Hi Hippo,

I just haven't had time this week, what with getting things ready for moving, appointments etc...
I have actually got the Freelander on 'That' auction site now.. I'm just about fed up with it quite truthfully and throwing money at it just isn't making me smile.. especially so because we are to be moving.. there's just so so much to get sorted..I'll have to take a hit on it I know..but..that's life?I
I must say though that all your diagnosis has opened my eyes a LOT, but it's also put me off modern cars, I just don't want these 'glitches' I really do detest it.

Duke of Offley (Titch)

It's a shame but that's how it goes some times. Electronics has improved cars to give them more power, more control and more toys/options/features. Sadly they fail just like anything else can. The way to get even is to buy a diagnostic device that can get to the fault codes. Also helps if you can see live data too. At £300 a hawkeye (other options available) can be considered expensive but that depends how often it's needed. When offset against garage charges for diagnostics it can easily pay off if you use it enough. Failing that re-sale price is 50%+.

Video's added to post 41 showing the diagnostics.

Ok got an auto td4 in with this exact fault. It's not ird related. Unfortunately the car came in semi dismantled (ird removed in a very bodged way) so there could be things disconnected o don't know about etc. Will be checking all the earth's and swap out the abs sensors but any more suggestions much appreciated. The car from OP wasn't a 51 plate blue td4 was it???

DUKE OF OFFLEY said:

Hi Folks,

having had a problem last year, when the autobox seemed stuck in third.....it was a fuse! A fuse related to the 'cooling'?????? But it was fine when changed!
But not this time....

However, I wasn't driving at the time, it's 'er car anyway apparently.. but it just lost power and stopped!
No drive at all, no noises, no smells nothing. Engine runs fine etc.. but just won't drive, Forwards backwards or even sidewards??

Any Ideas ( excluding the obvious! )

Titch

Click to expand...

hmm is that a bmb president tractor , im currently restoring one for a customer

austen said:

Ok got an auto td4 in with this exact fault. It's not ird related. Unfortunately the car came in semi dismantled (ird removed in a very bodged way) so there could be things disconnected o don't know about etc. Will be checking all the earth's and swap out the abs sensors but any more suggestions much appreciated. The car from OP wasn't a 51 plate blue td4 was it???

Click to expand...

The original FL1 in this fred were green. It was sold on ebay as the owner needed to move quick. We didn't solve the problem in time.

It's a shame it's been taken apart. The following is the next step I would take, taking into account it's got the ird removed.

Check wiring harness/sensors/solenoids measure correctly. If not investigate.
I assume there's no obdii codes in any computer?
Assuming engine and auto are still connected, engine oft, put the auto gearbox in neutral and turn the engine crankshaft. The auto output won't turn.
Assuming engine and auto are still connected, engine oft, put the auto gearbox in Drive and turn the engine crankshaft. The auto output should turn.

As the auto is low on oil due to ird removed don't turn it more than you need to. Same for engine if oil is low. Make sure you turn the engine crankshaft in the same direction it would move if the engine were running.

If oil colour is ok and no burnt smell with no particles/bits in it then I'd be guessing a brake band or similar has snapped/cracked inside. Could be a solenoid stuck. But this is a guess. Next step would be to start taking it apart further. This is where you need a specialist in auto's or just change it if you think the auto is feked.

These idea's come from:

Hippo said:

Auto gearboxes interest me. Mine played up and had to be replaced. We often tell people to go down the route of the method of investigation the main dealer did to mine. This includes:

Measuring the solenoids/sensors as per the video > Freelander 1 v6 Jatco Auto Gearbox - Measuring the Solenoid and Sensor Resistances
Setting the auto gearbox oil to the correct level (starting the procedure from cold).
Make sure the auto gearbox oil is ok.
Test drive it.

There's no sure way to diagnose auto gearbox problems unless there's something obvious. Obvious meaning a bad resistive reading or something physically broke'd. A lot of the problems are difficult to diagnose without taking it apart. Auto's wear by nature of how they work. Clutch packs etc wear for example.

If the resistance measurements are ok and the auto's ability to drive has slowly weakened to the extent it can't move the Freelander... then I often wonder if the following would help the diagnostic process:

(engine off)
With the auto gearbox in neutral push the Freelander 1 forward to see if it moves - it should.
With the auto gearbox in drive push the Freelander 1 forward and it won't move.

If the above works then:

Lift both front wheels.
Disable drive to the rear wheels - disconnect prop shaft for example.
Start the engine and put into Drive and Reverse, to see if the front wheels turn.

The above test resembles a drill bit in a drill which stops spinning when the pressure on it from drilling a hole it too much so the drill bit stops while the chuck is still turning. I'm wondering if your auto is worn and therefore doesn't have enough grip to pass the full force to move your Freelander. Allowing the wheels to spin in the air may prove the auto does have drive through it, but it's too weak due to wear.

