A very interesting article, not really all that far wrong. Obviously there is some exaggeration there but not as much as we might hope.

gearstick wobble and movement when idling is often caused by the lower tie bar that connects at the rear right of the engine. About £40 or so, simple to replace.

Nice one Hippo, I do the same. To the OP, this sounds like they're arse covering. They've probably noticed that there's some leakage from the oil seal and suggested that to top it up they need to remove the filler plug which is often seized and theyre letting you know. Might be worth WD'ing it...

Hi Hippo, What colour is what? The FL is a 1998 1.8 petrol. Not quite sure which gearbox it is, i'll check later.

I've recently noticed that there is a rumble from my gearbox which disappears when the clutch is dipped and is also worse when the engine is cold. I'm fairly sure that this is the main gearbox bearing but i'm not sure how simple it is to change. Has anyone tried to do this themselves? I know the...

My sunroof had the same kind of issues at the weekend - the sprout opened it whilst on the M5 and then it wouldn't close so we had a windy journey to Devon. Anyway, I gave it a healthy dose of vaseline and manually moved it a few times and it seems to have loosened off. Will continue to use it...

Clean the crap out of the pipe that goes from the carb to the rocker, it made a big difference to mine and got it through the MOT.

I like my Freelander, though I also understand it's downsides. I have a 1.8i XEi which i've had for about a year and has done 30k miiles, it's now on 105K. I've changed the clutch and fixed all of the little niggles. Haven't had HGF issues but i'm not worried about that - it seems to be pretty...

Take the cowling off, remove the plug and squirt it with wd40. Give it some up the barrel too.

"made a big mistake buying the 1.8 in the first place. i dont get it, people still buy these k series even after getting all the bad reviews on here" Although LZ seems to be the place where I spend most of my time, I suspect that most people only sign up AFTER they've bought a Freelander. I...

I'd agree that it sounds like the clutch, the question is how close the biting point is to the floor. The clutch isn't too difficult to replace yourself though it will take a weekend or so. On the plus side, the petrol doesn't have the clutch cylinders inside the bellhousing so you can change it...

A fair point that if it's seized then it's conclusive, it strikes me that checking the rear tread is a simpler overall check.

I have a petrol so i'm not sure but I think the DMF (dual-mass flywheel) may need changing but not always.

£850 is a bit steep right probably - about £150 for the parts and about 6 hours work. I did mine for about £100 all in and it took two weekends though if I were doing it again i'd do it in about 6 hours or less. Putting the gearbox back isn't too tricky - you have to be sure that you centre the...

Check the back tyre tread - if it has a sawtooth profile then the VCU is shot. This is probably the best indicator as it's not easy to do a VCU test and it's not very conclusive either. There seems to be a lot of discussion as to whether a certain amount of holding back is expected in a FL, if...

Get your spanners out joe. I did the clutch in mine - not too difficult really, though manhandling the gearbox can be a pain. I'd also recommend buying a fairly decent clutch repair kit as i found the gearbox tricky to push back into place and had to tighten it with the bolts and i think that...

Sounds like clutch - mine went at about 100K after i stupidly lent it to some people. Clutch is now about halfway, previously it was close to the floor.

Probably not, though it's certainly worth reconnecting it. The fault is probably that the rear cubby hole is full of water. The reason for this is that the rear door seals aren't very good. The remedy is to drill a couple of small holes in the bottom of the cubby hole (yes, really), remove and...

Good thread, and I agree with the theory that spending some time sorting this out properly is the way to go - how many cases of sequential HGF came from a garage just changing the HG and not the oil rail or PRRT, which are the root cause? Angus, you mentioned that the oil rail was quite...

Yeah I bet - I was lucky when i did the clutch, the rain held off. How many hours do you reckon it has taken to do so far? Some details about your problems with the oil rail would be good as well.