Some of the early Freelanders (especially the petrol 1.8) were not too rel;iable because of poor cylinder head/gasket problems. I had a 2003 for 2 years and it was OK, but the bad reputation was still there.
I recently swapped to a TD4, (BMW engine) which is a great car to drive, unless you are a grand prix freak. Solo, I get 38 plus on a run and about 34 around the town and country. Towing recently - 60% motorway and the rest A and B roads it was 34 mpg.
It is an excellent tow car and has a payload of 2000Kgs ( a ton)so you can take a lot of pressure off the caravan.
Mine is not for sale .... but if you really scour the internet, there are some good bargains about as people up-grade (???) to the Freelander 2, especially if you can find an ex demonstrator.
The TD4 is a great little tower, there is nothing else in its class comes close (Rav4 or Grand Vitara are the only real choices)
There can be issues with the IRD (viscous coupling for 4wd, but recon replacements are now much much cheaper), but the biggest problem has always been the head gaskets on the smaller petrol engine. I am not sure about weight increases for the 05 model, as the new model came out in 06 which I would certainly expect to have different capacities.
We went along to our local Landrover dealer at the weekend to look at an 06 model TD4 after talking to a Family who own one piched next to us last month.
I'm limited with what i can tow at the moment and as we decided that we like the Caravan after a years trial it's time to get a newer caravan and tow car and the Freelander is my top choice to tow with at the moment, it's made interesting reading on this thread so far.
Marc
------------- It's a bad plan that cannot be altered
I just had a look and there are a lot of negatives about the Freelander, But every car has it's negatives, as I said when I bought the Picasso I joined a Picasso forum and the amount of the same things that were going wrong was unbeleivable. One that springs to mind is the Instrument panel failures, but I never had one bit of trouble with mine, in four years I replaced two Driveshafts Only because the ABS censor ring broke.and a fuel pump. And was very happy with this.
I feel some poeple expect to get trouble free motoring for ever, A fact of life is EVERYTHING breaks down at some point. wether it be washing machines TV's it all costs to have it repaired.
I don't think (Here's hoping) the freelander is any wors than any other car out there.
OK I have only had it for Five weeks but I still love it and it and towed like a dream. Hope I don't have to eat my words too soon.
I didn't mean to rubbish the Freelander. I was looking for one myself until recently, but I found that web site to be useful as a guide in addition to other research.
I didn't think for a minute you were knocking the Freelander, I know you were only letting members know of the site. I enjoyed reading some of the more positive reviews though.
I just hope mine is reliable If it is, or isn't reliable. I will be sure to keep everyone posted.
For a wider range of views I have found pakers (www.parkers.co.uk) useful, many forums are used only by people to complain, wheras parkers to post something bad (say the old head gasket failure) you have to comment on a lot more than just your one problem, also you can limit your review search to just one specific model, e TD4 auto so to weed out all those complaints about K series engines that have no bearing on the vehicle you want