Land Rover Freelander Two in Auto guise.

[JTQ]

I was quizzed about my opinions of how the Freelander Two, specifically with the auto-transmission, would be as a towcar for a 1350 kg caravan.
I have no direct experience of this vehicle in auto guise, just manual, so could not address that aspect other that the more general pros and cons of towing with torque convert based auto transmissions. Are there users out there with direct experience on towing and living with the auto version who can comment please?

 

[otherclive]

I took a FL2 out on a Land Rover Experience 1/2 day in Honiton. It was an auto with the 150bhp(ish) engine not the newer SD4 with the higher power engine. The intial session was on country roads A roads and dual carriageways. It drove really well and the auto was never fazed by being in the wrong gear. The car was comfortable and quiet and for one demmo I was asked to drive it around an island as fast as I could. the road was wet and there was no other traffic around but at around 50mph I was not comfortable going faster. The amazing thing was that the ESP/DSC never even came in, so it was doing all that soley on its 4wd system. Off road it was awesome and with the autobox the level of control when cross axled was really precise.
No experience as a tow car but on the basis of a solo session and other members good reports I cannot imagine FL2 not being a good towcar. I have towed with auto and manual and my present car is auto and the FL2 was up with the best. Take one for a test drive. If you go to a franchised dealer they will often give you a fee voucher for a LR Experience session if they think you may be interested in buying new or nearly new.

 

[JTQ]

Thanks "clive",
I will have to see if I can "borrow" an auto FL2 when my Disco 3 is in for its annual; they normally "give" me a Disco4 no doubt in the hope of seducing me to upgrade.
Elsewhere I am getting good reports on the FL2 Autos towing abilities but possibly with a touch disappointing towing mpgs; figures not really much better than I achieve with our Disco3.
Thanks again for responding.
John

 

[RogerL]

The Freelander 2 uses the Aisin autobox, just like Toyota, Vauxhall, Volvo always have and recently Ford, Peugeot and Citroen.
It's quite a small vehicle for the money - there are much bigger, cheaper SUVs available.

 

[otherclive]

JTQ,
my Sorento (now sold) gave 7 years trouble free service with its auto Aisin gearbox. Re the previous post...."size isn't everything!"