THE POWER OF RECALL

Time is can fix reputation and Land Rovers Serious weaknesses, such as failure of the early Ninety and One Ten turbocharged diesel’s crankshaft bearings have been fixed and have run reliably for 20 years. The 300TDI engine’s tendency to chew its own timing belt and spit out the resulting bent valves and pushrods was a calamity that should never have happened.

A few years on, it seems that it never did. All affected engines must by now have been modified engines must by now have been modified and after a surge of worried enquiries to Land Rovers Q and A service petered out only a couple of years ago, the issue is almost forgotten. One day we might forget about the Freelander’s 1.8 petrol engine. Considering the design and testing that should go into a new vehicle, I see no excuse for failure of mechanical components.