Freelander 1 Freelanders are the best land rover because ....

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LandyMan

LandyMan

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somewhere in the UK
The are more comfortable and quicker when commuting for 2 hours every day.

I bought a D2 a while back and after using it for 4 months to travel to and from work I have decided to go back to my freelander.

It's a much smoother ride, and it's quicker. I can actually overtake slower moving vehicles when i'm in my freelander. The steering is lighter too.

Not only that, because of the gear position, the D2 has given me a pain in my left tricep, which isn't nice.

So, in my opinion, my freelander is defo the land rover of choice when having to drive an hour to work, and back.
 
I find the Freelander better on our narrow Cornish lanes than my D3. I'm looking forward to getting my recently purchased Freelander on the road and waving goodbye to the Disco.
 
Love my 3 door td4 sport.

It's nice inside with its leather.
It's good for long road journeys with plenty of power and nice handling.
It's the perfect size: big but not to big.
It's good off road with some nice tires.
The back comes off!

Mine gets used as a utility pick up for lugging wood, barrels and 6 passengers round a forest.
As well as a beach buggy for surfboards and kayaks with the roof bars and back off.
And then after a quick scrub up and putting the hard top back on its a nice car you can carry the family round in.

It really is a jack of all trades but master of none.

And its easy to work on, do all the servicing and repairs myself and I've got zero mechanical background.
 
Horses for courses.
For normal driving Freelander is best.
For towing/normal driving Disco is best
For agricultural use Defender is best
And For Posing RR is best.

Ya pays your money and takes your choice.
 
We had a diesel Disco for a number of years in the UK, then ran a V8 here for 7 years - so Disco isn't a bad motor. We switched to Freelander 5 years ago, and as an all-purpose wagon Freelander is a great. For the commute, school run and general pottering around, they're 'agile' and economic to run (v6 aside!), but still comfortable and with plenty of space for driver and 4 passengers.

On the long runs Disco was great, and so is Freelander. Our L Series is a perfect car for touring, the often mountainous, countryside of NZ in perfect air conditioned comfort with a great view and always returns almost 40mpg. Whether it be 5 adults, us and the kids with the boat on the back and a few 100kg of camping kit or just me and my boy away for a fishing trip - the Freelander is a great wagon and perfectly reliable.

The Freelander will also go all the places I used to take the Disco when I go off tarmac - be it the beach, tracks or river beds - the Freelander loves it. No faffing around with diff lock etc - the transmission just takes Freelander wherever you want to go without hassle. The permanent 4WD of Disco is so much better than the switching 2WD/4WD of Jap trucks, but Freelander is even better. Disco will be better at 'pay and play' sites, but for me I just want to go places where there's no roads - and Freelander takes me there.

A massive bonus, as @Grimlander says, is that they are so easy to work on. The Disco was always a pain to work on, everything was so much bigger, heavier and rusted solid. Our Freelander has hardly gone wrong, but it is a car and there will be things that do go wrong, wear out or need preventative maintenance - Freelander is so much easier to keep on the road.

One downside to Freelander is that there's not much room in the boot - Its a shame the rear seat isn't adjustable. Its also a shame that unless you take the time to really understand how the transmission works, its easy to f**k it up - a costly experience for me!
 
They really aren't too bad are they? When we first got our 06 TD4 I was a bit worried as I'd read a few horror stories on here. However, after two years we are really pleased with it. Show me another landy that I could use for towing a boat, delivering fish, driving long distance, park in tiny spaces, be taken to work by the wife every day, go off road where ever we ask it too, fetch and carry loads of stuff, carry several dogs and rescue a Defender. I also can't think of another 4x4 that could do all this and still get you form Devon to North Yorkshire for £30. As has already been said you can service it yourself no problem at all. Like any car its got its faults but being a Land Rover they add character.

Having said all that my diff or IRD will probably explode tomorrow! :)
 
Hmmm Devon to North Yorkshire for 30 quid...... What are you smoking. Can I see the math on that please.
 
I was suprised as well. Maybe the pump was bust at the garage. Filled it to the top in Devon before we left. When we arrived we stopped to fill it up again so we didn't have to bother whlist we were there, came to £32.47. I kept the receipt in the service book as as proof.

We'd just fitted 4 new Michelin Cross Climate tyres, don't know if they would make that much difference, but there you go.
 
I say that as we did that run in a Volvo which does 10mpg more than the Freelander 193 from Shropshire and it cost more than that, you have 10mpg deficit on us and an additional 200miles ?

Alas when I took my Defender around Pluto the other day I was surprised to get 1892.0 mpg.
 
Shortest distance is 300 miles, lets add 50 as you were unlikely to be going to the closest point 350 miles.

