Freelander 2 TD4 Oil in Coolant

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milesr3

New Member
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Thought the dreaded head-gasket failures were a thing of the past with the new Ford diesel engine?

Our '57 plate 31K Freelander 2 TD4 dropped a load of oily black sludge on the driveway on Saturday and on further investigation it was breathed out of the coolant expansion tank, which is full of black sludge. Luckily there is no water in the oil and it is driving perfectly with no loss of power and there were no signs of overheating.

It's being recovered to the dealer this afternoon for diagnosis and being 3 months out of warranty but bought and serviced within the dealer network I'm hopeful of a decent goodwill contribution...otherwise I'll fix it myself or use a local indy.

Fingers crossed that it is something simple like a failed oil cooler...
 
LOL. Just back from the dealers and chatting to a couple of the technicians outside having a ciggie it's not the first one they've seen with a ruptured oil cooler...

Lets wait and see how much Land Rover are prepared to chip in to fix it.
 
Dealer called today to confirm that the oil cooler had failed and needs to be replaced. That was the 'good' news. The interesting part is that despite what Land Rover suggest, the dealer recommend replacing the heater matrix and some of the coolant pipes as well which is going to put the bill well into four figures.

I guess you would if you weren't paying the bill, but as I will be then I'd prefer it if they tried a bit harder to clean the cooling circuit before condemning it.

Unless there is a very generous contribution by Land Rover (and not the current 30%) then it will be on it's way to an Indie with a better hose pipe and a future coolant change pencilled in.
 
The dealer has now confirmed that they need to replace pretty much everything in the cooling and heating circuit (header tank, rad, 'stat, matrix and hoses), which was a bit of a shock. However the cost of all these parts is 'only' £700 so it may be cost effective to replace rather than try to clean out the oil sludge at their labour rates and they believe it is the only way to be sure that the cooling/heating system is clear and will not cause further issues.

Still looking at 6 hours work plus VAT on top though, which takes the bill to £1533. :eek:

I've obviously been in close contact with LR Customer Service as the vehicle has only done 31K and was just 3 months out of warranty. Currently they are offering 33% goodwill gesture, which I have declined.

One interesting twist is that it turns out that the dealer has used the wrong specification of oil during the last two services. The handbook clearly mandates the use of 5W30 Ford 913B spec oil otherwise the warranty is invalidated. They have used an SLX 0W30 oil that does not meet the Ford spec and from looking at the datasheets is 30% higher viscosity than the Ford oil (which is designed to lose viscosity in service). I have raised the concern to LR Customer Service that the higher viscosity oil will lead to higher oil pressure and that this could have been the root cause of the cooler failure. There was one other identical incident in the same dealership. Their technical people have spoken to Castrol and they believe that the oil was not the problem (which they would wouldn't they), but it seems that they have just considered the API spec rather than the effect of the viscosity on oil pressure. I haven't pursued this any further yet but would appreciate anyone's view on this. If necessary I will seek legal advice as they have clearly not followed the mandatory wording of their own service handbook and I would imagine that wording is there for good reason.

At the moment I am awaiting confirmation as to whether they will increase the goodwill contribution. LR Customer Service confirmed that there have been 'one or two' of these failures and this could be grounds for a better contribution.

If they aren't prepared to improve the contribution then I'll be taking it to my local Indy, whose labour rates will allow him to work on it for the rest of his natural life and still come in cheaper than LR :rolleyes:. The dealer won't be servicing it ever again and I can stop looking at the 2011MY vehicle.
 
We finally have our FL2 back after 3 weeks at the dealers. I'm posting an update here as I've been PM'd by another owner who had the same problem over Christmas and LR Customer Service admitted that there have been 'one or two' oil cooler failures out there, so others may benefit from our experience.

In the end the dealer replaced EVERYTHING in the cooling system. All hoses, radiator, heater matrix and expansion tank and of course the failed oil cooler. They thought that they'd successfully flushed the engine block, but upon re-starting the vehicle for the first time it filled and blocked all the new components with oily sludge. This meant removing everything again, including the heater matrix behind the dash and cleaning everything out. They probably should have done this the fist time with most of the original parts, but they are surprisingly inexpensive compared the dealer labour rates for cleaning.

They then ran it on a mixture of degreaser and water and it took a further seven flushes to get all the oil out with test-drives in between.

They finally re-filled with coolant, took it on an extended test drive and upon finding no more oil in the coolant were happy to hand it back to us. we've used it a few times over the weekend and I've checked the coolant when cold again and there is no oil in there.

In the end LR made a contribution of 75% towards the bill we got, which was very generous. Even more so as the charges involved in stripping and cleaning all the newly fitted parts do not appear to have been passed on to us. I believe that the total bill was somewhere in the region of £2300.

