We bought a 2003 TD4 five door Freelander when it was 3 years old and had 30,000 miles on it; my other half needed a tow car for the horsebox and her A3 1.6 couldn't really cut it!
We've put nearly 90,000 miles on it and it's been a good car. It only failed once when one of the intercooler hoses blew whilst I was driving it. This is quite common so I had one in the car as a spare - undo 2 jubilee clips and put in the new pipe (which I added a sacrificial reinforcing panel to) and carry on.
It had a new clutch around the 100,000 mile mark, but we have a LR-trained independent guy running a garage a mile from us so he looked after that. Obviously towing puts more strain on the clutch than normal use; ours is a manual, apparently the autos clutches are better for towing but hey ho - didn't know that when we bought.
Things to look for are rear electric window winders (both sides) on the 5 door - they wires can fray. Replacement parts are around the £80 mark; one of ours is getting a bit slow to wind up & down, but there are only 2 of us so no-one's ever in the back.
As mentioned, check the cubby in the boot floor for damp on any model - 3 or 5 door. It's not always caused by leaks though - the exhaust runs under the cubby so can cause condensation problems if you store damp stuff there. The door seal for the rear door should also have cut outs in the bottom of the seal to ensure any damp in the door drains outside not inside the car!
Our car did develop a lumpy idle around 95,000 miles. Dealers will tell you this is caused by blocked injectors and try to sell you new ones. At around £250 each, plus labour, this is not what you want to hear - especially as they are sods to get out on some higher mileage engines. I did some searching and found on a LR equivalent of ScoobyNet that a guy had cured the problem on his by using a £15 fuel conditioner/injector cleaner from Halfords (has to be the £15 one) - I tried it & it worked a treat; it’s this one:
STP Diesel Complete 500ml.
Regarding the transmission wind up between front & back wheels, this was cured to a large extent on the ‘01/’02 onwards cars with revised ratios. LR did issue instructions about how to deal with the earlier models (e.g. always put new tyres on the back first due to diameters or some such!).
Be aware that some unscrupulous sellers completely remove the propshaft to the rear wheels when the reduction drive breaks!
The car still drives, but is 2 wheel drive only on the fronts – allegedly this is most often seen at auctions but check anyway.
As you know, loads of these don’t go offroad so things like the HDC (hill descent control) don’t get used and, like anything, it needs to be used now & then to ensure it works. I take ours round the fields on fence checks etc. so it gets to crawl down grassy slopes – it’s interesting trusting the ECU & ABS to work out the braking etc, but it works (Freelander 2 models are even better) – just make sure it works on the model you look at.
Did try the X-trail and wasn’t as impressed as I’d hoped (especially for the price). They did have a reputation for slack timing chains on the Diesel – don’t know if they still do, but the 2 people that have bought them at our stables wish they hadn’t as they’ve spent lots of time at the dealer’s for various faults – these are 05 and 06 models and cost a lot more than the Freelander but it could just be bad luck.
Anything else, just ask.
Oh, and yes, if we’d had the money we would have got a LandCruiser LC5 or a horsebox!
Cheers,
Steve