We bought our Freelander at nearly 4 years old/22,000 miles. It’s now done 50,000 miles, 10 years old.

It’s never had that smooth a gear change. We just thought that’s how these are. It wasn’t terrible, just not as smooth as a ZF8.

At 10 years i dutifully changed the ATF.

OMG. A transformation!! The gear changes are now so smooth.

So my recommendation is do this at 5 years and choose the best synthetic oil that’s compatible.

I used Penrite LV. I did 3 changes to get near to 100% change.

Just make sure you top off with engine running at temp!! And put the level plug back in before switching the engine off.

Just adding my experience in support of DirtyDuck's post. I bought my second Freelander 2 in August this year - 2011 XS auto with 140k miles on the clock. Not a particularly loved example, the old girl has had a hard life before now...

Anyway, first few weeks, the gear change was perfectly acceptable IMHO for 98% of the time - the occasional hard shift but nothing to get excited about. Not as smooth as the previous Freelander 2 HSE auto MY 2010 that I owned for all of 21 days in July this year [there is a whole other back story to that one - but not for this post... Thank goodness for the Consumer Rights Act 2015]. I decided to try an autobox "dump and fill" as described on various threads on this and other Freelander Forums. Got to admit that I was sceptical that just refreshing the fluid would make any noticeable difference.

Bought 10 litres of ATF from Smith & Allan, appropriate sundries from other suppliers online, jacked & levelled the car & set to it. Three "dump & fills" later, the car is transformed. Much smoother! Definitely recommended!

DirtyDuck wrote:

Just make sure you top off with engine running at temp!! And put the level plug back in before switching the engine off.

Well said!!!!!!!

Just to be clear the level plug is item 17



Take care

Paul

And if you thought dump & fill was easy - then the intermittent pump out via the cooler return pipe is even easier (so-called Gibbons method).
I did it recently - got the wife to sit in the car and turn the engine on and off at my command. The flow is not that great so you have plenty of time. Jules

Quote:

got the wife to sit in the car and turn the engine on and off at my command. The flow is not that great so you have plenty of time.

2010 HSE Auto. I had a full flush done by my local garage at127k miles.
What a difference. So smooth and easy driving.
Oil had been changed previously to my ownership. Paperwork with car.
Cost me £185 inc vat. Well worth it. Jim A
Fl2 HSE 2010 auto
Disco 2 Td5 auto 2002 gone
Disco 1 300Tdi auto 1996 gone