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

Have them change the crankcase breather assembly and put some fresh oil in and see if/how it runs.

The AA man is probably right, that is a classic symptom of the turbo going west, sucking everything through - oil and unmetered fuel hence the high revs beyond the limiter (or governor) and finally giving out. By all means try an oil change but if bits of the turbo are in amongst the sump then you will be making a metal soup.

On a more hopeful note, if you have had it since new and all servicing done and stamped etc with approved turbo suitable oil then you could try LR but be prepared for them to say 5 years is a reasonable time for a new car to last despite the fact there are hundreds of TD4s with more miles than yours still going strong.

Other than that a new engine on the cards. A good breaker who delivers Nationwide is

Breaking Nearly New and Used 4x4s - Home


I use his place regularly - always plenty of FLs in.

2k for a turbo:hysterically_laughi i'd give these a shout or look up 4x4 breakers under "car dismantlers" in the yellow book.When you refit the turbo expect a 5-6 mile smoke screen following you when i changed mine there was very little smoke coming out of it while idling or reving while stationary, but i left a big carbon footprint for 10 miles up and around the hills round here.

Dont know the setup on a td4 but if its like my 2ldi,i took off the air intake box cleaned lots of sludgy oil out of it,and needed to replace the gasket.I had the exhaust manifold on the replacement turbo,made the whole job easy enough.

best of luck to you and your missis,hope all goes well.

Joe.

forgot to insert link oops, 2007 LAND ROVER FREELANDER TDV4 TURBO on eBay (end time 11-Feb-10 11:27:02 GMT)

What really happened was this. The turbo oil seal blew, letting lots oil into the air flow to the inlet manifold. You turned off the engine but it continues to run on the oil only, the injectors were dead so no diesel. This is the smoke you were seeing. Oh, if only you had jumped back in, put it in fifth, floored the brake peddle and dropped the clutch!! You'd have saved your engine. Eventually it burnt its lubrication oil and then the bearing failures would have begun...

This isn't a LR problem, any TDi can do this. I've heard of engines reving up so high they have literally exploded!!

I hope its not bad news mate but I fear it is.

i was just xing everything b4 bed and checked the turbo sellers site and saw this 2007 LAND ROVER FREELANDER TDV4 COMPLETE ENGINE on eBay (end time 11-Feb-10 11:24:23 GMT)

Thanks for all the info folks. We've called a few places now for reconditioned parts and have got a fairly good quote for a new engine (£1880) and turbo unit (£700) + 5yr guarantee.

It's still a question of whether we sink more money in or cut 'n run. Perhaps there's life in the (not so) old dog yet?!

The help you've given is great though and really appreciated!

Many thanks,
Matt.

Darmain said:

Oh, if only you had jumped back in, put it in fifth, floored the brake peddle and dropped the clutch!! You'd have saved your engine.

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But what do you do with an AUTO ????

Tim.C said:

But what do you do with an AUTO ????

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stall it in d?

have seen a zuk do this on the m1.Was a lot of white smoke, like a screen

:RUN like fook ......,,,,dave

Tim.C said:

But what do you do with an AUTO ????

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Foot on brake, shift to D and hope the tranmission doesn't overheat and blow before the engine stalls. Alternatively, get the bonnet up and stuff something in the air intake to cause the engine to flame out. If it runs out of oil then its end game, not to mention that damage thats being caused by the over reving. After all there is no rev limiter in effect, the limit is defined by how much energy is available.

I came across a guy who had been in an old lorry with others. This engine had too many miles on the clock and the valve guide oil seals were non-existent. This engine started to run-away on lubrication. After all attempts to shut it down failed everyone bailed out and ran.

Parts of the flywheel were found half a mile away!!

I'm still curious. What has actually happened to the turbo, has it broken up or seized or what. Did the engine stop because it seized or did it stop because it couldn't scavenge any more oil to run on and is there a slim chance it could be salvageable?

Chaser said:

I'm still curious. What has actually happened to the turbo, has it broken up or seized or what. Did the engine stop because it seized or did it stop because it couldn't scavenge any more oil to run on and is there a slim chance it could be salvageable?

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The turbo drive shaft floats on pressureised oil. At each end there is an oil seal to stop the oil being pushed into the turnbine chamber. On the exhaust side the pressure difference is not that great compares to the induction side, therefore the induction side oil seal is under greater pressure. In this case the oil seal failed and let pressured lubrication oil spill into the induction chamber. The turbine is still operating so this oil is blasted through the intercooler and into the engine.

So at this point we have collapsing oil pressure and oil in the cumbustion process. A diesel engine will quite happily burn lubrication oil so the engine starts to run rough because is is running way too rich.

So our man pulls over and switches off. Now the injection process stops but the engine core keeps running, totally fed by lubrication oil. This is a dangerious time, if the oil seal really lets go then the engine will rev up way beyond red line, the results being predictably catistrophic. In this case this didn't appear to happen, possibly because the variable flow turbo reverted to the high load condition when the power was cut (Speculation), thus reducung the boost to the engine. Maybe it was just because there wasn't enough oil.

So the situation now is the engine is running on reduced oil pressure at close to, if not exceeding, red line. The bearings are not going to like this.

The end will come in one of three ways. Either the engine runs out of lubrication oil and hence fuel and effecively stalls, or the engine core fails (blows) or the engine blows apart explosively.

Whatever way, a run away event normally does significant damage to the life of the engine. It will require a complete strip down, clean, inspection and rebuild, with new rings, bearing shells and oil seals. The induction paths will need cleaning, the turbo will need replacing. We are effectively talking about replacing the engine, which is likely to be cheaper. The cat will need replacing, aand I suspect the exhaust will also need replacing as its flooded with oil.

Therefore, the question is how much is this going to cost? If the value of all the parts plus labour to fit is greater than the real value of the working car then its a write off job. Spend your money another car. Simple really.

:doh: Yes i know that's what happens when turbo seals fail (do we know they did?) but what i'm asking is is there a chance, however remote, that the crankcase depression limiter failed which may have allowed the contents of the sump to be drawn into the turbo inlet tract. The end result might not be quite so catastrophic. Just wondered if anyone has bothered to check that's all.

Crickey, how much suck has the turbo got then? It'll have to be going some to lift oil from all down there to all up here, wouldn't it? I would have thought not, not that it matters now. Be interesting if they do post what was found after the post mortum though.

im pretty gutted for you mattmos,baby on the way moving house,jeezis

when my turbo collapsed after some :5bsifone::5bsifone::5bsifone: and just a little thought i went onto dondeal and bought an alfa 156 to get me and 2 of my 3 sons and dog back home,and something to not have to worry about for the rest of the summer.

if you have somewhere to lay up your fl for a while,i would'nt suggest you buy something else cheap,try to forget about the lander tillyour set up in the new place,and when you get her up and running the missis has a motor of her own,but its worth considering.
Buy a van even!

Tim.C said:

But what do you do with an AUTO ????

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you have to be f*ckin brave and lift the bonnet and squeeze the intercooler hose flat as it runs across the front of the engine, thus depriving the engine of air.

not sure it would work, and can't remember where I read it. just hope I never have to do it in my auto !

Optimus Prime said:

you have to be f*ckin brave and lift the bonnet and squeeze the intercooler hose flat as it runs across the front of the engine, thus depriving the engine of air.

not sure it would work, and can't remember where I read it. just hope I never have to do it in my auto !

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That is a very good idea OP, but it would be easier to crush the induction side of the turbo so you are not fighting it. Hope it don't happen to any of us.