Freelander Review
Cylinder Head Gasket has been replaced twice @£800 ! - Freelander owner
London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds (PRWEB UK) 5 November 2013
A car survey combining the opinions of 239,606 motorists made their thoughts clear naming the good, the bad and the ugly cars on Britain's roads.
In a surprise result, the Land Rover Freelander Petrol version was named as the car their owners would least recommend and rated the lowest.
WeLoveAnyCar.com, the Country's largest car review site, asked registered owners to submit reviews and vote on other reviews of the same vehicle.
A spokesman for the Manchester based site said, "Our statistical analysis threw out a clear loser - the petrol driven Freelander, especially the older models. Whilst every driver rates reliability, economy, driving experience, the comments made by customers made it clear that owning a petrol Freelander could be a costly and unhappy experience."
The main issue with the petrol Freelander was the engine. Comments from unhappy owners included:
"Engine developed a head gasket leak and recon engine was required. £4500. Expensive."
"Had car from new. Head gasket blew after 21,000 miles. Very disappointing."
"Spend for part and labor approx £13000. Brought this Freelander for £14000 very disappointed."
In total WeLoveAnyCar.com has 2214 Land Rover reviews and 1596 Freelander reviews and review votes. The problem with the head gasket seems to be the main culprit along with electrics and other engine problems.
Freelanders have been updated over time and the survey shows improvement in later models. The car review site allows prospective buyers to check out the exact model they are thinking of buying. The later diesel Freelanders are better and the release of Freelander 2 appears to see an improvement in reliability but not satisfaction.
Each year the DVLA publishes records of cars on UK roads. Almost all of the directly comparable petrol Honda CRVs sold in 2005 appear to remain registered. However, nearly 40% of the petrol Freelander sold that year seem remain on the DVLA register. Whilst it is difficult to measure this accurately, the massive disparity between the two makes clearly adds weight to the WeLoveAnyCar.com survey.
Under new ownership, Land Rover reliability continues to improve but this is cold comfort for one motorist who commented on his Freelander; "Spent more time in the garage than being driven. gave up after 3 head gaskets and 2 engines."
End
Notes: WeLoveAnyCar.com has 81,252 full car reviews on 2,071 models from 73 manufacturers as at 4th November 2013. All reviews were gathered in the last 10 months. 239,606 car owners either agreed or disagreed with a review made by a car owner of the same vehicle.
DVLA statistics can be found at the site mentioned in the link. It is difficult to track models registered - when they were bought and when they were taken off the register. Therefore the statistics used are for indicative purposes only.
WeLoveAnyCar.com is the biggest car review site in the UK and is currently investigating worldwide figures.
WeLoveAnyCar.com is happy to consider further information on any the vehicles mentioned, or those which are not, to help it gain a better understanding to help prospective buyers.
