2000 Disco XS, how much is it worth for spares/repairs

Hi all and here is my tale of woe

Had a new engine in the Disco a few months ago after the head gasket went and wrecked the bottom end.

The engine came without a turbo so my old one went on.

On my way home tonight noticed a bit of white smoke while sat at traffic lights and thought 'that's not good'.

Next think I was enveloped in a cloud of smoke and the engine was revving like buggery, even after the keys were taken out.

After getting the car back on a tow-truck I was told that it was the turbo going and it had probably taken the rest of the engine with it.

Now I can't afford another new engine so regrettably I am going to have to let it go as it stands, but I will need to fund another car from whatever it makes.

So my fine fellow forumites, my question to you is: What is a reasonable price to expect for it as I don't want to rip myself off or put it at a price that is not of interest to buyers.

Any advice VERY welcome as I need a car for work but can't buy one until the Disco goes

well you could get £350+ scrap lol, Ebay spares and repairs you could ask much more, Have a look on ebay and see how much similiar ones are going for., write "cash on collection is fine" at the bottom of the listing (not supposed to but i do) that can cut out the paypal/ebay FV fees, or you could break it and sell every bit on ebay - you may make the most money this way overall but it takes the longest, is the most hassle and you need somewhere to do it.

Also dont forget theres a for sale section on this forum that I think is free.

I know a couple of lads that used to get a hosepipe and soak the seats and fill the spare wheel cavity with sand etc to basically weigh it down any way they could think of then sling on a seat cover and take it down to the scrappy, I would be too worried about being discovered myself but I would think I could get away with the water one (over enthusiastic wading gone terribly wrong) and water can weight quite a lot, and I know from experience landys carpets/seat can hold a lot of water (sunroof/windscreen leaks) LOL.

I had a 2000 "X" terminal Disco with a few problems, the main one being a Swiss cheese chassis. The other problems were pretty easy fixes. It had 120k on the clock but the engine wasn't bad. I probably went down the easiest route, but I part-exed it for a slightly newer Disco and got £1500 for it.

I likely could have got more for it by breaking and selling the parts, but of course that takes time and hassle. And creates a mess and needs a bit of space and......

give it a good wash and take photos as normal and sell in the same cat as a normal car, you will be surprised, as a mechanical person can mess and fix it in his own time and expense! £350.00 scrap price!!! lol you would get £1400 all day long unseen at any breakers yard

If it was only a few months ago you had a new engine first place i would start,is the garage that fitted it did you get any guarantee??

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lazydog said:

If it was only a few months ago you had a new engine first place i would start,is the garage that fitted it did you get any guarantee??

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Unfortunately the new (used) engine came without the turbo and the one off the old engine was fitted. This is what has caused the problem

similar happened to a friend in his megane he pulled off his drive, the engine reved and he got out and ran away :doh:

It stopped when it had burnt the oil, he put some more oil in it and started it (ready to stall it this time) it ran ok so he put a new turbo on it and was ok after that, he did trade it in quite soon after though.

so your engine might not be dead yet

As well as the turbo oil seals going a leaking injector or knackered piston rings could have caused your run away engine so it may be worth having a garage other than the one who fitted your engine have a look to confirm the cause of the damage.

I would suspect there is a hell of a lot of damage done to your engine and even if it still runs I wouldn’t expect it to perform very well or last very long.

I know a td5 engine can be very expensive but if it was my car I would think about fitting a 300tdi, I don’t know if this has been done before but as it’s not electronically controlled it should be fairly easy to get it running. Getting all the warning lights out and everything else in the car working with it might be the problem.

I think you should get a bit more than scrap value for it on eBay or Gumtree. If you were closer I would give you a starting bid of £500 for it to have a play with over the winter.

Hi all,I don't want to hijack this thread but how do you stop a TD5 engine if it starts to run after you switch off the ignition ???????? Just so i can be prepared if my disco decides to rec itself.

Quick way - block the air intake with something big, just make sure the rag or whatever you use doesnt get sucked up though!, should be ok cause of the filter I would expect, Disconnect battery? stall if its a manual? (handbrake on 5th gear clutch up quick) Engines need Fuel/air/lectric, take one of them away. They are the things I would be considering if it happened to me.

Could you block the exhaust to stop it i wonder? You know the old "Banana up the tailpipe" trick. (personally I would use potatoes!)

ps it doesnt just start to run its revs like **** and you get the biggest plume of black smoke come out of the exhaust that you have ever seen! youtube/Google it.

Theres a cracking vid of a Self destructing Defender on there somewhere, Very scary I can imagine if you have never seen it happen before and didnt know what was going on.

If it’s a manual just stall it, stand on the break and release the clutch in a high gear.

If its an auto then you have problems, I would think you need to starve the engine of air somehow, maybe blocking of the air into the filter with something fairly solid or letting off a CO2 fire extinguisher near the air filter. Either of these could cause damage and blocking the air inlet might not be the safest as the turbo will spin faster and may self destruct. These are just ideas and I can’t think of anything in my car I could use to block the air off but if I had a CO2 extinguisher handy I would have a go letting it off threw the front grill.

Disconnect the injector wiring loom ? - shouldn't be a problem if you are all standing around with fire extinguishers and wet rags. Take the quick release couplings off at the fuel cooler or filter ? Sometimes I wish I could keep mine going rather than try and figure out how to stop the bloody thing !

Disconnecting the wiring to the injectors won't do anything as the engine would be running on the oil from the turbo, leaking past the rings or on the fuel from a leaking injector.

The whole problem here is the fuel can't be removed so you have to remove the oxygen to stop the engine (you also can't remove the heat/spark as it is generated by the compression).

Have you decided what to do? If sell are the tyres any good

I had a turbo failure and I can assure you it is very scary when the engine runs and doesn't stop!!

You need to remove the turbo to inter cooler pipe. The oil the wont go through to the engine to keep it running.

One of the causes of turbo failure on the td5 seems to be the failure of the waste gate modulator. When this fails the waste gate doesn't open which means the turbo runs at full chat all the time. My engine is fine but the turbo cost £570 don't get a used one!

It could be quite dangerous trying to remove the pipe between the turbo and the intercooler with the turbo spinning full blast producing a couple of bar boost at massive flow rates and temperatures above 150 deg C. and if it’s a leaking injector or knackered rings then it will only slow the engine a bit not stop it.

The fire extinguisher idea looks good to me as you can do it with the bonnet closed.

Or just buy a manual

The way to stop a diesel screaming due to turbo failure is to stall in top gear
admitedly when it happened to me i did want to run away but couldnt put the engine through it !
And dont always take what a recovery driver says is broken as true as half of them aint a clue !

DO NOT block the inlet with yur bare hand - this will hurt considerably !
with it revving flat out youd probably loose a hand lol