Faults:

New engine prior to purchase - you'd think that would sort everything. Fitted due to well known head gasket problem. Never had any problems with cooling.

Started missing intermittently under hard acceleration after owning for a week. Then in second weekend of owning it took it on a little ride down a beach, and the problem got worse in a big way. Clutch (also new) only just got us going on hard sand. This is a beach I would easily take a 2wd car on normally, not serious offroading. Then the miss became worse and worse driving back out, until it lost power for long enough for us to grind to a halt. Clutch was too pathetic to get going again in the soft sand. Almost lost it to the sea before being rescued. Turns out the rotor in the distributor failed, spent ages trying to work out myself, then took to the pros with electronic diagnosis equipment. After changing some corroded leads, the problem was finally found in the rotor. NZ$500 to fix.

Clutch didn't feel so new after that episode.

Low fuel light failed, leaving me stranded when it coughed to a halt unexpectedly.

Rear window would go to the top, beep, then go back down. Very common problem, but this was not fixed with the reported methods, never managed to fix it. Only way to make the window stay up was to remove the fuse, leaving the dilemma of leaving it open enough to open the door, hence letting fumes and rain in, or completely shut and unable to use the door.

Clock never worked. No radio display (maybe it used to display on the clock?); a nuisance.

General Comments:

If there was ever an unlucky car, this was it. 8 owners in almost as many years, a repossession, a new engine, and then when I had owned for a month, it was ploughed into by an idiotic boy racer, writing it off (courtesy of being 'not built like they used to' and suffering serious chassis damage at just 50kph).

Great handling for a 4wd, out-handled many sports cars I have driven. K18 engine revvy, but very badly matched to the 1400kg 4wd, nowhere near enough torque, making city driving a pain as I had to change gears all the time. Clutch utterly lame, couldn't handle the full time 4wd and weight of vehicle. I've got a better clutch on my dirt bike.

Adjustable headlights are a great feature that I will look for in the future. Add on spotlights were also great.

Sound system with 6 stack CD and 6 speakers was pretty good at moderate volume.

Seats uncomfortable, fixed by fitting a plank inside the seat as lumbar support.

Wonderful looking vehicle, always getting compliments. Great with the roof down.

Like so many British vehicles (I've had 3 much older ones before it, all 1970s BL jobs), it had many flaws but clever design and tons of character, which combined to make me very sad when it was totaled by some useless japanese rubbish so soon.

Faults:

Front Right tyre worn badly.

ECM module faulty, soon to be replaced under warranty.

Clutch on the way out, after 50000km.

General Comments:

I've had the car for 18months and have had a couple of problems with it, but am reasonably happy with it. Would buy another, probably the V6, due to cheap petrol prices here in Australia.

I bought the 1.8 Petrol, which is a little underpowered, but acceptable. Using premium unleaded fuel helps considerably. The V6 is $10000 more!, and thirsty, and on a test drive around town didn't seem much quicker off the mark. I also prefer manuals, so that meant buying the 1.8P or the TD4.

I was using the car on a gravel in Tasmania, and the Traction control warning light came on, and the Down-Hill control warning light. This a known fault with the Engine management module (which I found out about on the net), and will be getting it replaced by the dealer.

The headroom is quite tight: I am 6'2", and have a 'long' torso. My first sit in a Freelander 5dr was at the Melbourne motorshow 2000, and the rep said, yes, everybody complained about that. I ended up buying a 3dr softop which actually has an extra 1inch of headroom due to the 'sunroof' panels. headroom is OK, but I have had the seat padding removed by 1inch to give me better visibility especially at the sides. You cannot lower the frame of the seat apparently because of the seatbelt pretensioners.

There are numerous postings on bulletin boards about tyre wear and road noise. It IS a noisy vehicle, I reckon mainly due to the softop (having ridden in MGs and MX5s). I have just replaced the 2 front tyres (the originals), which have done 52000kms, which is OK. I will be watching them closely for adverse wear though.

Clutch: the bite point seems to have gotten a lot higher recently, after a bit of off-roading on sand. There has been a lot of clutch reliability problems reported on the net. Apparently it is not adjustable even by a dealer! I was the 2nd owner, so it's hard to tell how the first owner treated it of course.

Good stuff: drives very well with little body roll for a 4WD. Excellent on gravel roads which is what I really bought it for. If you want to do real off-road stuff, buy a Disco! Good styling, good visibility and headroom/legroom in the back, even for me.

Bad stuff: cost of parts (imported from UK, and crappy $ conversion rate). Servicing is expensive, as the dealer is a 'prestige brand' dealer e.g. Audi/MG/BMW/Jag etc. Will be looking elsewhere when the warranty runs out.