Collection Fred, re: "Shite wanted, petrol engine with decent MOT, Central Scotland-ish"

[Spiny Norman]

So today I got up at the crack of 8:45, and headed as far south as I really wanted to go to collect the new* shite I'd spent the last few days grilling the hell out the seller about on eBay.
Poo count 1, and that's enough shit for a morning. Didn't photograph my Frosties, didn't want them getting soggy, so here's what I hope is an appropriately coloured mug of tea.

Went on two trains, the first of which dispatched the 100 or so miles from Glasgow to Carlisle in just over an hour, and the second which took longer to do about 35 miles from Carlisle to Whitehaven, where I was met by the seller, a serial Mini nut.

Asked for a window seat in the booking, this is what I got. Aye, right...



Pretty pictures from moving train, including high speed sheeps.




Made my way to the car and here it is. I'm struggling with how to post pictures & text so bear with me.


 

[Spiny Norman]

Not forgetting the most important shot. ?

[sutty2006]

Looks a clean hippo does that! Well done! Rear propshaft still on? 

[Spiny Norman]

Being the Kettle series version my eyes were glued to this gauge the whole time I was driving it home, but it stayed firmly in the middle of the dial the whole way.
Caused one or two double moments of panic though, because the fuel & temperature gauges on these are the other way round to a Micra's dash so not only did I think it was blowing up when I looked at the 3/4 full petrol gauge, but when I glanced at the temp gauge my first though a couple of times was 'Where the fuck's all my petrol gone?'

[eddyramrod]

That's a good looking Freelander isn't it?  Well bought sir!

[Spiny Norman]

1 minute ago, sutty2006 said:

Looks a clean hippo does that! Well done! Rear propshaft still on? 

Nope, and tbh that's fine by me. In Glasgow it would be FWD for 999 out of every 1000 miles I drive, and for that one mile (Where I believe skill, decent tyres and a bit of ground clearance will get you almost as far) I'll be paying the price.
Unless the rear drive gubbins is in good order it's a PITA most of the time when you're low speed manoeuvring on tarmac, which I do a lot of, so I'll not miss it.

I had a Honda CRV which creaked and groaned like fuck doing U-turns.

[Fumbler]

Fine looking Freelander you got there. Earliest one I've seen too!

[Spiny Norman]

So here's the deal. I grilled the seller (lovely bloke, L-R and old Mini fan) extensively on all the many faults these can have, and I mean grilled.
Half a dozen emails each with half a dozen questions, or 'Can you take a picture of...' requests and he was really helpful.

The oil cap and coolant bottle look like any other normal engine. The gauge sat just under halfway all the way home, even sitting at lights.

Everything electrical works perfectly bar the heater fan which only operates on 3 and 4, a common fault and curable with a new resistor pack.
The windows work, including the rear one which drops the half inch when you open the tailgate. The mirrors work, the central locking works on both doors and tailgate. The interior is completely dry and bar a couple of small holes in the driver's seat is all intact and just needs a wash & brush up.
The most serious fault is the driver's door speaker which rattles and farts but produces nothing remotely like the Little Feat CD its buddies in the back were happy blasting out.

It's in surprisingly good condition for one of these old Hippos, there are so few left I reckon I might have pretty much stolen it off the guy.

This assumes it starts in the morning... ?

Gratuitous arse shot. It's got a brand new spare and 4 good ones all the same brand on the wheels. A brand I've never heard of mind, but it went round some pretty sodden motorway bends just fine on the way home.

[Spiny Norman]

1 hour ago, Fumbler said:

Fine looking Freelander you got there. Earliest one I've seen too!

When I started quizzing the guy about it I was quite apprehensive about the whole thing, I'm no fan of BL/Rover/Land Rover etc products after I had a Rover engine go pop a few years ago so I made absolutely sure, or as sure as you can be via emeil, that the thing was kosher and it certainly seems that way.
Doing a bit of research I could find about half a dozen 1.8 petrol 3 door pre-facelift cars for sale in roadworthy condition in the whole country, so they're pretty rare now I think.

I did get a wave from an early station wagon coming the other way on the A74 which was nice.

