VM Diesel

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boydy1989

Well-Known Member
Posts
3,063
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Northants/Oxfordshire/Warwickshire
Can anyone offer some information on the VM diesel engine, 2.5 Litre. Is it worth spending £200 on a RR with one in, with the thoughts to swap it for my N/A diesel in my LR 90? Or would i be wasting time and money putting in an engine that isn't much better?
Many thanks,
Boydy
 
Dont bother,they are crap.Much better to get a 200TDI Disco motor,much better and apart from needing a modded exhaust its a nuts and bolts conversion.
 
i used to drive and maintain a tanker that had a vm engine that drove the vacuum pump and it was a pain , oil leaks, viberation shook everything loose , and bloody noisy .:D :D .
i also drove artic tippers that had vm donkey engines driving the hydraulic pumps , they were all a pain in the arse , and the parts were a fortune !!!.
rick.
 
Were they the Italian version of the German Hatz Noisepacs,sorry - Silentpacs that were used as blower donkeys on the Castle Cement trailers I used to abuse,sorry service and repair ?
 
Everybody is always downing the VM but I fitted a recon unit from the VM Specialist and it gave me years of reliable service. OK, they are a tad agricultural, and certainly not quick, but they were never meant to be.They were originally designed as a stationary industrial engine and provided they are regularly maintained and not overevved, they are fit for purpose.
I made the mistake of selling mine and buying a P38 DSE ----Minted- Low Mileage- One Previous owner - Full L/R service history - doesn,t mean a bloody thing. effing car nearly bankrupted me - Biggest pile of junk I ever owned !
 
The VM is a good engine, the problem as always is poor maintenace, negelect oil & filter changes (& fuel filter) tappet settings, antifreeze strength I could go on & on etc. Neglect any engine & it will bite you back.

Regards Trevor
 
Trevor2 said:
The VM is a good engine, the problem as always is poor maintenace, negelect oil & filter changes (& fuel filter) tappet settings, antifreeze strength I could go on & on etc. Neglect any engine & it will bite you back.

Regards Trevor
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yes mate for a tractor !!! thats about all ffs :) .
rick.
 
Yup , you,re absolutely right - but tractors are very robust and very reliable - just what a real Land Rover is all about ! Unlike the P38, which is everything that a Land Rover shouldn,t be - a complicated, gimmicky mongrel, and probably the worst car that they ever built
 
lusitano said:
Yup , you,re absolutely right - but tractors are very robust and very reliable - just what a real Land Rover is all about ! Unlike the P38, which is everything that a Land Rover shouldn,t be - a complicated, gimmicky mongrel, and probably the worst car that they ever built
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yeah right comments like that usually come from people who know nowt about the p38 other than gossip and general bull**** by other people who know nowt either !!.
do you actually own a p38 or even driven one ? :confused: .
the reliability of the p38 whatever the age or mileage relates directly to how its maintained , neglect it and it will bite you on the arse , much like a lot of quality vehicles .:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: .
rick.
 
Trevor2 said:
The VM is a good engine, the problem as always is poor maintenace, negelect oil & filter changes (& fuel filter) tappet settings, antifreeze strength I could go on & on etc. Neglect any engine & it will bite you back.

Regards Trevor
Click to expand...
Not really,the VM 4cyl 2.4/2.5 is difficult to work on,uses poor quality materials in places and has poor design features in many areas.
Yes, they will do a job - but there are many better engines around.Show me a conversion kit to put a VM into anything else,not there is it?Scrap a RR with a VM and the only likely place for the engine is the scrap yard or possibly as a spare for a similar car.Scrap a TDI,Toyota,Nissan,Mitsi or perkins and it will find a home - few get thrown away.
 
