I have a 2007 TDV8 Vogue and I am just looking for a bit of advice as to if anyone else has heard of this problem. I was driving up a small incline in a 30mph area, accelerated a little and heard a small bang then absolutely no power what so ever. Car coasted to a stop with the engine still idling fairly smoothly but with white smoke coming out of the back. When I pressed the accelerator a bit more to just move it off the road it stalled - bearing in mind it's an auto box - I restarted it and it sounded pretty rough so immediately turned it off and left it.

Got recovered to a very reputable local Land Rover specialists, left it with them and they said they'd have a look and get back to me. They rang me up and told me they couldn't get the engine restarted unless the oil filler cap was off and when it is off there's white smoke coming out of it which they said sounds like there's a hole in the piston.

They said they suspect the turbo may have blown and gone into the engine but they can't really tell until they can get it up on the ramp and get the heads off the block. They've got another TDV6 disco in at the moment with the body off getting a new block and said they can only afford to have 1 of the ramps out of action with a car on at a time which is fair enough so got to wait a week until they can take the body off mine to have a look.

Just wondering if anyone has heard of a turbo blowing and destroying a TDV8 engine like this and what the chances are of just been able to replace the damaged pistons rather than the whole block?

Sorry to hear this.... They will be able to do a compression test without taking the heads off. That would tell them if a piston was holed. If the turbo has lunched itself and debris has gone down, well that's another matter. Previously..
Vogue SE TD6
Defender 90 2.4
Defender 110 TD5
Vogue 3.5 EFI

Cheers for the reply. Would doing a compression test not cause more damage if there are bits of turbo in there as oppose to taking the heads off which could potentially save little bits of metal ripping up the bores of the block?

The damage will have already been done if indeed debris has gone down when the engine was running. Previously..
Vogue SE TD6
Defender 90 2.4
Defender 110 TD5
Vogue 3.5 EFI

Very true. Does smoke coming out of the filler cap sound like the symptoms of a few pistons destroyed? Or is there anything else it could be, like a blown head gasket?

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They've got another TDV6 disco in at the moment with the body off getting a new block and said they can only afford to have 1 of the ramps out of action with a car on at a time which is fair enough so got to wait a week until they can take the body off mine to have a look.

Our RR's are monocoque - you can't take body off  Land Rover Addict
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2009 5.0V8SC Autobiography
2006 4.2V8SC Autobiography
2004 4.4V8 Vogue

i think the OP is referring to the time it will take to fit or rebuild his engine... ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
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Are you sure? I thought you could separate the chassis from the body on the L322 like you can on the Sport/Disco?

Nope, two subframes front and back bolted to a monococque. There is nothing that can't be fixed with a hammer😜😜
FFRR 4.4 SDV8 Autobiography Santorini Black.
Fiat 500x 1.4 multiair Lounge 2015
2010 LR D4 Commercial 2.7 TDV6

I must have misheard them on the phone then, I thought they said they had to lift the body off and I assumed this would be the same as the Disco which I saw in there when I got it recovered but they must have meant that they'll put it on the 4 post lift and lift the whole car up leaving it up in the air while they drop the engine out...I presume when the subframe is out it will need to stay up on a lift while they get the engine sorted and this is why they can only work on one major engine job at a time keeping the other lifts free for regular servicing work.

I struggle to believe its a holed piston as in my experience catastrophic damage to do that would have seized the engine. I would have also expected you to see engine oil blown everywhere. You could ask them to do a relative compression using a scope which is very simple & would enable them to see any imbalance on any one of your 8 cylinders. If a cylinder is down you could then put a Boroscope into the offending cylinder (if it has one) to take a look see. The chances are if it has suffered piston damage the cheapest option will be a new block as I believe they are only available from Landrover at the present time. I could not source a TDV6 a while ago & ended up buying a new unit from Duckworths which excluding surcharge was about 4k. If you can source a second hand unit it will have come out of an accident damaged one which will have had to be pretty bad to be written off, which again would make me very dubious about using especially given the cost of such a unit if sourceable.I hope it turns out to be a lot less serious than you fear.
Mike Worse things happen at sea! Well thats what swmbo said when WRENS came to sea!!!

Just to add to my above comment you can not get the drivers side head off with the engine in situ so would definitely be doing some tests before removing it & it becomes rather awkward to move
Mike Worse things happen at sea! Well thats what swmbo said when WRENS came to sea!!!

Thanks for your reply Mike, I will give them a ring tomorrow and see what they have to say about doing a compression check. Do you know what kind of other things would cause smoke to come out of the oil filler cap? The engine would not increase in RPM barely at all when you pressed the accelerator, also there were no warning lights at all on the dashboard. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

I would say it has logged a fault as it has knock sensors which if it detects a cylinder out of balance will put it into a limp home mode which stops it from reving to try & prevent major damage. I would hate to guess until carrying out some basic tests as above.Valve failure would cause the symptons you descibed as well as headgasket but all are easily diagnosed with the right gear. I had a ford the other week that had a bigend failure & that went with a bang & the reason it smoked heavily was due to the piston timing being out due to the play in the bottom end but You would expect to hear it knocking (very heavy) & oil pressure light illuminating. Again was there any blue smoke indicating possible turbo failure prior to it failing? I assume you did not pull the dipstick & check all your oil/coolant levels? Any signs of cross contamination between coolant & oil? Worse things happen at sea! Well thats what swmbo said when WRENS came to sea!!!

There was no blue smoke prior to failure, car was running absolutely lovely, never missed a beat in the 8 months I've had it. It just rolled 90k, I bought it on 83k. I checked the oil level after the engine was turned off and there was still oil on the bottom of the dip stick but obviously some of the oil was still round the engine before it had time to all drip back down as I checked it within a minute of turning the engine off.

There was a bit of smoke/steam starting to rise out of the dip stick and oil filler cap when I first took them off but couldn't decide if this would of been due to the cold temperature at the time (about 0C)...There did maybe seem to be a bit of creamy white substance mixed in with the oil in the oil filler cap when I looked at that, but was hard to tell as it was dark. It did come up with a low coolant warning light about 4 months ago, but I topped that up and it's never seemed to have used a drop since as I kept an eye on that. It only took about 250ml to top it up.

I removed the expansion cap as well just after I turned the engine off and there was a release of pressure and the fluid filled it back up a bit to usual levels but presumed this would be normal?

Would a blown headgasket go very suddenly causing white smoke to come out the rear and no acceleration at all in the engine? Also causing smoke to come out of the filler cap when running?