Freelander 1 Pulling to the Left

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mudinuri

Active Member
Posts
673
Location
New Forest
Hi all, any ideas. My 2003 Freelander TD4 Auto has started pulling to the left(Nearside) and the steering somehow feels a little bit wooly, light, I might be imagining that. I"ve checked the tyre tread and pressure and that seems to be okay. Any ideas what else it could be?
cheers
 
No it doesn"t pull to the left under braking, if I take my hands off the wheel it starts to drift left and I have to adjust the steering because it tends to go slightly left as we"re driving along. Other than that she"s good..
 
Could have hit pothole or kerb and knocked tracking out slightly, before you spend money I'd first swap the two front wheels, if I still does it have the tracking checked.
 
Guess it wouldn't affect a tough off road designed vehicle, but did happen to me in the past when I kissed a kurb, it actually moved the steering wheel an inch or two out of centre.
Friends garage just adjusted the tracking and said I hadn't bent anything
( old rover sd 1 )
 
Hi Nodge,
I"ve had the car over two years and as I don"t do much long distance driving except a twice yearly run of about 400miles I only noticed it pulling to the left quite recently. One road we drive on really does have some quite bad potholes and if I remember right I did hit one about a month ago but didn"t put the two together. I also had a nasty encounter with a fully loaded artic who wasn"t going to give way as he overtook a stationary car and I had to take avoiding action by doing a sharp left turn into a side road and my rear nearside wheel clouted the curb but with no visible damage..Could this be a reason why the car drifts to the left.
If anyone wants a facelift bumper or dog guard see my ads in parts for sale
 
Freelander 1 rear wheels are adjustable as well as the fronts. They're different to most vehicles which have none adjustable rears - like pram wheels on the rear of tratters.

Both rears adjust to the spec needed, but are also adjusted together to create the rear thrust angle. If one or both rears are knocked out then the freelander can pull to one side or just feel wrong, regardless what yer adjust ont front wheels. Yer can't correct rears by oftsetting the fronts to compensate.

When pulling to one side yer need to have a look at all 4 wheels. Damaged or bent bits in suspension etc. If lifting it to have a look, be carefull.

Yer need to do the checks peeps have said above and report back. Alloy wheels feeling warm after a short trip (compared to opposite wheel) would indicate the brake is rubbing on one side, causing the heat and pulling to one side. Sticking caliper or pins can cause this.

When yer ses pulling to one side... Does it actually pull to one side or does it drive straight, but with the steering wheel turned oft centre a bit, like at 11 o'clock?

Is there a hamster playing in one of yer wheels? Yer never know...
 
Hi,

I drove it down a friends driveway to their farm. The driveway is flat and straight for about 100 yards and when I let go of the steering wheel she"ll start veering to the left. It"s not a sudden thing, it doesn"t just turn left it will slowly veer to the left and I have to turn the wheel right to correct it.
 
Did yer check the centre bit of the wheel where the wheel nuts are for temperature?
 
I have been out for a drive at the weekend over the hills of Avoca no problems really nice drive on smooth roads, BUT when I pulled into a car park and went to reverse into place me back passenger wheel went out at an angle..On closer inspection the adjusted was completely off dangling in the air.So Nice one to get fixed now. I'm only mentioning this as I had excessive wear on all tyres after replacing the lot, three months later the were balding on the edges. turns out the wheel were out of camber and toe in. All four had to be adjusted. So if it feels wobbly or there's the sound of floor boards flapping coming from the rear check the adjusting arms on the wheel s for slippage.
It could end up as a very nasty crash somewhere when yer wheels turn out.
 
I should stay away from that nice drive around Wicklow. Just had the rear passenger side wheel adjuster fall apart whilst reversing into a parking space.
Heard loud rubbing noise checked the side mirror and saw the wheel sticking out at almost right angles from the body. So hiked for a few miles back to where I could have some cell coverage and get the insurance company to organise a tow, got it dropped of at my preferred Landy dealer nearer home, was a little put out as they had done the camber and toe in adjusting at Christmas or there about's. When I went back to pick it up and argue the cost , I was told this happens a lot when you put the adjuster under stress, their example was hitting a curb, (haven't done that) or a pot hole...**** this is Ireland potholes abound! So best part of 300 Euros later I'm back in my Freelander thinking ....Off road my ass! So word of warning that rubbing sound or the sound of flapping floorboards isn't a good thing to hear...you might want to check the adjusting shaft.
 
That was my argument . All my years of driving and I've only ever seen it on a badly crash motor! But they were adamant and said they've serviced Range Rovers and watched them tear out of the garage and clip the footpath and rip it off!!
 
In all the years i have been on ere and freelandering i have never come across a Freelander with the adjuster falling oft that i can remember. Me thinks the garage did something wrong. Yer should have taken photo's of it to see where the marks were on it.
 
Colmhd1955 said:
But they were adamant and said they've serviced Range Rovers and watched them tear out of the garage and clip the footpath and rip it off!!
Click to expand...

They are talking bollox. There's absolutely no way the adjuster link on the rear suspension will fall apart when reversing up a curb. It uses a huge fine threaded rod, that has about 4 thread diameters of insertion in a matching threaded tube. The bracket on the sub-frame will rip out, or the bolt securing the adjuster link to the sub-frame will fail, well before the actual threaded link fail. For it to come apart, suggests that it wasn't set correctly when the rear tow was done.

As for it happening on the RR, that's bollox too, as the rear suspension on those is even more durable than the Freelander setup.
 
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