Sport Sudden shut down. Unable to start.

I have a 2010 Range Rover Sport 3.0 TDV6. My girlfriend kindly arranged to take it for its first service in my ownership, on the drive from her place to mine (90 miles) it suddenly shut down. Unable to start again. Green Flag were called, battery boost pack insufficient to get it started. Faulty battery was diagnosed at the road side.

A new battery was installed today. Unfortunately with the exact same symptoms; the dash will illuminate as usual, when the start button is pushed a clunk is heard and then the dash shuts down.

That sounds like a bad connection to either the battery or the starter motor or a bad earth, try a jump lead from the negative post on the battery to the engine.

The battery has been replaced today so I think we could rule out the battery terminal connection. Though that was my first thought. Unfortunately I am 300 miles away from my car so I am trying to rule things out using my girlfriend.

Get it checked by a proper mechanic.
I would not try and start it at all until they have confirmed the crank is okay.

The crank. As in the actual crankshaft?

alcarmichael said:

The crank. As in the actual crankshaft?

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Yes, snapping cranks is a well known problem.

Surely there would be an extremely loud bang if a crank snapped whilst the car is being driven!

alcarmichael said:

Surely there would be an extremely loud bang if a crank snapped whilst the car is being driven!

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It would seem not from the reports.

Wow. Then it must actually be made of chocolate!

alcarmichael said:

Wow. Then it must actually be made of chocolate!

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Nope, it's a design fault, the bearing caps are not well located and can turn in the housing cutting off the oil supply.
Same engine used by other companies seems to have had the problem rectified, sham e JLR did not do the same.

I’m still hoping it’s something less serious. My brain won’t allow me to believe that the crank has snapped - the car was doing 70mph at time of shut down and I think there surely must be some noise and vibration at that speed.

My car has been transported to a local garage who will hopefully get chance to take a look at it by Wednesday.

alcarmichael said:

Surely there would be an extremely loud bang if a crank snapped whilst the car is being driven!

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They can actually run for a while after they snap depending on exactly how the crack propogated.
My cousin in Czech got around 300 km in his disco with snapped crank. It finally let go at 3am about 10 miles from home.

How did they know it snapped 300km before letting go?

alcarmichael said:

How did they know it snapped 300km before letting go?

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Heard a crack and vibrating more than normal. When removed you could see the fretting across the break.

I’ve had no noise or vibration.

alcarmichael said:

I’ve had no noise or vibration.

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Your wallet may (sadly) be making a lot of protestation type noises fairly shortly.
I hope it has not suffered the snapped-crank and is indeed something simple and easily fixed.

alcarmichael said:

The crank. As in the actual crankshaft?

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Google 3.0 tdv6/sdv6 snapped crankshaft.

Lots of people are avoiding the 3.0 engine for this very reason.

Iirc the 3.0 makes over 300bhp in the range rover models?
Disco version was 245 then 255 bhp.

The 2.7 was the first to suffer, and it was thought the 3.0 was initially immune, then about 5 odd years ago as they aged it started to become common knowledge that they to were failing, some at very low mileages.
Have read of the D5 3.0 suffering as well.

Still waiting for the garage to attempt to manually crank the engine. Disappointed it’s taking them so long to get to it with everyone here believing it’s a catastrophic failure. I just want to know.

alcarmichael said:

Still waiting for the garage to attempt to manually crank the engine. Disappointed it’s taking them so long to get to it with everyone here believing it’s a catastrophic failure. I just want to know.

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If the garage can't turn the engine, then the crank has failed. Very common problem, normally happening between 50 and 100k miles. Often there's no indication of impending failure, the engine just stops and won't crank over.

Best prepare to replace the engine.

alcarmichael said:

Still waiting for the garage to attempt to manually crank the engine. Disappointed it’s taking them so long to get to it with everyone here believing it’s a catastrophic failure. I just want to know.

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All will be revieled. Patience young padawan!!.