Disco 4 (LR4) Engine cut out.. Wife stranded.. now running again

Aye aye,

Hope some of you boys might be able to shed some light for me on this one.
Bought a Disc 4 Landmark 2016 a few weeks back and has been great until last week.
So last week when wife and kids were heading home, the car without warning just cut out and ground to a halt and would not restart at all, not even turn over. (Unfortunately I'm away offshore just now and wasn't there)
Red engine warning light came up on dash with a Engine fault display message.
Car recovered to local Garage who could only tell her from their code reader that it was a fault with the fuel pump, though didn't say which and that they weren't able to fix it.
Recovered Car back to car dealer we bought it from as they said they'd look at it.
It arrived with a flat battery which they tried to charge but said it was in poor shape so fitted a new one.
Stuck 20 litres of fuel in it and had to bleed the fuel lines to injectors and got it running again and it has been running fine for past few days as they have taken it for a couple of test drives with no problems.
They reckon it ran out of fuel , even though it still showed 70 miles to empty when it cut out.

So really just asking if anyone has had something similar happen. Ive asked them to check the alternator is putting out the correct volts as ive seen posts stating if battery not in tip top condition this can lead to electrical faults appearing.
Is it possible the fuel gauge is faulty? I'm assuming if it was that would be why she didn't get a low fuel tank warning before it cut out!
Grateful of any info you might have!
Cheers

I have no idea, but simple test will be to keep the tank above half for a few weeks and see what happens.
If nowt happens then you can start investigating the sender etc.
Have heard of mice/rats getting on top of the fuel tank and having a good old nibble at the wiring.

On my D3 I have pushed it another 50 miles once the light came on then bottled it!

lynall said:

I have no idea, but simple test will be to keep the tank above half for a few weeks and see what happens.
If nowt happens then you can start investigating the sender etc.
Have heard of mice/rats getting on top of the fuel tank and having a good old nibble at the wiring.

On my D3 I have pushed it another 50 miles once the light came on then bottled it!

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Hi Lynall,
Yeah I'd asked them to syphon the fuel out the tank to prove fuel gauge working ok and low level indication in tank working as expected but still to hear back from them.
I'm suspicous there could be a fault with the sender unit, I've read somewhere if it fails then engine shuts down to protect itself. Not ideal if true if your bowling along on the motorway!
just trying to get up to speed with all the known faults/remedys by browsing through the Forums.
50miles..!! You did well, thats good to know!!

The shut down thing could be to protect the turbo in some way perhaps?
Always used to be said, keep it on tick-over for a min or two, especially after a high speed run, to let the the oil in the turbo bearings cool down enough to remove the danger of the oil cooking around the bearings. Friends of ours did manage to cook the bearings in a car by doing just that, i.e. going from a very high speed run, (racing a train in France so the wife could catch it,) to a stop and then switched off immediately.

On an older vehicle I would have checked the float, the arm and the sender unit.
The light may be on a different sender system.
Had a Beemer once where the light was accurate but the gauge wasn't. Took me running out of fuel twice to learn this!

Teuchter79 said:

Hi Lynall,
Yeah I'd asked them to syphon the fuel out the tank to prove fuel gauge working ok and low level indication in tank working as expected but still to hear back from them.
I'm suspicous there could be a fault with the sender unit, I've read somewhere if it fails then engine shuts down to protect itself. Not ideal if true if your bowling along on the motorway!
just trying to get up to speed with all the known faults/remedys by browsing through the Forums.
50miles..!! You did well, thats good to know!!

Click to expand...

Most likely shut down to protect HPFP, no fuel = no lube = dead HPFP and bits of swarf all in the fuel system, something silly like 1500 quid just for the HPFP and the same again for the injectors.

Have a look over on the D3 D4 forum whatever goes wrong will have been broken and fixed several times on different threads.
Ignore the D3 title they cover all discos 3 onwards.

Click here forum

lynall said:

Most likely shut down to protect HPFP, no fuel = no lube = dead HPFP and bits of swarf all in the fuel system, something silly like 1500 quid just for the HPFP and the same again for the injectors.

Have a look over on the D3 D4 forum whatever goes wrong will have been broken and fixed several times on different threads.
Ignore the D3 title they cover all discos 3 onwards.

Click here forum

Click to expand...

aye I was worried that the HPFP might be damaged when I heard they had to bleed the fuel through again, really not wanting a large repair bill like yon!
Yes I've been looking through the D3 chat, some very helpful information there alright!!