[Fumbler]

8 minutes ago, Spiny Norman said:

When I started quizzing the guy about it I was quite cagey about the whole thing, I'm no fan of BL/Rover/Land Rover etc products and I had a Rover engine go pop a few years ago so I made absolutely sure, or as sure as you can be via emeil, that the thing was kosher, and it certainly seems that way.
Doing a bit of research I could find about half a dozen 1.8 petrol 3 door pre-facelift cars for sale in roadworthy condition in the whole country, so they're pretty rare now I think.

I did get a wave from an early station wagon coming the other way on the A74 which was nice.

Excellent stuff- Even more excellent to have it in such good condition There's a dealership video about Freelander somewhere on Youtube. What it's about specifically I don't know. I'll try and find it again at some point as it was interesting to see these thing in showroom condition, given as there are so few like yours still about.

[big_al_granvia]

looks braw, top lump of chod

[Cord Fourteener]

Good bag, sir 

[Eyersey1234]

Chodtastic buy well boughted

[juular]

Good Fred, happy hippoing. 

Typical Pendolino window seat. Heaps of shit that need to go in the sea and be subsequently torpedoed, just to be sure.

[big_al_granvia]

44 minutes ago, juular said:

 

Typical Pendolino window seat. Heaps of shit that need to go in the sea and be subsequently torpedoed, just to be sure.

bring back the tunnel of fire at mayer parry's snailwell scrapyard that was used to remove the asbestos and non metal parts of scrap coaches and multiple units... certainly killed it with fire

[maxxo]

Very nice freelander you have there!

must admit i'm really quite jealous

best colour too

[Spiny Norman]

2 hours ago, juular said:

Good Fred, happy hippoing. 

Typical Pendolino window seat. Heaps of shit that need to go in the sea and be subsequently torpedoed, just to be sure.

I'm not a train anorak but I thought I could feel it tilt on the faster bends. Wasn't sure if it was the train or the rails themselves that were causing it.
Big comfy fast thing but I wasn't sitting in the back of a van for an hour, I like looking out the windows in  a train.  The carriage was half empty anyway so I just sat on a different seat and nobody seemed bothered.

[Spiny Norman]

37 minutes ago, maxxo said:

best colour too

It was the colour that first attracted me to it. I'm fed up having silver or white cars and was determined to at least try to find something red, green, blue or even yellow just for a change.

I'm really impressed by the paint and bodywork in general. For once I was able to say to the seller his car was better than I'd been expecting. It looked good in the eBay shots but you can never tell if they've been doctored or there's dull bits or lacquer peel until you see it in the metal, but it's really smart. My photos aren't flattering it, it looks that good.

[maxxo]

18 minutes ago, Spiny Norman said:

It was the colour that first attracted me to it. I'm fed up having silver or white cars and was determined to at least try to find something red, green, blue or even yellow just for a change.

I'm really impressed by the paint and bodywork in general. For once I was able to say to the seller his car was better than I'd been expecting. It looked good in the eBay shots but you can never tell if they've been doctored or there's dull bits or lacquer peel until you see it in the metal, but it's really smart. My photos aren't flattering it, it looks that good.

i'm so glad to hear that, it's nice to see one in such good condition.....especially a petrol!

i remember the days when these were extremely popular, and i remember my childhood best friends dad having a red one just like this and it was lovely, i was about 5 at the time yet i remember it well

such a shame they're so rarely kept nice

[maxxo]

i keep coming back to this, i can't believe just how nice it is!

exactly how i would have specced it brand new!

correct interior colour and engine

i will sure be following this thread, i can't believe how beautiful it is

[Spiny Norman]

Cheers. They're so rare now I can't believe it. I did a quick check and found fewer than a dozen 3 door petrol pre facelifts for sale in the whole country on eBay and Gumtree. The guy had this on a BIN on eBay for a week and no-one was interested, he said there were the usual '£250 2nite' clowns but I'd  been the only one sending him proper questions about its condition rather than simply asking how low he would go money wise.

Their loss.

