when the germans got there grubby hands on our brand name they threw a sporty bmw motor into it,and softened it up to create a big lump of ****e called a td5.this motor is suited for the toffs who need to drive at highway speeds and drive onto pavements at the shops.its turbo lag is to wild for the series gearbox ratio and likely to break a sideshaft.you will need the entire wireing harness,leave something out and it will stuff with the fueling.sell the td5 and get a reconditioned tdi motor

The td5 is a good engine, the germans know how to build them, I fear we are the ones letting things slide.
Fenners is right though a 200tdi is far and above a better move.

I agree, performance wise (at least compared to other LR engines before it), the Td5 was a good engine. However we've got one of the first ones off the line in a Defender and there've been a few problems with it:

1. Oil apparently capiliaried up the harness and blew the ECU (~£1000 repair)
2. Bung on the camshaft fell out and spewed oil everywhere (they don't actually fix it in properly)
3. Appears to be an issue with the turbo with ours in that it used to struggle to hit 80 on the motorways and now it's struggling to hit 65. Bottom end power is still there though.

My main gripe with it is that when something goes wrong with it, it goes wrong in a big and expensive way.

Oops, better not get one of the first ones from a breakers then eh.
I wonder if thats the norm, its the first I've heard trouble wise from the td5.

I'm suprised you haven't heard other tales. These are apparently fairly common problems (although some seem inherent to this Land Rover).

One warning we did have from a specialist who services them is for gods sake run them on the specified oil and do not under any circumstances let them run out of diesel (apparently you can basically write off the engine instantly if this happens).

Well maybe it is a crock of ****e then.