Major malfunction! Dangerous! Advice?

Hi Folks,

I hope you can help with the following. Just glad this happened when I was driving and not the missus with the little one strapped in the kiddie seat.

Half way up the A3 on SAturday night the turbo unit failed. The engine lost power, I pulled over onto a slip road and removed the key. However the engine kept revving and then around 40ft of white smoke billowed out of the exhaust halting traffic. white smoke turned to black and then sparks were coming out of the exhaust too. The engine sounded rough and quite high pitch. Eventually it stopped after around 5-10mins.

AA man turned up and explained the turbo unit had failed and sucked the oil through. He was surprised the engine had continued to turn over. This seems really dangerous to me,. anyone else had this? Anything we can take up with Landrover?

So it's been to the garage today and here's the outcome.

either replace the turbo and exhaust unit to then see if the engine is buggered too or cut our loses and write it off. They estimate the cost to be £2k for the turbo and around £900 for the exhaust. Then if the engine is dead too an additional £5-6k.

We bought the Freelander TD4 (Premium sport 5 years ago. The landy garage reckoned it was worth £5-6 on trade in 6 months ago (when it was working). So to risk paying these prices to fix it could lose us even more money than we don't already have!

So folks, we're wondering what to do next. Cut our losses. Or is there a cheaper alternative to getting this fixed? How about claiming on the insurance, is there a way to get the insurers to chip in? how about Landy? It seemed v dangerous.

The engine had 86,000 miles on it. We're gutted, we have no car and we bought it new 5 years back. We're in the middle of trying to move house before the baby arrives in a few months and now we're potentially skinted.

Any suggestions folks, any ideas welcome!

Yours,
Matt

PS Apoligies for posting on two threads but this seems relevant.
ps One day hoped to own a Disco but feel really put off now

sorry to hear of your problems, but this is not uncommon on turbo diesels. If it happens yu need to stall the engine as quick as possible. There will be no point in trying to get Landrover to accept responsibility, because they wont accept it.

welcome to the club.

hi there

sorry to upset you but thats the one of the ways turbos go when they fail, the white smoke is the oil seal failing in the intake side of the turbo and then the oil is drawn through to the inlet manifold into the engine. the engine can to a degree run on oil as diesel is a slightley more refined oil.

the sparks comeing out the back could be a few things
1) the platinum in the cat getting to much fuel and melting and red hot platinum particles of platinum comeing otu the exaust.
2) soot deposits burning out
3) parts of the turbo on the exaust side brakeing off and comeing out of the exaust ( i doutbt it as there is a cat in the way.

the revs goin high is because the engine is runing one the oil

the engine stoping is it running out of any fule to run on, i have seen this happen on a fiat van and that did need a new engine as wll as a turbo as it put all the oil out the engine and sump right through the cylinders and out the exsaust (not to say your engine is dead)

as for theis being dangrous?? none have ever caught fire that i know of, none have ever caused a crash that i know of, none have ever killed any one that i know of.

as for being upseting and hurting your pocket yes it is, and my sympathy goes out to you.

as for you hopeing landrover to pay good luck, im afraid turbos fail through weare and tare, the main killer of turbos are not letting the oils warm up and get into the turbo before you boot your car and when you have ran your car you dont let the engine idle for a few minuets before you turn the engine off, remember the turbo spins at at a very high rpm and takes a long time to slow down and with no oil to the turbo bearings and seals will hurt it.

i hope if you try to fix it it is only the turbo failed

what did the garage do to come to the conclusions you have said there, have the not checked the oil and thst the engine rotates and even a compression test and leakdown test? maybe even go into the cylinders with a bore scope.

that will take a few hours to check and in theory the engine is good to run, the bores may need flushing out but then the engine should be fine, not to say the over reving it got before it stoped has caused weare to the bearings, seals and cambelt/chain

sorry to upset you but that is the at worst

hope this helps
cheers
baz

cheers baz

happens to them all.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zx3qKX_Pno"]YouTube- Runaway Diesel Defender 200 TDI[/ame]

The Mad Hat Man said:

sorry to hear of your problems, but this is not uncommon on turbo diesels. If it happens yu need to stall the engine as quick as possible.

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And just in case it happens to anyone else - how would you stall it ASAP.

With a manual I guess stick it in top and release the clutch with the brakes on hard?

What about on my AUTO ???????

Tim.C said:

And just in case it happens to anyone else - how would you stall it ASAP.

With a manual I guess stick it in top and release the clutch with the brakes on hard?

What about on my AUTO ???????

Click to expand...

stick a rag or similar in the air intake or crush the intake hose.

sorry to hear of the demise of your motor, a few examples of engines and exhausts are for sale on ebay, still alot of money , but nowhere near what LR would want, hope you get sorted soon, be careful of taking advice off some of the gasbags that lurk on here.

undo the drain plug and see how much oil is left in sump, if empty the engine has to be replaced, if some in there, you will have to remove the head to check for melted pistons, cat will have to be replaced , so unfortunately it will be expensive

freelance said:

undo the drain plug and see how much oil is left in sump, if empty the engine has to be replaced, if some in there, you will have to remove the head to check for melted pistons, cat will have to be replaced , so unfortunately it will be expensive

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I thought that you could get away without a cat on a diesel.

yep wrote in haste