[maxxo]

3 minutes ago, Spiny Norman said:

Cheers. They're so rare now I can't believe it. I did a quick check and found fewer than a dozen 3 door petrol pre facelifts for sale in the whole country on eBay and Gumtree. The guy had this on a BIN on eBay for a week and no-one was interested, he said there were the usual '£250 2nite' clowns but I'd  been the only one sending him proper questions about its condition rather than simply asking how low he would go money wise.

Their loss.

i assume it's people terrified of them, when it's the classic case of bad maintenance (i'd say most cars aren't even serviced these days) which causes the issues

i don't see why people are scared of these cars, i can't see them honestly being that unreliable if being maintained correctly

mind you i get asked a lot of questions on how i can trust a 15 year old citroen for doing 20k a year, simply because i maintain it correctly

but i must admit i really do fancy a petrol freelander one day, the diesels don't tend to do much for me

i imagine selling a car to the general public to be a huge pain in the arse, all they seem to care about is the money rather than if it's been maintained correctly

[Spiny Norman]

I'll be honest, I took out breakdown cover yesterday for the first time in about 5 years, just in case. I had a Rover 600 turbo a few years ago which totally shattered any faith I might have had in their engines but that one had obviously been repaired by a team of monkeys. This is a wee bit tired and could use a service and probably a precautionary coolant flush and change but there's nothing else major that's needing done that I can see so far.

I'll spend a couple of days doing a deep clean of the interior, hard wire in my dash cam, lube all the locks and suchlike and that's all that really needs doing. I'm just going to drive it around for a few days to see how I get on with it and if anything flags itself up as needing attention.

 

[maxxo]

i bet the head gasket issues are mostly due to people actually allowing it to overheat, strikes me as weird for people not to watch the temp guage

I look forwad to seeing the work you'll be doing to it!

i really do hope you get on quite well with it as i think they're extremly stylish vehicles, shame i do enough miles to actually save money with a diesel as a 1.8 freelander is rather tempting

[Spiny Norman]

From what I hear the diseasels aren't that much better than the 1.8, which when running right is allegedly quite an efficient engine.
Obviously using the fuel gauge is a fairly random science but when I picked it up it was on a quarter, I put in £30 (just under 6 gallons) which took it to about three quarters full, drove 140 miles home and now it's sitting just under halfway, so if I assume it's taken about 4 gallons that's 35mpg which isn't bad at all for a big heavy jeep sitting at over 3000rpm for 2 hours.

[paulplom]

I'm only getting real world 35mpg from my mk1 mx5 1.6.

I reckon that's pretty decent for a fenlander.

[Spiny Norman]

To be fair, that's a best guess from the fuel gauge, and was a fairly gentle 60-70mph run, I doubt I'll be beating 25mpg during regular use, but I can still live with that. I only get twitchy when mpg goes down into the teens.

 

[Spiny Norman]

Spent the afternoon cleaning this up a bit inside, it wasn't clatty but I'm way more fussy about the inside of a car than the outside.  All the plastics cleaned up a treat with my usual method of baby wipes, a skooshy bottle of  washing up liquid and a stiff brush. The steering wheel cover was quite annoying so I pulled it off ro see if the wheel was savable underneath. A dozen or so wipes later (the first 4 or 5 ending up totally black) later and we have a wheel that doesn't look great, at least isn't sticky and horrible to use. I can see a new one on the horizon though. I've never changed an airbagged wheel but WCPGW?



 

Some of the plastics come out for easy cleaning.

[Spiny Norman]

Some day I'll count all the logos in this car, they're everywhere.

[Spiny Norman]

I know this isn't the serious spannering stuff some of you get up to but I had quite a fun morning doing a couple of wee jobs. First off was te try and find the source of the horrible rattling sound coming from inside the driver's door. It was by far the most annoying and loudest rattle I'd had in a car for years and it nearly drove me crazy on the drive home.

I don't like grubbing around with the oily bits on a car but I'm quite happy doing stuff like this and the door card came off in about 10 minutes flat without even resorting to a workshop manual. Dead easy to turn this...

Into this.

As expected, the speaker itself was the culprit, so out it came. Annoyingly odd shaped mounting hole, I bet that'll be easy to replace...

Went for a run and it's a lot better, just dialled the stereo more to the rear and it'll do for just now, Al came apart and went back together again really easily.