Runaway td5

Two weeks ago I had a catastrophic engine failure with my Defender. Heading North on the M90 about ten miles before Perth and in heavy rain the engine started to lose power. First thought was the turbo had gone but I thought I'd try to get to Perth before I phoned the AA. Another mile or two and I noticed that the engine was revving its bollocks off and there was a smoke screen behind me. Pulled over and got out the car which by now was screaming its head off and making enough smoke that someone phoned the free brigade (two engines turned up.) To cut a long story short the engine ran on until it had used all its oil and stopped. It's now had a replacement engine at a cost of £2500 and is now back on the road . Much as I love my landy my question is, is this likely to ever happen again as at that sort of money I think I'll go and dig my series 3 out of the back garden. By the way it only had 47000 miles on it.

Could you not have stalled it to stop the engine?

neilly said:

Could you not have stalled it to stop the engine?

Click to expand...

Tried holding a jacket over the snorkel but that didn't work. In retrospect stalling it would have worked but by that time the engine was probably shagged so no point in adding a gear box to the bill. TBH do you fancy putting an engine running at full pelt into gear and stalling it?

From what I've read and heard, diesel runaway is most often caused by fuel finding its way into the sump with the engine oil.
The usual things would apply, regular maintenance including oil changes and checking the smell of the oil every time the level is checked, if it smells like engine oil then OK if it smells of diesel or if the level starts increasing, that's the time to worry.
Apart from that, enjoy your new engine. I don't think that diesel runaway is a particularly common problem, but as they say, s**t happens.

More often the oil seal in the turbo I thought

It's not overly common as said diesel in the oil or the oil seal in the turbo on the intake side failing. General servicing is best and when I service I don't meant checking oil levels but having a good look in the engine bay, looking for anything loose or upcoming problems taking about 30 minutes every couple of weeks or every month. It's time consuming but could 30 minutes have saved you £2500? Possibly. Defenders are still easy to work on compared to cars of the same age so make full use of it to save you money.
In terms of preventing a runaway engine I would first if possible find the exact fault on the old engine and then have a plan of action to stop it running away. The only thing you can do is stop air getting to the system. Perhaps a system similar to that on the 1.9tdi golfs which have a valve in the intake which closes in case of a runaway.

I wouldn't get paranoid though. I've never experienced a runaway on my tdi's and I have 3 of them the oldest has well over 200,000 miles.

A CO2 fire extinguisher works well to stop a runaway, if you couldn't smoother it via the snorkel it probably has leaks but a diesel at full tilt sucks hard.

I'd certainly try stalling

Normally an engine that starts burning it's own oil will smoke heavily and hunt before it reaches the positive feedback loop stage.

Not so easy to spot on a motorway run esp at night but worth being aware off if you notice symptoms

Fit a co2 fire extinguisher in it like that man ^^ holding the cake said.