Accept No Alternative
by David Finlay (17 Dec 01)

It may be a sign of something or other - or if not that, then something else - but I'm becoming increasingly convinced as I travel along this dusty road called Life that the only sensible engine to put in an off-roader (even one which comes under the grisly heading of "lifestyle") is a turbo diesel. The test is simple: lift the bonnet of an off-roader, and if you see spark plugs, forget it and move on to the next one.

A few exceptions immediately come to mind, but I think there's a definite trend. When I was a young pup, let loose for the first time in manufacturers' press fleet cars with anxious instructions to bring them back in one piece, the diesel off-roaders were always more efficient on the terrain for which they were apparently designed, but the petrol ones were far better in the conditions that they would normally encounter, namely anything at all involving tarmac roads.

Esteemed readers, I put forward the Land Rover Freelander as an example of how things have changed. The first Freelander I drove used the 1.8-litre K-series engine (familiar from its applications in several Rovers as well as Caterhams, Lotus Elises and innumerable race cars) and I thought it was hopeless. Not my kind of thing at all. For a car which was meant to be Land Rover's most tarmac-friendly product ever, it felt completely out of place on surfaced roads.

If you share these views you could still remain a customer of the petrol pumps and choose the 2.5-litre V6 instead, but you'd be visiting those pumps at very short intervals, since that version swallows the juice at an alarming rate.

There's Only One Answer

Or you could become an adherent of the true faith and pick the two-litre diesel Freelander. Now this is more like it. The very fine Td4 common-rail engine may not be especially quiet, but the steady thrum isn't out of place in a vehicle like this, and the 109bhp power output produces acceptable performance. You won't find it lacking in grunt unless you try to accelerate from a standstill all the way through the gears, which is the sort of thing that only magazine road testers and other odd fish would ever attempt.

It handles reasonably well, too, though I can't believe it behaves any better on corners than the K-series engined version does (I haven't driven the two cars within a short enough period to be able to judge). Perhaps it's just that the diesel Freelander seems to have no pretensions about challenging a well set-up hatchback, leaving you to accept it as it is.

The diesel is the only Freelander available with either manual or automatic transmission. We got the manual, whose shift quality is pretty good for the class, and an extremely welcome change from Land Rovers of past years. If you ever drove an early Discovery you'll know exactly where I'm coming from.

As the smallest of all Land Rovers, the Freelander won't carry the same loads as its brethren, though you do get the multiple rear seat folding arrangement which allows you to transport more luggage as long as you don't need more than three people on board. Carrying capacity on the five-door test car ranges from 19.3 cubic feet with all the seats up to 46.6 with the rear seats folded flat (equivalent figures for the three-door being 16.7 and 42.2).

The relatively compact dimensions also mean that this is not the ideal car for any driver taller than six feet. I couldn't get a seating position which put me far enough from either the steering wheel or the roof, and this led to the odd conclusion that the Freelander has much less space for the driver than that wretched smart & passion object I'd been driving immediately beforehand.

Staying On The Black Stuff 

In what I'm sure is an accurate reflection of the way Freelanders will be used by at least 150% of their owners, the opportunity to try the car off-road didn't arise. However, previous escapades have already shown that it behaves well in these conditions, with the electronic Hill Descent Control (introduced on this car and subsequently added to the Discovery) making life particularly easy for the novice.

I'm still a little concerned that a non-mechanical system like this seems a bit of a risk-take - I wouldn't want HDC to stop working suddenly while I was inching down a steep slope with a large rock at the bottom - but at the same time I've never heard of any failures. I hope the good fortune continues.

Freelander sales have been spectacular since pretty much the day the car was launched. It has the best-known badge in the business, backed up by a fine marketing campaign which puts anything by former parent company Rover firmly into the shade. With these advantages it can hardly fail to sell, and if any potential buyer were to ask me for my views, I wouldn't hesitate to say that the diesel is the one to go for.

Price: £20,200
Capacity: 1951cc
Power: 109bhp
0-60mph: 13.2 seconds
Maximum speed: 106mph
Economy: 42.2mpg extra urban, 37.2mpg combined
CO2 emissions: 205g/km
Land Rover figures.

Second opinion: 
A lot of this on/off-road stuff does indeed tend to miss the point. How many people fork out more than £20,000 for a brand-new vehicle and promptly take it down some boulder-strewn gully where it might get scratched or dented? Exactly. The Td4 Freelander (and, yes, that's a terrific BMW-sourced engine) is an all-weather car, with the kind of traction and braking systems, and high ground clearance, which are just the job for winter conditions on ordinary roads. Very practical, too. I thought the load area was as good as in many 4x4s a class up in overall size. And how come Land Rover does a 4x4 with a pull-back security blind when so many other manufacturers can't be bothered? Plenty of smaller stowage places too, inside the passenger cabin. Dynamically, you have to watch for body lean on briskly taken corners, but the ride quality beats all 4x4s apart from the saloon-based Forester. Ross Finlay.

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