It's not that bad. Every car has a weak point. We don't get many FL2's with swirl flap problems when you consider how many were made. Naturally it's a problem if it fails for the owner as there's potential for damage. But on the whole, over the years I haven't seen significant numbers fail on FL2's. The potential to fail is there as vehicles get older and mileages rise. We have the option to take them out. The fear of the failing on LZ will rise as we start to talk about it more.
There's lot's of talk online about bmw's with problems. They seems to have had a lot more fail. Some of that seems to have transferred to other brands to such an extent they're tainted with the same high failure rates. The FL2 diesel is a DW12 engine from Peugeot/Citron with Ford involved, but claiming to have created it all themselves in the background. It's heritage comes from Peugeot although peeps online tend to give it the Ford name. Even LR use DW12 on the sales receipt and spec list when buying a FL2. DW12 is all over the parts list. We don't see a lot of talk about swirl flap problems on Pugs. When the engine was used in Ford's they made some slight changes. When used in LR's they made some changes anorl, relating to keeping it going at angle oft road. I should confess I like Pug diesels having driven a lot as hire cars. They seem relaxed and have power and be happy to cruise steady all day. It's a nice diesel in the FL2. FL2 owners were lucky when compared to D3/D4 pug engine owners.
Regarding rear diff's... there's a lot of talk about them anorl. The FL2 did suffer with them and LR fixed lots under warranty. Owners have had to pay for repairs anorl. It's a known problem which I have wrote about before. With regular oil changes every 20k miles and the filter changed every 40k miles, eggsperienced FL2 owners have reduced the chance of theirs failing considerably. That doesn't mean it won't fail. There's some luck involved. It's one of those things. LR never solved the problem fully. Looking after rear diff's betterer with servicing as above has helped a lot.
Cheer up. It can't be as eggspensive as buying a d3, d4, rr or rrs. If the rear diff was made of cheese we would suffer with rabies and rat infestations like tratterers. You have a rare car. Not many red ones about. Same for me with a blue one. LR struggled to get the red pigment from Japan when they had the power station fail some years ago so LR couldn't sell red ones for a while. The trend was to buy black, silver, gray and white when new, in order to keep resale values as high as possible as they were the likely colours peeps would want when buying second hand. At least ours have been sprayed with a colour coat as opposed to the black/silver/grey/white who look like they only have primer.
Yer can't go wrong when buying a Freelander. Some Freelander's need more love than others.