Well maybe this isn,t a USUAL comment ! If you reel back the thread a bit you,ll see that I did have a P38 and yes it was the worst car I ever owned, and trust me , being in the motor industry for over 25 years, I,ve sampled most of them. There wasn,t a day went by without some sort of problem,despite full L/R service history from new, and a lot more.
What was more worrying was that Land Rover HQ were made aware of the major difficulties I was having (auto gearbox) and they didn,t give a damn. Obviously quite common for a box to pack in at 50k .The Classic was built for over 25 years but the P38 was canned afer about 6 years - nuff said !
 
lusitano said:
Well maybe this isn,t a USUAL comment ! If you reel back the thread a bit you,ll see that I did have a P38 and yes it was the worst car I ever owned, and trust me , being in the motor industry for over 25 years, I,ve sampled most of them. There wasn,t a day went by without some sort of problem,despite full L/R service history from new, and a lot more.
What was more worrying was that Land Rover HQ were made aware of the major difficulties I was having (auto gearbox) and they didn,t give a damn. Obviously quite common for a box to pack in at 50k .The Classic was built for over 25 years but the P38 was canned afer about 6 years - nuff said !
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we are all entitled to opinions , the classic when first produced was very basic indeed compared to modern technology , the late models under the skin bore very little to the original classic but, even these were old "tech" compared to the p38a and your comments on the p38 are based on one car which obviously had issues , i would have thought though tbh with over 25yrs motor trade experience it would have been simple enough to sort it out , i have almost 40 yrs in the trade and i don't pretend to know everything but what i dont know i will try my best to find out , and i wont be beaten by any motor with issue`s .
why you should expect landrover to offer unlimited warranty is beyond me , i cant really see them refusing any technical info though ?.
my personal thoughts of the development of the p38 for what they are worth is that during its time the company was under the control of bmw and it would not have been in their interests to have produced a rangerover that would damage the sales of the bmw x5 this is of course just an opinion .
over the years i have owned a great many cars , and rangerovers for the last 18 yrs and tbh i would have anything else , my present one a r reg model has done 165000 mls and whilst ive done quite a bit of work to it the car is totally reliable and has no issue`s whatsoever ...............................nuff said eh !!!!! :) .
rick.
 
Interesting theory about the BMW X5. But I hardly think that BMW would have deliberately built the P38 as a piece of junk just to make their X5 look good.
In any case , the X5 wasn,t produced until 99, four years after the P38, so that theory wont really fly !
Regarding a car with issues - by the look of this web page they all have issues.
Don,t get me wrong, I,m a LR fan through and through but the P38 just doesn,t cut the mustard. I went back to a late Classic 300 TDi and love it to bits - no electric gimmicks and nearly everything can be put right fairy simply with a rusty spanner or two and a big hammer . Now that,s what Land Rovers are meant to be about !!!!
 
rite enough of the bitching now iv owned lots of motors and 1 thing every one will no is they are all meant to break down they wouldnt make any cars if they wasnt going to make money on the repair items would they:)

now please can anyone help me i have a bloody range rover classic with a oil dripping 4 headed 2.4vm (****ing me off peice of junk ) that i have a injector pump problem and cant work out what i have to take out to get it out and need to find out how to time it up im new on here love my landys and ranges i am a banging my head against a wall trying to work it out any help would be wicked thanx
:frusty::frusty:
Dan
 
To take the pump off, remove the plate on the front of the engine inline with the pump, you will see a cog (gear) on the pump drive shaft, mark the position of the cog against the mating cog, remove the securing nut or bolt & wedge the cog so it doesn’t move, mark the position of the pump (or turn the engine over slowly & line up the timing marks, a dot on the cog against the number four (4), on the mating cog) remove pipes etc. undo the pump securing bolts & remove pump, keeping a hand on the drive cog, do not let this move, replace in reverse order.

Why are you removing the pump?

As for the oil leak, make life easy, clean the engine off & see where the oil is leaking, then get back to me. Neglect the oil change & filter & you could get a sticking oil pressure relief valve & it will **** oil out everywhere & it’s an engine out job to get at the rear camshaft “O” ring & the rest.

Regards Trevor

PS nothing is meant to breakdown, preventative maintenance is the key to longevity, keep in front of maintenance, not behind it. Dealers make the best money on “regular” servicing, it’s easy, low skilled & they charge you the earth.
 
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