It’s a MY16 4.4. We’re motoring along quite happily with cruise on. Nothing unusual, no sudden changes in speed or revs.

I hear what sounds like a pop noise, I can’t say where from, then almost instantly I get the red restricted performance warning and start losing speed.

Fortunately there was a service area coming up so I pulled in there, switched off and opened the bonnet. There was some smoke coming from the back of the engine bay which dispersed pretty quickly, and a burning oil smell.

No obvious problems I could see from above (ie loose hoses or obvious oil everywhere) so I plugged in my IID tool: no errors.

Started the engine again, no restricted performance, and tried driving it around the service area. It goes into gear but the revs stumble while I’ve got my foot on the brake, in reverse or drive. The engine revved fine in neutral (after I checked the engine oil level! Which is still full)

The car moves, but doesn’t want to accelerate and stumbles / jerks / jolts at about 5mph and won’t go any faster. It’s not a clunk, it just sort of stops - almost like the fuel cuts out.

I noticed a trail of fluid where I’d been moving it around the service area. And the car left a puddle of black oil (?) on the recovery truck, from under the front bumper.

Being France on a Saturday everywhere was closed so it’ll get recovered somewhere further on Monday to be looked at properly.

Anyone had anything like this before? I’m not sure if it’s gearbox or something engine related but either way I’d expect some fault to be logged?

Any helpful suggestions welcome.

Hopefully just an inlet / turbo hose popped off somewhere. Oil on a hot exhaust manifold would create smoke.
There will be 1 or more fault codes stored. Your IIDtool might not be configured to show all faults.

Gearbox oil cooler is mounted behind rad, so if a line to that has failed it would tally with the oil below the front bumper scenario. L405 SV Autobiography LWB SDV8, finished in Aston Martin China Grey by ETO division.

Black oil seems to point to engine but why should things change when in gear? It seems that the engine is happy to tick over but the faults start when under load. Hopefully all will be revealed when the under shield comes off and hopefully it's something simple.🤞

Engine behaviour suggests an airflow issue.

I had exactly these symptoms on my Defender last weekend. It was the turbo air hose which had blown off. The black smoke was caused by excess fuel being burned and not enough air getting to the engine. There was also virtually no engine power as the Turbo wasn’t able to pressurise the air intake system.

Also there was a bit of black oil as the engine breather feeds into the air intake system to be burned.

A new Turbo hose and a 1/2 hour fixed it for me after I limped home. 2021 L405 Vogue SE 4.4 V8 DIESEL ~ #17

you really dont want something like this to happen whilst on holiday..

hope its not to serious and what ever the out come i hope you have a good remaining time.. ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
.

I hope its a simple fix E500 let us know how you get on. overfinch modified

Thanks guys. I had to abandon the car with the recovery company in northern France and rent a Clio(!) (all I could get on a Saturday…) to continue my drive to the alps.

Hopefully I’ll hear something from the breakdown company today when they move it onwards to a garage.

E500

Thats so sad to hear - and I too wish you every sucess on a small fault that can be fixed easy.

Will keep an eye on this post to see how you get on.

I think like Vogue mentioned - The turbo feed line washer has failed


best wishes Fella from us all

Cant help with the fault but if you have a toll tag in your car remember to remove it if it gets recovered back to the UK  2021 P400 Silicon Silver AB
Gone 2011 Bournville TDV8 VSE
Gone 2008 Black Canadian HSE LUX

How much oil was on the ground in front of the car?

You'll always find some oil drips out of an intercooler pipe once it's been disconnected. Not lots though.

Hopefully it's something simple and just a case of reconnecting a pipe.

David. 2002 4.6 Vogue SE - Alveston Red with Lightstone Leather
2012 Range Rover 5.0 SC Autobiography in Indus Silver with Jet/Ivory Interior
2012 Range Rover 4.4 TDV8 Autobiography in Baltic Blue with Sand Interior
2013 Range Rover Sport SDV6 HSE Luxury in Santorini Black with Jet Interior

Still no update I’m afraid. I’ve no idea what’s going on with the car, all very frustrating.

It was more than a few drips. Given the location and the symptoms (won’t change gear) I’m guessing it’s gearbox oil (from the oil cooler as suggested above?) and it’s not happy with not enough oil in it.

Just hope the recovery people don’t drive it too much…

O dear, following RR 2005 4.4 petrol
Any spelling mistakes are the fault of spellchecker
Previous MG J2, CITROEN light 15 x 2 gone unfortunately
Present MERC 180e, RANGE ROVER L322, JAGUAR XJS, MERC 280SE, MG F, JAGUAR S-Type 6v 2003, jaguar s-type 8v 2004, Ford Cougar

Well I wish I could tell you all what the problem was in the end, but I am still none the wiser.

And to top things off the breakdown co. don't actually know where my car is now either. So it's all going swimmingly.

I hope the bloody thing gets stolen.