freelander 1 driving me mad, help!

[philthespark]

Hi everyone, newbie here. a little over a year ago I got an 05 plate freelander 1 facelift, it seemed in pretty good nick and had loads of service history, a couple of small issues but nothing to worry about, I gave it a full service, including changing that little filter on top of the engine, the one nobody changes, or so I've been told. anyway during this I noticed the connector to the maf sensor was off so plugged it back in, the car ran terrible, like it had a bad misfire up to about 2k rpm, then perfect, anyhow I couldn't live with this so unplugged it again, back to running fine. About a month or so later it developed a leak from the hp diesel pump, so I bought a recon one from a reputable firm and fitted it, at this point I also replaced the fuel filter on the back end and cleaned out the inlet manifold as it was full of gunge. recently I decided to have another go at the fault and read the codes, nothing listed! So I went on ebay and bought a new maf sensor, not an oem one, but a new one none the less, now I know some people say they are no good, but if they weren't then why do they sell them? It's had the wiring mod to the hp fuel sensor (loom replacement) and it's driving me mental, I've read loads of issues with them having problems over 2k rpm, but very little on issues below this, should I just ignore it, leave the sensor disconnected and carry on, or does anyone have any idea what it is? I'm begining to go off landrovers to be honest, the first one I owned was a 2.0l mpi, yes, I did buy one of those hunks of junk, then people said I should have got something with a td4 engine in, so I did and this is turning out to be a pita too. I'm in a catch 22 situation at the minute, I have just lost my job so money is tight and I can't afford to just keep buying parts in the hope one of them will cure the fault, but I can't afford to replace the vehicle either, anyone help me? please.

[FridgeFreezer]

1. They sell cheap rubbish MAFs because people buy them. Often they will be something that fits in the hole but gives the wrong or inaccurate signal to the ECU, there's even a chap on the Rover forums who's built a business persuading people to buy Pierburg MAF's because they're "better" and then buy his little box of electronics for a load extra to make it run right again

2. Is the turbo plumbing OK - leaky hoses are common, the top one on the engine cab rub through for a pastime, on mine the little rubber pipe for the vacuum actuator for the VNT had rubbed through meaning no VNT and no power at low RPM.

[Dorsetfreelander]

as a matter of interest has it had an MOT?   it would be interesting to see the emissions with and without the MAF.

[philthespark]

On 2/3/2020 at 2:20 PM, FridgeFreezer said:

1. They sell cheap rubbish MAFs because people buy them. Often they will be something that fits in the hole but gives the wrong or inaccurate signal to the ECU, there's even a chap on the Rover forums who's built a business persuading people to buy Pierburg MAF's because they're "better" and then buy his little box of electronics for a load extra to make it run right again

2. Is the turbo plumbing OK - leaky hoses are common, the top one on the engine cab rub through for a pastime, on mine the little rubber pipe for the vacuum actuator for the VNT had rubbed through meaning no VNT and no power at low RPM.

Oh dear, I've  ordered one of those boxes, I did loads of reading and got the idea they were a good idea, oops, I can't seem to find any leaking hoses, but one thing about what you say confuses me, now lets suppose there was a leak in a pipe and hence the vnt was inoperable, why would disconnecting the maf cure the rough running below 2K RPM? I am begining to detest these car electronics, if it was some bloody great industrial distribution system pulling a few thousand amps I'd have an idea of what I was playing with.

[philthespark]

On 2/3/2020 at 2:32 PM, Dorsetfreelander said:

as a matter of interest has it had an MOT?   it would be interesting to see the emissions with and without the MAF.

Yes it's had an mot, guy ssaid it was fine, unfortunately I don't have the old one that came with it when I bought it though to compare figures.

[FridgeFreezer]

3 hours ago, philthespark said:

why would disconnecting the maf cure the rough running below 2K RPM?

It wouldn't, I hadn't committed your entire thread to memory I was offering easy checks

If the MAF makes it run better when unplugged then it sounds like a dodgy MAF, fitting a non-gen MAF or bodge box feels like it risks another go round the merry-go-round...

I think I've got a box of TD4 MAF's in the garage of varying vintage, you'd be welcome to them for the postage if you wanted to see if there's a good one in the set

BTW investing in a 5-point (pentalobe) security bit means you can swap the MAF sensor part without undoing the pipes etc.

[philthespark]

12 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

It wouldn't, I hadn't committed your entire thread to memory I was offering easy checks

If the MAF makes it run better when unplugged then it sounds like a dodgy MAF, fitting a non-gen MAF or bodge box feels like it risks another go round the merry-go-round...