If I had the same problem again, didn't have such fantastic support from LR and was paying all of the bill then I would find a decent garage with a sensible labour rate and get them to strip and clean easily accessible parts like the radiator and hoses and repeatedly flush the system with a water/degreaser mix rather before considering replacing things like the heater matrix which is very time consuming being behind the dash. I'm 99% sure that with enough flushes the system would eventually clear.

It's taken a few weeks and a lot of phone calls but LR Customer Service have totally exceeded my expectations throughout. Having our FL2 serviced bang-on schedule by our local LR dealer has paid for itself many times over. Our local LR dealer has also been excellent in the way they've handled the repair. This experience has cemented our loyalty to LR.
 
Last edited:
A final update a couple of weeks after getting our FL2 back.

Apart from the slight shock of seeing a few patches of oily sludge on the ground, which turned out to be oil making its way out of the innards of the front wing, everything is fine.

Despite what the dealer expected, ALL the oil is gone from the cooling system. I've checked it every morning and there hasn't been a trace of oil in there. So it does show that repeated flushes with a detergent mix can clean 100% of the oil out.

Still very impressed with LR and my local dealer.
 
milesr3 said:
The dealer has now confirmed that they need to replace pretty much everything in the cooling and heating circuit (header tank, rad, 'stat, matrix and hoses), which was a bit of a shock. However the cost of all these parts is 'only' £700 so it may be cost effective to replace rather than try to clean out the oil sludge at their labour rates and they believe it is the only way to be sure that the cooling/heating system is clear and will not cause further issues.

Still looking at 6 hours work plus VAT on top though, which takes the bill to £1533. :eek:

I've obviously been in close contact with LR Customer Service as the vehicle has only done 31K and was just 3 months out of warranty. Currently they are offering 33% goodwill gesture, which I have declined.

One interesting twist is that it turns out that the dealer has used the wrong specification of oil during the last two services. The handbook clearly mandates the use of 5W30 Ford 913B spec oil otherwise the warranty is invalidated. They have used an SLX 0W30 oil that does not meet the Ford spec and from looking at the datasheets is 30% higher viscosity than the Ford oil (which is designed to lose viscosity in service). I have raised the concern to LR Customer Service that the higher viscosity oil will lead to higher oil pressure and that this could have been the root cause of the cooler failure. There was one other identical incident in the same dealership. Their technical people have spoken to Castrol and they believe that the oil was not the problem (which they would wouldn't they), but it seems that they have just considered the API spec rather than the effect of the viscosity on oil pressure. I haven't pursued this any further yet but would appreciate anyone's view on this. If necessary I will seek legal advice as they have clearly not followed the mandatory wording of their own service handbook and I would imagine that wording is there for good reason.

At the moment I am awaiting confirmation as to whether they will increase the goodwill contribution. LR Customer Service confirmed that there have been 'one or two' of these failures and this could be grounds for a better contribution.

If they aren't prepared to improve the contribution then I'll be taking it to my local Indy, whose labour rates will allow him to work on it for the rest of his natural life and still come in cheaper than LR :rolleyes:. The dealer won't be servicing it ever again and I can stop looking at the 2011MY vehicle.
Click to expand...

A couple of comments. My freelander 2002 got a similar water coolant issue at 5 years old / 30,000mi. Cost: £1000. Car always serviced at main dealer but out of warranty by 2 years. LR paid 50%.

Another one, everytime I was at Strastone LR in High Wycombe for service or this repair wainted to be served... the message was the same to other customers on the phone or in the garage..

"the cost is not the parts, it is the labour". Great for LR dealer... they make a fortune out of LR missery.

I almost got rid of the car early on but then finally, at almost 9 years old and 55k, this is still the only issue I had with the car. As explained in another thread... I top the collant up every week though...
 
Hi
I have an 08 Freelander 2 TD4 with the same oil leak symptoms. The oil cooler needs replacing. The car has done 55 k miles and always been serviced by the main dealer. Two months out of warrantee. LR have offered 33% goodwill contribution to a £900 bill. To me, this does'nt inspire confidence in the brand. Much as I love the car, I was going to change the vehicle this year (maybe Disco for towing) , I will now look for another brand. Its a shame but this has shaken my confidence in the car. Also the dealer Guy Salmon does not inspire confidence, as they didnt do some of scheduled work on a service, their service and service reception is closed on a Saturday, they didn,t contact me when the 3 years ownership was up to offer to sell me a new car or even an extended warrantee.
Sorry about the rant, I have loved my Freelander but not a happy bunny
 
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