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Cheers hippo. I don't pretend to know anything about autos, not my bag at all. It's a car I bought for myself with a fecked IRD according to the bloke selling it. I wanted to just put a new ird in and drive it through the winter, wasn't expecting other hidden gems. The ird is in so next port of call will be check the fluid levels in the box and abs checks.

Yer being wound up

Yer won't be able to check the auto oil level is correct without the engine running, as per the correct instructions found on LZ. Another option is the auto computer not giving the correct output signals, but that's a bugger if it's not in a state to try to drive it whilst monitoring it.

When the green one failed it (and it's owner) were driving along happily and it lost power as if yer took yer foot oft the pedals. This would make me think something broke inside, as opposed to dodgy gearshifts for a while before loss of drive.

Even though it's been bought the previous owner may still tell you how it failed or when they noticed it. This may give an indication on which direction to take. Sadly most who take them apart (not counting eggsperts) fek them up worse as you have to do things correctly or they stop working. An auto + computer is probably the most technical/complex part of a car when you consider what it's doing... monitoring conditions and reacting to them, verses the drivers demand + taking into account what the engine limits/requirements are. Clever stuff.

Ere, are you a disco driver converting to Freelandering?

Hippo said:

Ere, are you a disco driver converting to Freelandering?

Click to expand...

Disco went 2 years ago, mpg was a killer. Been in a pretend 4x4 since (qashqai) but wanted a cheap 4x4 for winter

Yeah red the how to on the oil levels, just gotta get the oil in. Should of just bought a manual I can fix them

nice write up hippo,

im going to plug this new v7 hawkeye in and give a full report back for u as I know your interested in the auto boxes

mine started to slip through the gears and a few times at lights wouldn't do anything when put into drive , after a few minutes clucked i to gear

on getting it home done the oil change as per spec, it still slipped and gave it a good run down the motorway and a good clear out, been fine and that was 2 years ago

may get an occassional slip but once warms is fine

is always in the back of my mind as I've got 175,000 on the clock , but can't worry anymore of something going, just enjoy it and has been a great car in the snow and very comfortable

had thought of a disco before buying the hippo and to be honest pleased when it returns 40 mpg and drives like a car on the motorway and doesn't wander

Hi all, it's been for ages I haven't been around anymore, living 80 % of the time with my girlfiend and no internet available, the 20 % I'm home too busy keeping things in order.
A big hallo to all anyway, and I have a question (of course, why would you otherwise log in again you .....), it's the following, since a couple of weeks now I feel that my Jatco autogearbox seems to stay in 3 and only the revs go up, when I lift my foot off the gaspedal than it switches to 4 and keeps going normal. (However I "might" have felt once a small hesitation to go to 5 also, but that might be my imagination). The old bugger now is in my possession since the 9th of january 2001 and has done just over 100.000 km. (take it on 80.000 miles I guess). Any of you good folks who could advise me what this could be ? New oil ? (not been changed since new) Reprogramming the box ?? The selector handle works perfectly so no cable adjustment I guess ?

Thanks a lot in advance and hope you all are doing great ? Take care.

willo said:

Hi all, it's been for ages I haven't been around anymore, living 80 % of the time with my girlfiend and no internet available, the 20 % I'm home too busy keeping things in order.
A big hallo to all anyway, and I have a question (of course, why would you otherwise log in again you .....), it's the following, since a couple of weeks now I feel that my Jatco autogearbox seems to stay in 3 and only the revs go up, when I lift my foot off the gaspedal than it switches to 4 and keeps going normal. (However I "might" have felt once a small hesitation to go to 5 also, but that might be my imagination). The old bugger now is in my possession since the 9th of january 2001 and has done just over 100.000 km. (take it on 80.000 miles I guess). Any of you good folks who could advise me what this could be ? New oil ? (not been changed since new) Reprogramming the box ?? The selector handle works perfectly so no cable adjustment I guess ?

Thanks a lot in advance and hope you all are doing great ? Take care.

Click to expand...

Hello there, nice to see you back.
It'll be the ATF fluid has worn out and the box is struggling to get up to pressure.
I had similar issues, I did 3 fluid changes over 3 months. Drives like a dream now.
I used Carlube ATFU.
Best of luck
Mike

Skinny Mike said:

Hello there, nice to see you back.
It'll be the ATF fluid has worn out and the box is struggling to get up to pressure.
I had similar issues, I did 3 fluid changes over 3 months. Drives like a dream now.
I used Carlube ATFU.
Best of luck
Mike

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great to see u back willo

plus 1 what Mike said

Hi Mike and Stuart,

Thanks for the welcome and the advice, I thought it was the oil but wanted to ask before making appointment to do an oilchange. Thanks again and I hope to be able more often to jump in on the forum again. Grtz to all.

