Td4 trouble starting, low on power and lots of black smoke

I’ve been having problems with my Land Rover for the last few weeks.

Since I bought it it’s occassionally had trouble starting. A mechanic recommended it was the low pressure fuel pump but I’ve put off changing it. Recently its got worse, struggling to make power on the motor way and I noticed there was lots of black smoke coming out. It then stopped starting entirely.

I changed the fuel pump and it started straight away. After that the fuel pump was really noisey and it was quickly doing similar things as before. I read online it could be because of a cheap pump (pwm) so I took it back and replaced it for a Bosch pump.

Again it started fine at first and now it’s the same as before. The pump isn’t noisy but it stuggles to start. When it does it will drive but there is lots of black smoke and the cars struggling to get up hills. Occasionally the check engine light is coming on.

Does anyone have any ideas what it could be?

It’s a diesel 2006 freelander 1 model

Black smoke is over fueling. It can't actually over fuel, but what can happen is there's too much fuel for that available air in the cylinders. So you need to be looking at the intake system for leaks. The normal places for leaks is from the large black boost pipes. These suffer from splits, which are difficult to spot, but they open under boost and let the air out. So that's where I'd be looking first.

The starting issue is likely to be something completely different however. How exactly is it difficult to start?

When starting do you stab at the switch, hoping it'll catch?

Or do you just hold the starter in until it fires?

The fuel system would seem fine once running, as it's delivering fuel well enough to make the black smoke.

There is a fault that can make starting very difficult, unless a quick spray of Easy Start is used, so that's possibly your issue, although that fault is constantly there, not better some times than others.

Thanks, I’ll check over all the boost pipes and see what I can find.

Starting the car, I hold the key until it starts. Sometimes it catches straight away then others it cranks for a while before catching. Once it does start it then stays stuck at a rough idle. When it’s stuck at idle I can full press the throttle and it’ll barely rev.

Eventually it will start and run normal but I have to just keep trying until it does

The sluggish starting from cold could be the glow plugs.

I've got a couple of plugs that are faulty and won't come out, so mine takes quite a bit of cranking to start from cold. It'll then splitter for a few seconds, but a quick rev up will correct that situation.