lightning

lightning

Well-Known Member
My 92,000 mile TD5 has started with a bit of an appetite for oil. After 30,000 miles of never topping it up, l now find it's losing half a litre every few hundred miles.
l say losing, but l can't see any leaks, so l assume it's being burnt.
Should l be looking for a good used engine from a Discovery?
 
Yes it recently had a new clutch and DMF.
l wonder if it could be the turbo. How can l check for a worn out turbo, oil in the intercooler/turbo hose?
 
lightning said:
Yes it recently had a new clutch and DMF.
l wonder if it could be the turbo. How can l check for a worn out turbo, oil in the intercooler/turbo hose?
Click to expand...
How accessible is the turbo on the TD5? On my 300Tdi you can easily take the turbo inlet hose off, put your finger in and check for movement in the spindle. You can check the IC hoses, but then you'll get in to the 'how much oil is acceptable' quandary.
 
First things first change the oil, good quality mineral and see how it goes from there, Iirc didnt you recently do an oil change using C3 spec oil?

I had a 300tdi that ate its syn oil, back to mineral and many thousands of miles later it never used a drop, that taught me a lesson, modern oils in old designed engines just dont work.

We used to have the same problem when syn oils first became available for trucks, oh dear we had all sorts of issues, none of them cheap!
 
lynall said:
First things first change the oil, good quality mineral and see how it goes from there.

I had a 300tdi that ate its syn oil, back to mineral and many thousands of miles later it never used a drop, that taught me a lesson, modern oils in old designed engines just dont work.

We used to have the same problem when syn oils first became available for trucks, oh dear we had all sorts of issues, none of them cheap!
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That's interesting! Any theory as to why it did that?
 
I would like to say I know the answer but I dont, from memory the syn oil was 10/40 and I went back to 15/40 mineral and that stopped it using any oil, I think I did 50k in that car over 4 years on mineral oil.
I was young and dumb back then so obviously thought wow high tech oil that i must try!
If I had to hazard a guess I would say the oil rings werent up to the job of thin super slippery oil.
To be fair this was probably 15 yrs ago when syn based oils started becoming popular due to their fuel saving properties etc
 
lynall said:
I would like to say I know the answer but I dont, from memory the syn oil was 10/40 and I went back to 15/40 mineral and that stopped it using any oil, I think I did 50k in that car over 4 years on mineral oil.
I was young and dumb back then so obviously thought wow high tech oil that i must try!
If I had to hazard a guess I would say the oil rings werent up to the job of thin super slippery oil.
To be fair this was probably 15 yrs ago when syn based oils started becoming popular due to their fuel saving properties etc
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So your 300Tdi back then had a lot of miles on it?
 
Al2O3 said:
So your 300Tdi back then had a lot of miles on it?[/QUOTE

Just checked bought at 60k and sold at 110k.
Two tdis out the front both have mega miles on them neither uses any real amount of oil, both run on mineral oil, one is a bit worn and runs on 20/50!
Click to expand...
 
The turbo is easy to access, as mentioned above l just changed the oil for 5w/40 synthetic. Since l started this post l've done 500 miles and it's not burnt/lost any oil.
 
lynall said:
Just checked bought at 60k and sold at 110k.
Two tdis out the front both have mega miles on them neither uses any real amount of oil, both run on mineral oil, one is a bit worn and runs on 20/50!
Click to expand...
Surely the rings would have been alright at 60K?

lightning said:
The turbo is easy to access, as mentioned above l just changed the oil for 5w/40 synthetic. Since l started this post l've done 500 miles and it's not burnt/lost any oil.
Click to expand...
What oil was it burning before?
 
lightning said:
5w/40 synthetic!!
I'll have a look at the turbo anyway when l get a chance.
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Ah, thought you were intimating it had stopped burning oil cos you'd changed grade or type. As Lynall suggested. So it seems to have stopped for no reason?
 
Al2O3 said:
Surely the rings would have been alright at 60K?


What oil was it burning before?
Click to expand...


It was a Cat D write off so who knows what the real mileage was, lets be honest im sure they knocked a few kms off, I would have!
 
Well it does look that way. I'll keep monitoring it.
This particular TD5 l don't think is the best one ever. Although the vehicle condition is as good as it gets, the engine is nowhere near as smooth as my missus's higher mileage TD5, it makes a booming noise at 2500rpm, it vibrates through the gear lever, and it won't take a standard remap without producing clouds of white diesel smoke.
But as it's basically run alright for the past 36,000 miles l'm not touching it.
My guess is injector leak back or out of tolerance.
l just know that if l start messing with the injectors l'll end up replacing the head.

The missus's 125,000 mile TD5 is lovely, it pulls like a train and is smooth as silk right up to 4500rpm. In contrast mine feels like it's going to blow itself apart if l try that.

The missus never exceeds 2500rpm in her 90. I might swap the engines over while she's not looking :)
 
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I won't get away with that. Mine's a 110.

She is going to notice that the rear window is further away. And worse than that, mine's blue where hers is green. Women notice that kind of thing.
 
lightning said:
The missus's 125,000 mile TD5 is lovely, it pulls like a train and is smooth as silk right up to 4500rpm. In contrast mine feels like it's going to blow itself apart if l try that.

The missus never exceeds 2500rpm in her 90. I might swap the engines over while she's not looking :)
Click to expand...

Hmmm, that's interesting. When I rebuilt my 300 Tdi engine it pulled , felt and sounded like yours. The Landy vibrated, I thought my UJ's were shot and it was just hard work to drive. I'd fitted a reconditioned turbo (looked like new) but it was passing a canny bit of oil and I just didn't feel happy with it. The company I bought it off swapped it for me. (great service) The difference is unbelievable. It now drives as you describe your wife's Landy and feels like a different vehicle.
 
lightning, mine was the same. The clutch threw its hand I. Recently and I had the transfer box rebuilt at the same time.
new dmf, pressure plate, friction plate, spigot ring etc later and its a different motor and revs a lot smoother
 
For what it is worth, my TD5 seems to be able to hide about a litre of oil and then make it reappear when you're not expecting it. So you can check the oil and it looks a bit low, top it up and a couple of days later it appears that there is too much - oh no injector seals have gone again - but a few days later it is back down again, so maybe it's alright, and so on. It takes about fifteen or twenty minutes to completely drain back down into the sump after it's been running too. So the oil level is a bit variable, and after five years of ownership I find I no longer worry about short term changes. It's a continuously rising (or lowering) trend over a sustained period of time that's indicative of something. Provided there's enough to cover the oil pump pickup it should be OK.

TD5 engines have all got personalities of their own. They make different noises and prefer their gearchanges at different points. Re: the vibration - have you tried some new genuine engine and gearbox mounts? I've just done my engine mounts and it is noticeably smoother. I think they get a bit hard as they age.
 
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