lack of power & ticking noise from engine

Hi Guys,
This is my 1st visit to this site and i am looking for some advice and on what could be wrong with my 2004 Freelander TD4 HSE!!

OK so a few days ago driving to work at around 60mph the car started coughing & spluttering throwing some black smoke out of the back and i was getting some ticking noise from the engine.....
Got to work ok but when returning home the same thing started again but now at around 40 / 50mph with the ticking noise being much louder... I eventually had to pull over and be recovered as i had lost all power!! Local garages thought maybe blocked filters / injectors but after a few days this was not the case after testing.....

As they had no idea i turned to the main dealer - Stratstone LandRover (Cardiff) after a few hours they called me to advise the only fault code shown was a "Low Pressure Fuel Pump" at a cost of £450 inc Fit..... After a few days they rang for me to collect the car and within 5 miles of driving home the same problem i took it there for persisted!! they advised as its a new pump to just give it a good run and it should be fine.... the next morning the car wouldnt even start!! AGAIN the car was recovered to main dealer and the next dy the rang back with the good news saying that No2 Injector had gone and a sensor in the engine had packed in @ a cost of £700.....

Soooooo after a couple of days i was just about to go pick it up and they rang with even more good news...... The "High pressure fuel pump" had now gone and the part was £900 without fitting!!

Can anyone PLEASE help with some advice on this matter as it is getting out of hand????

Cheers

It sounds as though the problem was your injector which could have been checked through a leak back test. A lr recon unit is approx £120-130, new is about £270 ish
The low pressure pump costs around £120-130 for a genuine lr part so At £450 it's well over the top as it only takes approx 1 hour to change.
The high pressure pumps don't tend to go too often and will normally start leaking fuel on start up well before they go tits up. Recon units are approx £330 + 3 hours labour, so again they are taking the mickey on the labour costs.
The sensor that they are talking about is probably the fuel pressure sensor which costs approx £40 ish and takes less than an hour to fit ( the terminals can get corroded and need a clean ) although sometimes they fit a replacement harness for this which is approx £130 + labour.
Tell them to swivel and go to a good independent garage.

Sounds very similar to problems I went thru except all I had changed by a garage was my #3 injector which they charged me £230 to change. I changed the low pressure pump myself and fuel filter at the same time. Car ran ok for another 900 miles then started to break down again. I contacted the garage who changed my injector and they said it was the high pressure fuel pump and started talking silly money. After taking advice on this forum I changed the plug/harness to the high pressure sensor (Land Rover part approx £40). I had tried to clean the plug but it was knackered. Car has ran great ever since

With your ignition turned on can you hear your low pressure pump start? Stand by the rear drivers side wheel - mine runs for approx 1 minute.

Clearly a lot of very expensive guesswork by the dealer. These parts don't just fail one after the other, they don't know what they're doing. Don't let them change the Hp pump at this stage.
Agree with the suggestion that the fault is likely to be the fuel pressure sensor in the fuel rail and/or it's harness, the symptoms match and no fault code will be logged for this.
Changing the Lp pump probably won't be a waste of money given it's age and the logged fault code it's due to fail anyway but obviously wasn't the primary fault in this case.