to bell who are far more knowledgeable than anyone on the forum. They can tell by driving it to see if it's seized or they bench test it off the car I believe you can post it to them and they'll post it back with a diagnosis or send out a replacement if it's knackered.

i'll give the one wheel up test first then post results. thanks for your patience

Yup I would agree with diesel do's comments....

ZDomZ said:

Yup I would agree with diesel do's comments....

Click to expand...

But you can't!!!!

But I have.....