I think I've got a box of TD4 MAF's in the garage of varying vintage, you'd be welcome to them for the postage if you wanted to see if there's a good one in the set

BTW investing in a 5-point (pentalobe) security bit means you can swap the MAF sensor part without undoing the pipes etc.

Thanks, that's very kind of you,I've already got the bit to get the thing out, I just wish they'd bring back proper cars, what was wrong with the old engines where you didn't need a few grands worth of test gear and a degree in astrophysics to keep them running. lol

That's not to say I've not got a few grands worth of test gear, it's just none of it's any good in this case, I just can't get my head around why they have to make problems so hard to diagnose, in my job you simply apply logic and you find the fault, these car designers seem to build things in such a way that almost anything can show up as anything else.

Incidentally, there was a guy on the radio yesterday when they were on about banning diesel and petrol cars, he said he'd got an old landrover from the 1970's and ran it on vegetable oil, he reckons he gets good mileage and the oil brand new is only about a quid a litre. He made a good point that you can't do that with a modern engine because there's too many sensors.

[FridgeFreezer]

You'll fit right in on the new defender discussion thread with an approach like that!

What happened to modern cars is they last 200k, don't go rusty, are safer, cleaner and more economical than they've ever been... oh and the Freelander will follow a Defender almost anywhere off-road! I've got some car mags from the 70's where they are chuffed if a car doesn't rot out in 3 years / die after 30,000 miles and you don't have to adjust the points weekly - aaahh the good old days!

You can get a diagnostic scanner thingy for £20 on eBay, cheaper than a Snap-On screwdriver.

[philthespark]

9 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

You'll fit right in on the new defender discussion thread with an approach like that!

What happened to modern cars is they last 200k, don't go rusty, are safer, cleaner and more economical than they've ever been... oh and the Freelander will follow a Defender almost anywhere off-road! I've got some car mags from the 70's where they are chuffed if a car doesn't rot out in 3 years / die after 30,000 miles and you don't have to adjust the points weekly - aaahh the good old days!

You can get a diagnostic scanner thingy for £20 on eBay, cheaper than a Snap-On screwdriver.

I have a cheap scanner, it didn't find any codes, so I went to a mate who has a Foxwell, paid about 400 quid for it, that didn't find any codes either! If I could get hold of one cheap I'd have a marina or a maxi in a heartbeat, I'd sooner spend all day welding a new floor in and know I've acheived something than spend a day poking about and acheiving nothing, which is what I,m doing at the minute. on the subject of car safety, if I had my way I'd replace the steering wheel airbag with a bloody great spike, that would drastically cut the accident figures. People these days are so convinced that if they have an accident they'll be ok because they've got airbags. sips, etc etc, that they still drive like idiots even in really bad weather, just look at 90% of Audi drivers. lol. I don't mind anybody killing themselves, it's when they take others with them that I object, I've seen far too many people seriously injured as a result of idiot drivers.

Incidentally the box arrived today, it didn't make a grain of difference, so that's going back, I've got a busy few days at work now, and it's in a bit of a rough area, you never know I may be lucky enough that someone nicks the damned thing. lol

[smallfry]

I have owned many vehicles over the 40 plus years I have been driving, probably around 50, including 22 proper Land Rovers, and 2 Freelander 1 TD4s, and I have to say that both the Freelanders have been the most "challenging".

Most "Professional" repairers seen completely unable to diagnose them properly, which I feel is the main reason for their reputation,and they do have more than a few foibles.

However, I have to say that I do actually like mine. When I am not hating it again 😆

 

[smallfry]

6 minutes ago, philthespark said:

 it's in a bit of a rough area, you never know I may be lucky enough that someone nicks the damned thing. lol

Well Good luck with that !

[smallfry]

So did your mate with the scanner look at fuel pressures and injector correction factors ?

I would hazard a guess that your problem is injector related, which will not throw up a fault code unless it has actually failed.

[FridgeFreezer]

Trouble with diagnostic scanners is that people forget to think about things - no codes = dunno mate... if it was an old lump with no diagnostics you'd have to work it out, and engines don't work differently just because a computer tells the injector when to fire instead of a piece of clockwork.

[philthespark]

Hi Guys, sorry for not coming back sooner, busy at work, anyhow I got hold of the code reader again yesterday, and did a full read which I'll post up later . Anyhow I got 2 codes, 0100, air flow meter, and 0110, air temp sensor, these were with maf unplugged, the only thing was I thought I'd written down the info with the maff plugged in, but can't find it, typical.

