Freelander 1 TD4 centre silencer

I've done a bit of a search and it seems that it's a common theme. The centre silencer is getting to the end of its life, but in their infinite wisdom, Landrover decided to make it in one piece with the cat so if you want to replace it, you have to buy another cat too...

I now have a choice between spending more than the car's worth on a genuine item with a cat in it that's likely to actually work, or as little as £68 on a cheap and nasty item that probably doesn't even have a cat in the cat can, let alone a decent one that works!

As an alternative, I was wondering about just getting an aftermarket centre box and either welding or sleeving it into the system, keeping the original cat. My question is, has anyone seen inside the original centre box? Does anyone know whether it's just a "straight through" fibre-packed silencer with a perforated tube running down the middle of it, or whether it has baffles in it, please?

Avocet1 said:

As an alternative, I was wondering about just getting an aftermarket centre box and either welding or sleeving it into the system,

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That's what I did with my V6, when the box started to leak.
I used a universal straight through box.

Avocet1 said:

Does anyone know whether it's just a "straight through" fibre-packed silencer with a perforated tube running down the middle of it, or whether it has baffles in it, please?

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I used the same box again for my TD4 back box replacement.

It sounds slightly deeper in tone, but not much noisier than standard.

Ta. I'm just wondering if the OE centre box is straight through?

I can get mild steel cylindrical boxes about the right size online for £57. I'm wondering whether to get one of those and weld it in, or whether to go for the £68 "proper" front half system on eBay and just cut it off behind its cat can and weld it to the back of my cat can? I don't imagine that it will be very good quality at that money, but on the other hand, I do get all the pipe that goes with the silencer...

Avocet1 said:

Ta. I'm just wondering if the OE centre box is straight through?

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Yes. It's a straight through box, with a wool pack to absorb the sound. You can actually replace it with a straight pipe if you like. The noise would increase, but I suspect not by much, as is common with a turbo diesel.

Avocet1 said:

I can get mild steel cylindrical boxes about the right size online for £57. I'm wondering whether to get one of those and weld it in, or whether to go for the £68 "proper" front half system on eBay and just cut it off behind its cat can and weld it to the back of my cat can? I

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I'd get a standard silencer and clamp it in, rather than mess about welding on a modern vehicle.

Thanks Nodge. That sounds like good advice. I'm keen to keep it quiet. On the whole, I've been quite impressed (for what it is, which is a much-neglected 18 year old diesel!) with the refinement - and that's after a 2006 Nissan X-Trail with fewer miles on it! The Nissan sounded like "a canvas bag of spanners being kicked down a fire escape" on cold mornings! The Freelander is quite quiet and comfy really. I have an old V6 Alfa for "fun". Now THAT's a car I wouldn't mind losing a silencer on!