Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

I wanted the Freelander because I liked the look of it, the Land Rover heritage appealed to me, and the combination of on road and off road abilities seemed better than anything else comparable. It was also one of the very few 'upmarket' compact SUVs available with a manual transmission, which I much prefer. However I was concerned about Land Rover's poor reputation for reliability. Having now had the car for just over a year and driven around 25,000 kilometers in it, I am very impressed. So far nothing has gone wrong and it didn't miss a beat during an 18,000 kilometer trip around Central, Northern and Western Australia, which involved 4WD tracks and some very high temperatures. Although fully loaded, it returned 6.9 l/100km - making people in Patrols and Land Cruisers very jealous!

The quality is excellent, it feels rock solid and is extremely comfortable. Performance is more than adequate, and off road the all terrain response works great, enabling it to go just about anywhere a proper 4wd can.

If it stays reliable, I'll seriously consider replacing it with the new model in a couple of year's time, which will be the Discovery Sport.