Stanleysteamer said:

The shut down thing could be to protect the turbo in some way perhaps?
Always used to be said, keep it on tick-over for a min or two, especially after a high speed run, to let the the oil in the turbo bearings cool down enough to remove the danger of the oil cooking around the bearings. Friends of ours did manage to cook the bearings in a car by doing just that, i.e. going from a very high speed run, (racing a train in France so the wife could catch it,) to a stop and then switched off immediately.

Click to expand...

I'll bear that in mind for the Turbo, cheers

Teuchter79 said:

aye I was worried that the HPFP might be damaged when I heard they had to bleed the fuel through again, really not wanting a large repair bill like yon!
Yes I've been looking through the D3 chat, some very helpful information there alright!!

Click to expand...

Theres quite a few people on there from up your end of the world.

Disco Mikey has recently opened his own land rover garage and is a super knowledgable bloke.
MMP Land Rover Dundee, what he does not know is not worth knowing, he is also building a D3 with a range rover 3.6 v8 diesel engine.

lynall said:

Most likely shut down to protect HPFP, no fuel = no lube = dead HPFP and bits of swarf all in the fuel system, something silly like 1500 quid just for the HPFP and the same again for the injectors.

Have a look over on the D3 D4 forum whatever goes wrong will have been broken and fixed several times on different threads.
Ignore the D3 title they cover all discos 3 onwards.

Click here forum

Click to expand...

This is interesting, I didn't think injection pumps and/or high pressure fuel pumps were lubricated by the diesel anymore. However, having read this,
https://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/showthread.php/83439-Disco-3-hpfp
I am really pleased I don't have one of these! Interesting advice to pass on to all owners of D3s and D4s. Bit like sticking additives into old cars that used to run on leaded petrol, which risked valve-seat recession on unleaded!

Totally understand your reasoning.

Stanleysteamer said:

This is interesting, I didn't think injection pumps and/or high pressure fuel pumps were lubricated by the diesel anymore. However, having read this,
https://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/showthread.php/83439-Disco-3-hpfp
I am really pleased I don't have one of these! Interesting advice to pass on to all owners of D3s and D4s. Bit like sticking additives into old cars that used to run on leaded petrol, which risked valve-seat recession on unleaded!

Totally understand your reasoning.

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I think most diesels have been common rail at least for the last 15 years, they are fine so long as people look after them, ie change the filters with quality items, dont fill with petrol etc, all the sort of stuff that diesels of old would tolerate with barely a hiccup!
All the problems common rail cars have also happens on the trucks.

Explains a lot! My youngest Disco is W reg!

Stanleysteamer said:

Explains a lot! My youngest Disco is W reg!

Click to expand...

W reg will be the td5 which is a PD engine, PD = pumpe deuse, made famous by Vag with their 1.9tdi which was mega tough and did amazing mpgs, Iirc there was a club called the 1000 mile club for people who got 1k from a tank of derv!

lynall said:

W reg will be the td5 which is a PD engine, PD = pumpe deuse, made famous by Vag with their 1.9tdi which was mega tough and did amazing mpgs, Iirc there was a club called the 1000 mile club for people who got 1k from a tank of derv!

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Never knew any of this. Thought the TD5 was the "Storm" engine with Lucas injection, the only engine BMW stuck with when they took over Land Rover and brought their own engines in.
Have done a bit of digging and think this PD reference is to the type of fuel injection in the head.
Well, I've just done a crash course in PD and now understand why the oil is so important and why I am happy there is a chain not a belt driving the camshaft.
Lot of people seem to respect the PD system, although it may now seem to be a bit old hat.
Anyway, thanks for the push into learning a bit more.

The engine has a safety system which will cut it out if it senses it may run out of fuel.

Stanleysteamer said:

Never knew any of this. Thought the TD5 was the "Storm" engine with Lucas injection, the only engine BMW stuck with when they took over Land Rover and brought their own engines in.
Have done a bit of digging and think this PD reference is to the type of fuel injection in the head.
Well, I've just done a crash course in PD and now understand why the oil is so important and why I am happy there is a chain not a belt driving the camshaft.
Lot of people seem to respect the PD system, although it may now seem to be a bit old hat.
Anyway, thanks for the push into learning a bit more.

Click to expand...

The thing with engines/fuel systems is no matter what you know there is always more to learn, then of course you forget the old stuff until something prompts the old grey cells to click.