Well doing a bit of digging in here and there was a guy in 2017 with same problem, apparently he'd tried fitting 'the box', and it didn't work, neither did mine! then he'd tried a Pierburg maf, that didn't work either, so he was going to try a new Bosch one, but in typical fashion he didn't come back with the results.

It's a pita at the minute, on my days off it's either freezing cold or raining, not conducive to working when you've got arthritis in your hands, lol. so I'm taking it to one of my friends who has a farm, I'm going to stick it in the workshop 0ne day next week and have a really good look at it, maybe something will leap out if I'm not frozen stiff or getting pee'd on with icy rain.

[philthespark]

On 2/5/2020 at 8:49 PM, smallfry said:

I have owned many vehicles over the 40 plus years I have been driving, probably around 50, including 22 proper Land Rovers, and 2 Freelander 1 TD4s, and I have to say that both the Freelanders have been the most "challenging".

Most "Professional" repairers seen completely unable to diagnose them properly, which I feel is the main reason for their reputation,and they do have more than a few foibles.

However, I have to say that I do actually like mine. When I am not hating it again 😆

 

Thereby stands the problem, most people haven't got a clue, other than to suggest throwing megabucks at it, and that winds me up. In my job I do tests and with my experience I have a good idea whats happening right off the bat, for example, I was sat at home the other night after a stressfull day and had a couple of JD's to unwind, then the phone rang, one of the lads had lost all his electric while changing a pull switch, "can't understand it, everything's turned off, but the breaker won't stay in on the main" he moaned, "hmm right, probably the rcd" I replied, and it was, "in that case you've a neutral and earth touching somewhere" I told him. H e checked and yes he had, now for those who don't know an RCD will trip out on a neutral-earth fault as well as a live-earth fault! ok he had the breaker for the circuit off, so it wasn't getting power, but it could still trip out on a neutral -earth fault, I knew this from experience and I was right.

The problem with most 'car people' is I genuinely believe they haven't a clue, and mention a 'cascade fault' and watch their eyes glaze over. suppose I get called out to a motor that's not running, well here's how I roll, 1, check it's actually switched on, 2, check if there's power to the controller, 3, check power at motor terminals. If I have power at motor, then obviously the motor is faulty, so we replace/repair it. but it may be a switch, or a breaker, or a fuse, hence the tests. How long would I last if I went out to that fault and without testing told the customer he needed a new motor at say £400, only to find that after replacement it didn't run, ok so we need a new controller, £200, oops, still doesn't run, must be the wiring, another £200, then, oh look, the breaker had tripped, oh well, at least the machine's running again.. There is the problem, I don't mind spending money, but not on replacing parts for the sake of it, going down that route why not start by replacing the whole engine, followed by the ECU , oh and possibly the battery while we're at it. I am certain I CANNOT, be the first person to have this fault, but no matter how nice the car is, it's still an 05 plate, and if I followed the advice I appear to be getting from the 'professionals' so far, well I'd probably be into it for several thousand pounds by now.

[Dorsetfreelander]

I agree with your approach but cars are getting so complex now that finding faults can be very difficult.  Take as an example the hesitation fault on the 2011 Freelander 2.  I won't go into the details but basically when pulling away the car will occasionally hesitate and then pick up a few seconds later.  This can be a bit scary when pulling onto a roundabout for instance.but it only seems to occur in warmer weather.  We had this on one of our FL2s and the dealer couldn't fix it and openly admitted that LR technical support couldn't find the root cause of the problem. There is a long thread on freel2.com about the issue and people have even replaced throttle pedals with varied success although it's probably a coding issue in the ECU as a number of changes were made in 2011 with the introduction of DPFs.  I was brought up servicing my own Morris Marina and Ford Escort and things were a lot simpler in those days.

[FridgeFreezer]

You probably know already but the air temp sensor is more than likely inside the MAF, they usually are.

[Dorsetfreelander]

Yes indeed but think that all of the obvious issues like that have been covered by others.  Luckily I don’t have the car any longer.  Last I heard it was linked to a specific ÉCU and software but LR gave up trying to fix it.  

[philthespark]

6 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

You probably know already but the air temp sensor is more than likely inside the MAF, they usually are.

Someone said that, but mine's on the air pipe at the front, I've come up with a plan for now anyway, I'm going to rewire the damned thing! It would appear that all things point to either the maf, the air temp sensor, or the hp fuel sensor, so, having already replaced the maf, I'm going to replace all the cabling and if that doesn't work then I'll replace the other sensors. I can get rolls of tri-rated cable at a decent price and obviously with doing electrics as my day job it's not going to be an issue making up a new loom, the plan will at least then take a major part of potential faults out of the way.

