Hello,

Over the past 12 months since I've had my freelander I have found the advice on this site to be excellent, hopefully someone can help with my problem.

I tried to start my car this morning - it started, but the engine made a whining, spluttering noise, the engine wouldn't rev and the rev counter wouldn't go above 1000. This was accompanied by a lot of grey / white smoke from the exhaust. The engine management light was also on. The car was serviced in January this year and has only done 41000 miles. Its a 2010 Freelander GS e.

I called the AA (who arrived within 30 minutes). Using a code-reader he diagnosed a problem with the manifold butterfly, but was unable to offer anything more beyond this, nor was he able to offer nay further help. He called a flatbed truck (which impressively arrived within 20 minutes) and the car is now with the service department of a local (isn) Land Rover dealer. They said that they will try and get round to having a look at it before Thursday, but couldn't promise to have it back before Easter.

I wondered whether anyone had any thoughts on what the problem may be and a rough estimate of costs.

I'm worried that this car may be a potential money-pit. In January the rear-differential was replaced under warranty, but I am now 5 weeks out of warranty and this has happened.

thanks for any suggestions

Johnny

Last edited by the money pit on 20th Apr 2014 8:42 am. Edited 1 time in total

White smoke suggests unburnt fuel, which could happen if the butterfly valve is cutting off the air supply when it shouldn't be. Hopefully just a faulty butterfly valve or actuator.

Thanks for the reply Pab, when I got home this evening, mrs money pit gave me the AA report. This revealed that the fault was identified as "POLES DIESEL INTAKE AIRFLOW CONTROL STUCK CLOSED". I am hoping that this is an easy fix. The garage are having a look at the car tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully I'll have a better idea.

Hope it's a cheap quick fix and you get it back for the holidays. FL2 SD4 Metropolis Auto Santorini Black / ivory completely stock.

It's true that light travels faster than sound, some people look quite intelligent until you hear them speak.


Stop global winging.

Thanks for your comments,

I thought that I'd update you.


I collected it from the garage on Thursday evening. It turns out that the diagnosed problem was that the "throttle body was stuck closed". When I spoke to the temporary agent in the service department they said that it was an uncommon problem though were unable to suggest what could have caused this (I have also emailed the regular service guy at the garage to ask about this - I'll update you if I hear anything back from him). I was surprised as the car has done less that 42000 miles. The part was replaced with a new throttle body (£73) plus labour and VAT (£138). I was happy to get it back before the holiday weekend!

Has anybody come across the problem before, and do you know what causes it.

I came across this post:

http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic10246.html

This is a really clear explanation of what happened to "landy19840" - the teeth on the gear in his throttle assembly wore down or broke off. What is interesting is that one comment mentions the TD4_e with stop start technology. A few days before my car broke down, the engine cut out whilst it was stationary (i.e the start component of the stop-start did not kick in). After removing the key and re inserting it, the engine fired up again. I didn't give it a second thought. But now I realise that this was a warning sign.

I wish that I had had the foresight to ask the garage for the old part as I would have liked to have opened it up and had a look inside to see whether it was a problems with the teeth on the gear mechanism.

Once again, thanks for your suggestions and for your input on the poll.