As is often the case with forums such as these, we tend to hear mainly horror stories of things going wrong and poor service from garages/main dealers etc so I thought it would make a nice change to write about a good experience/service.

I had the dreaded rear diff whine crop up about a month ago and having searched on this forum I read a lot of comments that mentioned Austen & Bell Engineering. As he was pretty much listed as the "go to guy" I gave him a call and arranged to go along and have my rear diff swapped out.

So yesterday I took the 4 hour round trip to have my diff swap carried and and was met by Austen and we took a short drive just to confirm the rear diff was indeed at fault. This took about 30 seconds to diagnose. We made our way to his workshop where I left him to get on with things and took a walk round the small parade of shops. When I returned to the workshop Austen had pretty much completed the whole job in a time much quicker than I had anticipated. We had a good chat and he was happy to answer any questions I had. Needless to say my 2 hour drive home was much quieter, no drumming in my head and I actually did most of the journey with the radio off just to remind myself how the car was before the diff went.

I would happily recommend Austen and would even go so far as to advise anyone that has any transmission issues to contact him first (sorry Austen I know you're a busy chap but you are bloody good at your job).

I would like to say a big thank you to all the forum members whose posts lead me to Austen (note to new members, search first before posting it could reap rewards). Comments that were made proved invaluable and without them I would never have heard of Austen or Bell Engineering

Finally, a massive thank you to Austen for all your help with this issue and providing a first class service, it really was a pleasure to meet you.

I fully agree. Credit where credit due.  10MY (Sept 09) TD4 HSE Auto in Stornoway Grey (Now Gone)

08 FL2 TD4 SE Manual in Rimini Red (Now Gone)

Forums are like sheep on a band wagon. All it takes is a few people to either praise service or complain and the rest of the sheep follow suit. Difficult to rely on forum reviews, good or bad.

 FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Bobfog wrote:

Forums are like sheep on a band wagon. All it takes is a few people to either praise service or complain and the rest of the sheep follow suit. Difficult to rely on forum reviews, good or bad.

True, very true. In this case however, as yet another very satisfied customer of Austen at Bell Engineering I feel that it has to be said that the sheep on Freel2.com are baaaing about something they know about and their experience can be safely relied upon!

I can thank Austen @Bell for freely giving his knowlege out.

I've had a Haldex service done by Austen at Bell Engineering today.

Never had one done from when I bought the car at 50k (it now has 120k on the clock). Reason being, the place where I take my Freelander for servicing told me they don't need doing ("sealed for life").

Anyhow it took just under 2 hours. Had a nice walk and something to eat in Cleobury Mortimer while we were waiting.

Austen is a nice chap and explained what he had done. The price for the service is also very reasonable.

Definitely recommend him as his specialist knowledge of the whole Freelander drivetrain gives me more confidence in the service than taking it to a local LR indy  Discovery 4 HSE - Aintree Green
Freelander 2 TD4 SE Automatic - Tonga Green
Defender XS - Tonga Green - Gone Now
Freelander 1 Td4 ES Manual - Epsom Green - Gone Now *
Freelander 1 Td4 Kalahari SE - Epsom Green - Gone Now
Freelander 1 XEi - Epsom Green - Gone Now

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