[FridgeFreezer]

That sounds like a lot of work that is unlikely to gain you anything unfortunately - I'd be more inclined to spend the time/effort looking for bad earths, dodgy connections, chafing etc. in the existing loom, perhaps buzz out the wires straight from the ECU plug to the sensors.

[smallfry]

Later FL1 TD4s had the IAT sensor in the inlet pipe at the front of the engine. The wires at the plug are prone to corrosion and break. I ran mine for a while with it disconnected, but it did not seem to make any difference to the running. It threw up a code, but nolights on the dash.

 

[philthespark]

just a quick update, I checked and replaced the vac hose to the turbo, the actuator was sticking slightly but I got it free with some WD40, now moving it's full stroke, cleaned out the EGR valve and checked it, working fine, it seems to be getting a decent vacuum to the egr which drops off if you take engine to 2500 rpm and let the throttle go. After 2 hours under the bonnet today in the freezing cold I thought I'd cracked it, after replacing the turbo vac line, and making sure the vent pipe was clear, as well as the intercooler, I fired up the engine with the maf reconnected, it ran sweet as a nut, it revved through the full range without missing a beat, excellent!

I dropped the bonnet and got back in, dropped the clutch and selected 1st gear, as I went to move off it started missing again, then stalled, aaaah! back where I started.

[Dorsetfreelander]

Makes you wonder how long modern cars will last.  In the old days it was rust and corrosion that finished off a car but nowadays they seem to look good for many years until some problem occurs that is uneconomic to diagnose and fix.  The problem comes when you have a fault on what has become increasingly complex pieces of electronics and control systems surrounding modern engines, note that the basic mechanical bits are rarely the problem.  Sorry, this doesn't help you much but it's one reason that I am on my last diesel and wouldn't run one of these cars without a warranty, next one will be a petrol and after that electric I guess.   Best of luck.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Dorsetfreelander

[philthespark]

1 hour ago, Dorsetfreelander said:

Makes you wonder how long modern cars will last.  In the old days it was rust and corrosion that finished off a car but nowadays they seem to look good for many years until some problem occurs that is uneconomic to diagnose and fix.  The problem comes when you have a fault on what has become increasingly complex pieces of electronics and control systems surrounding modern engines, note that the basic mechanical bits are rarely the problem.  Sorry, this doesn't help you much but it's one reason that I am on my last diesel and wouldn't run one of these cars without a warranty, next one will be a petrol and after that electric I guess.   Best of luck.

According to the weather forecast we'll be getting snow next week, can't wait, that'll sort the problem, there's bound to be some idiot who'll run into me and right it off, flaming sick of it now, it's taking over my life and I'm sick to death of so called 'experts' who know bugger all, the general consensus of opinion is that these were a bag of carp, and to be honest I'm begining to agree. The warranty thing can be a rip off too, I had one with my first landrover, got shut of it pretty quick, for the warranty to be valid, all work had to be done by a garage, what does that prove? My mate paid good money for his car to be serviced regularly at the local main dealer, yet he was still having issues, one time I had it brought to me the day before the service, got it on the ramp and taped all the lubrication points up with bright yellow tape, I also wrote my initials and the date on the oil filter. it came straight from it's service back to me and up on the ramps, guess what, the yellow tape was still there, and the filter still had my initials on it, boy did my mate have an interesting conversation with the service manager. lol

[philthespark]

HOORAY I FOUND IT! Finally, and it was not the maf, it was a solenoid, I wasn't having it that it was the maf, I just knew it. Anyway I bought a vac gauge and started playing with it, I connected it to the egr valve vac hose and at tickover got no reading, I blipped the throttle and got 10" of vacuum, I revved the engine and the vac stayed the same right through the rev range, the only way it sropped was if you revved hard and suddenly released the accelerator.

I removed the tester and plugged the end of the hose and hey presto, it ran perfect, no spluttering, no hesitation, nothing, it goes like the proverbial off the shovel!

Finally I'd got there, I had to come back and tell you guys because I've searched everywhere and although others have had this problem nobody appears to have sorted it short of disconnecting the maf and thereby disabling the engine computer, basically running at default values with a resulting loss of fuel economy.

Hopefully this will help someone else, I understand now why it was doing it,  at low revs the egr shouldn't be open, because it is it's basically suffocating itself with the spent gasses rather than clean air.since most people blank the egr in some way then it's no great loss, I'm not going to waste money replacing the solenoid since it only controls the egr anyway, I,m just happy to see it running properly.