This is whay when you watch wheeler dealers you just know there is no way on this earth that the mech guy can pretend to know all he says he does, and in the background is a specialist on the particular make/model of car being worked on.

Yorkie57 said:

The engine has a safety system which will cut it out if it senses it may run out of fuel.

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I think the op has sussed that bit and seems to be on the right tarck suspecting the fuel tank level sender or its wiring is at fault.

lynall said:

The thing with engines/fuel systems is no matter what you know there is always more to learn, then of course you forget the old stuff until something prompts the old grey cells to click.

This is whay when you watch wheeler dealers you just know there is no way on this earth that the mech guy can pretend to know all he says he does, and in the background is a specialist on the particular make/model of car being worked on.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you do wonder about all this.
Just watched three episodes of "Lazy boys garage"
What a bunch of winkers.
Three cars and on each they made a loss of about £1000. Really clueless. Wonder how it make television. Mind you, for each "auction" the punters were exactly the same. But just watched a prog on a Dodge charger and they did exactly what I would have done, it all worked and they made a profit. So I felt a bit more justified! But they bought in an external gear selector mechanism that was expensive whereas I would have made a new one myself, for peanuts. It is not rocket science. Ditto the "standard" rear spring hangers. Which could have been made from the adjustable ones that came with the car. But the bit about replacing the front wheel bearings and allowing the slack needed for old skool bearings was dead on. Very well explained.
Some of these progs are good some are sh1t and some are OK.
Always liked Car SOS but the money they spent, and the work they farmed out!!!

Stanleysteamer said:

Yeah, you do wonder about all this.
Just watched three episodes of "Lazy boys garage"
What a bunch of winkers.
Three cars and on each they made a loss of about £1000. Really clueless. Wonder how it make television. Mind you, for each "auction" the punters were exactly the same. But just watched a prog on a Dodge charger and they did exactly what I would have done, it all worked and they made a profit. So I felt a bit more justified! But they bought in an external gear selector mechanism that was expensive whereas I would have made a new one myself, for peanuts. It is not rocket science. Ditto the "standard" rear spring hangers. Which could have been made from the adjustable ones that came with the car. But the bit about replacing the front wheel bearings and allowing the slack needed for old skool bearings was dead on. Very well explained.
Some of these progs are good some are sh1t and some are OK.
Always liked Car SOS but the money they spent, and the work they farmed out!!!

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I saw some of that at work on my teabreak, night time telly is really crap, I did think the same ref the spring hangers drill 4 holes bingo job done.
I did think ref the gearchange bit, why no strip it down weld up the worn contact surfaces, grind them smooth and reharden them all pretty much for free?

The wheel bearing thing needs to be watched as whilst that might be correct for the old charger and old fords, for any set up with double nuts like the land rovers its not quite so true, as you can set it lovely with the first nut, fit tab washer then 2nd nut tighten 2nd nut and now you have no free play at all, they really bug me, why I dont know as thats all hgv trailers had dor decades and all I worked on for years.

lynall said:

I saw some of that at work on my teabreak, night time telly is really crap, I did think the same ref the spring hangers drill 4 holes bingo job done.
I did think ref the gearchange bit, why no strip it down weld up the worn contact surfaces, grind them smooth and reharden them all pretty much for free?

The wheel bearing thing needs to be watched as whilst that might be correct for the old charger and old fords, for any set up with double nuts like the land rovers its not quite so true, as you can set it lovely with the first nut, fit tab washer then 2nd nut tighten 2nd nut and now you have no free play at all, they really bug me, why I dont know as thats all hgv trailers had dor decades and all I worked on for years.

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Love it that we are both singing from the same hymn sheet.
Wheel bearings like that have disappeared nearly now which is why I am glad my MOT guy understands them and doesn't fail my Marina-based kit car, Marlin Roadster. (and before you ask, yes the suspension IS sorted out!!!)
I understand why the guy bought all the bits secondhand in the US. Would have been silly not to really, but again I'm sure the headlamp cover motor could have been sorted out, not so sure about the steering pump.
Anyway, cannot fault the prog for not skating over stuff. Interesting to me as my step-daughter's new fiancé loves yanks and has just bought a T-bird that previously lived in a museum. He also has a Corvette and is decent enough to take advice and act on it. He agrees that it saves him money and leaves the car looking original. I dare not get into yanks. They take up so much room! Wish I lived on a farm with loads of barns!