Yes zanteboy01 ... it was done by the main LR dealer in Casablanca Morocco as the cas was under warranty. This main dealer maintains almost all the LR cars in the region which are thousands and it's supposed to know what it does ...


dorsetfreelander : You're right, it's unbelievable this situation. I was told that some other owners have had the same issue and some of them had their haldex changed more than one time ..

I'm going to drop it again at this LR dealer and see what they will say this time ...

With that history and regular fault are you considering contacting LR to see if they will offer a goodwill contribution - or will the main dealer offer this?

I can do nothing but recommend Austen at Bell Engineering. My 10 plate XS had a replacement front Diff at 42k and last week a rear diff at 48k both supplied and fitted by Austen at Bell Engineering. Austen was horrified at the gunk in my Haldex too!. Low mileage is not always best for the Freelander.
Austen as usual did a great job at less than 50% of what Landrover were quoting. Personally though i think its a disgrace that both front and rear diffs can go in 50k on a 4 x4.
It is like a new car now thanks Austen.

Hi Marksovereign

I'd be interested to hear how the symptoms differed for each, and whether you were able to clearly distinguish front from rear whilst driving (I'm assuming the symptoms included noise!)

There was plenty of noise!
the Front diff was a more of a whine/drone when putting power down, it didn't whine when you lifted off.
The rear diff was more a constant drone both under power and on the overrun, it sounds very much like a wheel bearing gone but you can test that by loading the car from side to side.
Do Check your tyres though as you can get a similar noise when you are using M&S patterns as they wear down. My tyres were perfect so I knew it wasn't that!
Good Luck!

Ah well it looks as if I am joining the army of Freelander owners who have rear diff problems. I changed all four tyres recently and soon afterwards started to notice a whining from the rear of car. Hoped it was the new tyres and that it would go away shortly but no such luck. Had it serviced yesterday and they told me the noise was definitely the rear diff.

I was planning to get the Haldex serviced before a trip down to Tuscany in the summer as a sort of insurance against it going wrong in Europe but it looks as though that will need to be done sooner than planned now. Mileage of 70,000 - these problems just shouldn't be happening on these cars!

you read a lot of people have this problem after a tyre change. Coincidence?

I can't believe that it is tyre related, after all it's not the diff itself that is failing but the bearing where the propshaft enters the diff unit. I have had 4 FL2s before my current and only one had the diff problem (which also required the transfer box to be replaced) at about 40k miles. To me it's down to poor and perhaps inferior/shoddy engineering as in the steering rack problems with early FL2s where there was cp in the rack. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

It's certainly poor design, materials, engineering or similar otherwise there wouldn't be so many owners paying huge amounts of money to resolve the same problem on so many of the cars!

Interestingly the garage told me they often see it soon after tyre changes too as if the tyre change was the last straw for a dying diff

Dorsetfreelander - But what does cause it? There doesn't seem to be a lot of concrete info out there considering it's so common and spans 8 years now without a solution from the factory. If your PTU failed at exactly the same time on just 1 car that would suggest a larger issue surely?

It's been said the bearing is just too small. I can well believe it is, but why have I got a diff case full of metal particles that I can't quieten, when Paul Gill on the other thread ("Transfer box drain") caught it early, and regular oil changes & a magnetic bolt cures the problem and removes the noise for over 50,000 miles? Kind of suggests oil contamination could be contributing.

For me it also happened after a tyre change. Sure it could be coincidence, or maybe the diff is super sensitive to out of balance wheels for example? I agree it seems implausible but I reckon there's a chance we could be missing something.

Ultimately the issue is about a component that rarely fails on most cars (I have a neighbour who runs old Mercedes estates and the current one is on about 150k miles and his previous one did 240k before he sold it and he has never touched the rear diff. One presumes that there is feedback (with a delay of a couple of years at least in this case) into the factory by which time they have sent out thousands of vehicles with dodgy components. It's then a straight economic case of how many are failing within warranty and is it worth fixing?
What would be interesting would be to find what percentage of vehicles have the problem eventually but outside of warranty even JLR probably don't know.
Perhaps a "sticky poll" on this forum might be worth setting up to record vehicle age and mileage. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

Dorset I would add EGR valves to any sticky anything as they are now getting an issue.  FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

My FL2 is a 2008 on 78k and has been sat most of its life before i owned it, done only a few thousand in 4 years and a couple of miles a week previous owner never used it. Old owner had the rear wheels and rear shocks replaced recently and i've owned it a month. Currently has a transmission fault with the code along the lines of "Can't communicate with rear diff Pogramming error" on quite a few of the same on the ECU's. Poss its the haldex loads have said? Its in the garage today so time will tell but funny how somoeone has said when they're sat on low mileage and the wheels get replaced it can throw problems.
I've heard a mechanic on another forum say all diffs (haldex oil?) should be serviced but land rover is the only manufacture who says they shoud'nt be? Mines never had the rear diff or haldex even looked at according to the history and the old owner (and one before him) always had it kept up together with Land rover...

and the Titanic is unsinkable.

Forget what Land Rover say. FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Ha ha! FL2 GS