Hi all, small update. I went to the garage but the mechanic was not able to connect to the box through the plug under the dashboard, as I had to go on a midweek trip 100 miles away (4 days of bikecycling with 30 members of the senior club I'm a member of) the week after he said he would change the oil after I got back, but in the meantime he said you can try to do a complete software reset of the car, to do this I have to disconnect the battery completely and then connect the two leads of the car together ( + and - leads, connect with a copper wire or so) and leave this for the whole night, I came back on Friday evening and did the battery disconnect this evening, everything (radio code etc.) is to be re-installed and the autobox has to "learn" again your way of driving, I'm curious what it is going to be after the battery installed again. While I drove off on monday after about 20 miles I got an error code on the dash, the hilldescend light went on with an exclamation mark next to it, also when driving in "D" the box didn't shift up after 3rd and 4th but went up in gears to 3K and more, so I went to manual shifting which worked in so far that sometimes when I changed gear, after I let the gears go down to about 1K revs it happened it changed smoothly but other times as same 1K revs it happened w h heavy shocks etc.. I felt sorry for the drivetrain. Also when I had to slow down it happend with shocks (probably the HDC that was engaged with no way to disconnect it) and on the speedometer where you see normallly the D I got alternatively F and 4 all the time. As I was still some 80 miles to go I just carried on as on the motorway no problem, only in urba

continue: only in urban traffic it was tricky. When I arived at destination I stopped the car and started it up again and all seemed normal, on the way back home on Friday everything seemed ok again, no more problems nor funny codes/warnings. Anyway now the battery is disconnected and the leads connected together, will see what happens when putting everything back in order.
(What **** to type in a text, 80% of it is underlined in red as incorrectly written, also my 1st post was sent out "automatically" where it wasn't finished).

Hi Willo

Disconnecting the battery to reset the auto gearbox computer is a myth. The gearbox computer loses it's power when the ignition is switched oft. The Freelander 1 doesn't have full learning ability of say the FL2 and later LR vehicles which have adaptive settings to improve gear changes and learn driving styles. It does have a small amount but it's not noticeable.

Connecting the battery leads together can be dangerous and shouldn't be done. When you disconnect them from the battery the car still has some residual electrical power in the circuits. Connecting the battery positive and negative leads together shorts this out, creating a sudden sharp discharge of the residual power. Electronic circuits don't like this as it can cause them harm (unless they're designed to do it - which cars are not). If you want to remove the residual power leave the side lights on when disconnecting the battery.

F4 (F then 4 then F...) flashing on the dash is limp mode. Often caused by a problem with electrical connections. Check the auto gearbox barrel connectors. Also check the wiring harness for damage.

If your mechanic can't read the Jatco auto computer in the FL1 then you need to use something that can. It doesn't always show up a fault code. The codes are based on when the manufacturer want's to raise as an issue.

Changing the auto oil can do wonders and solve all sorts of problems. If yours hasn't had a change for a lot of miles then this is something you should do. Instructions are on here. Make sure you follow the correct instructions correctly, and undo the correct level plug. I don't think this will fix your problem but it's good to do, to keep your auto and auto oil in good health.

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/jatco-automatic-gearbox.69336/page-3

In general, the auto gearbox computer doesn't work alone when changing gears etc. It's often considered to be at fault for all sorts of things. People complain about it not being as clever as later LR vehicles with more modern adaptive control. It was the technology available at the time. The reality is all it's doing is controlling the gear changes (via solenoids) and reading back data via sensors. The request to change gears comes from the engine computer, which the auto computer then carries out if it's plausible. The is dependent on many factors like driver demand (holding gears for longer when accelerating faster) driver speed (how much the accelerator pedal is pressed) load on the engine (towing or going up hill = more load) plausibility of demand from reference signals like auto sensors and info from other devices, like info obtained from the ABS computer (speed of wheels etc). The auto computer can override this info if the request given is "implausible", like change up to 5th gear at 15mph. Problems with the engine not running well are often the cause of auto gearbox gear selection issues. Like the engine having reduced power because it's got low fool pump pressure, or injectors are bad. Always good to check engine computer fault codes when you have an auto or gear selection problem.

Start by checking the barrel connectors and try a resistance test.


DSC01080 PnqqrjE

Freelander 1 v6 Jatco Auto Gearbox - Measuring the Solenoid and Sensor Resistances

I agree with hippo I have never heard of connecting the battery leads together , there are a few capacitors in the system and all you are doing is shorting them this is fine if you are working on an old cathode ray tube of an old tv which can give up to 30,000v if you were to accidently touch it, but not on car electrics