MPG 27 (LOL in your favour)

13 Gallons for that trip...
1 Gallon = 4.5 litres.
58.5 litres
£1 per litre we are talking if you were lucky and filled up at the cheapest possible.

£58.50

Any questions ?

So lets say you get better MPG you would need to double that... (virtually) 54MPG....
 
I can get anything from 450 to 550 miles per gallon out of my 06 TD4.
 
Last edited:
I just fed Harrogate to Exeter into Google - it came back with a route via M1, 42 & M5 being 299 miles.

If the £32.47 equates to 32 liters (I don't know what fuel costs in UK these days - going by the quoted £1/liter) - that makes 7.04 gallons.

So 299 miles divided by the 7.04 gallons equates to 42.47mpg.

As long as you don't push it to much and you're not carrying/towing a load - you recon on about 40mpg from a diesel Freelander - so £32 Devon to North Yorks is very much achievable.

Dunno where a figure of 27 mpg comes from - but sounds about right for a diesel Disco/Tratter.
 
ER1C said:
Alas when I took my Defender around Pluto the other day I was surprised to get 1892.0 mpg.
Click to expand...
That's pretty impressive - presumably you saw that increase because once out of earth's atmosphere with its gravity & drag, the fuel economy improves in a Tratter to 1892mpg.

That is not the only impressive thing about your Tratter obviously.

Presumably, you visited Pluto at the nearest of the planets' orbits so that's 2.66 billion miles, which just goes to show how impressive the reserve tank is to hold 1,405,919 gallons of fuel.

I am assuming of course that you filled up on the dwarf planet for your return journey.

I saw yesterday that @ming is around again. Maybe he can confirm my assumptions and calculations.
 
GrumpyGel said:
I just fed Harrogate to Exeter into Google - it came back with a route via M1, 42 & M5 being 299 miles.

If the £32.47 equates to 32 liters (I don't know what fuel costs in UK these days - going by the quoted £1/liter) - that makes 7.04 gallons.

So 299 miles divided by the 7.04 gallons equates to 42.47mpg.

As long as you don't push it to much and you're not carrying/towing a load - you recon on about 40mpg from a diesel Freelander - so £32 Devon to North Yorks is very much achievable.

Dunno where a figure of 27 mpg comes from - but sounds about right for a diesel Disco/Tratter.
Click to expand...

Your maths are sounds GG. I don't know where 27 Mpg came from but my D3 achieves that daily. The smaller bodied TD4 Freelander with it's smaller common rail engine and a whole 1000 Kg lighter should do much more to the gallon than the heavyweight D3. Someone is in inefficient Tratter mode I think.
 
Nodge68 said:
Your maths are sounds GG. I don't know where 27 Mpg came from but my D3 achieves that daily. The smaller bodied TD4 Freelander with it's smaller common rail engine and a whole 1000 Kg lighter should do much more to the gallon than the heavyweight D3. Someone is in inefficient Tratter mode I think.
Click to expand...
Not just the TD4 - I recon on nudging 40 in my L Series as well. I've never hit 40, but always get about 36 to 39 on the run - depending on how loaded the car is - 36 was a full 5 adults, baggage, aircon running, climbing mountain pases etc. Others do get over 40 from their L Series - I believe the "Hammer Mod" is useful in achieving that - maybe a Ronbox.

Its a big reason why Freelander is so great. We'd quite often not go places when we ran Discovery - purely because it cost so much to get there. With Freelander the cost of going somewhere is not going to hold us back. Admittedly we were running a V8 !
 
GrumpyGel said:
I just fed Harrogate to Exeter into Google - it came back with a route via M1, 42 & M5 being 299 miles.

If the £32.47 equates to 32 liters (I don't know what fuel costs in UK these days - going by the quoted £1/liter) - that makes 7.04 gallons.

So 299 miles divided by the 7.04 gallons equates to 42.47mpg.

As long as you don't push it to much and you're not carrying/towing a load - you recon on about 40mpg from a diesel Freelander - so £32 Devon to North Yorks is very much achievable.

Dunno where a figure of 27 mpg comes from - but sounds about right for a diesel Disco/Tratter.
Click to expand...

Strangely enough I filled it up at the Texaco garage at the top of Telegraph Hill just outside Exeter and we drove to just west of Harrogate. Stayed between 60-70 mph all the way with only a bit of slow traffic on the M1. We took the route you have described. We left the fuel wasting and brake burning speeds to the Audi drivers in the outside lane.

Freebie is regularly serviced, oil changed every 6 months. Its done 80k miles and had 4 brand new tyres put on just before we did the run.

I know a lot of people slate the Freelander but the other day I took the dog for a long wak round the roads where I live and counted way more of them than any of the jap stuff. Saw ones from S reg right up to 06. If they last long and are run by so many people they can't be that bad surely?
 
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