My wife has a Land Rover Freelander with about 90K on it. The engines in these are notorious for blowing up at about 100K. It's a really cool little SUV. It has a transverse mounted 2.5 L v6 but it is AWD. It is by no measure a serious off road vehicle but it would really surprise a few people.
So here is my question. Parts for this thing are astronomical -- a replacement engine is $6000.00. --- NOTwhat I'm gonna spend. Thinking along 2 seperate lines
Line 1 finding engine and running gear from Toyota Rav-4 AWD (same approx size vehicles) and grafting onto the Rover??

Line 2 go radical -- put real axles and long ways mounted engine with real transfer case ETC. and really make it into a real 4X4

Gimmie opinions and ideas-- but keep in mind I am a regular Joe with a wife kids mortgage ETC.

 

Doesnt sound worth it.

I'd sell it before it kicks it and then either get her into a 4runner or get a newer fancier vehicle.

They call them "throw away cars" for a reason

 

Yeah your right

WTF am I thinking???

 

yup sell it

Unrelated:

I was out at the Cliffs one day (one of the tightest, nastiest, carnage happy, hell holes in the country.... and thats when its dry!!) and the night before we had a flash flood. As we were getting ready to hit the trails a freelander pulled in and we all thought he was going to ride shotgun with someone, but he whipped out a flag. We walked over to him and proceeded to try to talk him into leaving the truck in the lot and coming as a pass first. He explained that he JUST bought it and the dealer said it was an amazing 4x4...blah blah blah... So we headed out. He was behind me. We were on the way to the first trail and we stopped for whatever reason on the access road. I looked in my rearview and saw the rover come to a stop....then proceed to slide sideways on a 10% camber. And we were 5 ft from a 150ft cliff. He slid toward the cliff edge and luckily there was a tree there probably the only tree. and he caved in the drivers door and then started to pivot around the tree and that dragged the barbed wire across the fender and over the hood, scatching the crap out of everything. We winched him back onto the trail, and suggested trying to get his money back from the park and go home. he asked, "do the trails get worse than this" Bwaahahahahaha. we explained that we were not to the first trail yet and we left him.

so anywho.....what were we talking about......

 

I used to work next to a rover specialist and remember looking under the hood of one while he cursed at it and I asked him if it was just a fancy ford escape. turns out the guy who designed it now works for ford and now ford owns rover. something seems kinda funny here.

I suggest filling the tank with gas and driving to the farthest toyota dealer you can find and never looking back.

 

you can also swap in a v6 from a ford escape or throw in a 3.8 rover motor.

 

My vote is a 2001 or so 4runner with the centre diff lock thingy so its kind of AWD but way better because its a 4runner and the drive train is awesome and proven.

 

That's incredible and funny. So a 10 degree slope towards the cliff?