My 10 day old TDi blew up after 380 miles

[klippie]

I'am only speaking about this now after reaching a settlement with VW regarding my car, as the heading says my 140 TDi blew up after 380 miles and only 10 days old. The engine ran away out of control I was in second gear when it happened it instantly went full throttle to say it was frightening would be an understatement luckily I got it stopped at the side of the road, you should have seen it the street was completely filled with thick blue smoke I couldn’t believe what had happened.

My car was uplifted to the dealers for checks and later in the day I spoke to the after sales manager and he said they found the engine was 2 litres short on oil they re-filled it and the same thing happened again it consumed 2 litres of its engine oil in a manner of seconds running out of control he went on to say they couldn’t switch it off and just let it run till it stopped, apparently it was an oil seal that failed in the turbo letting engine oil into the inlet side of the turbo forcing it into the engine so there was no stopping it till the oil ran out, pretty scary stuff...

So after a bit of negotiating with VW I agreed to take the car back repaired, it got a brand new engine, turbo and all the other bits and pieces that go with it. I could have waited on a brand new replacement Scirocco but it would have taken months to arrive and for me that was out of the question after just waiting 3 months for mine to arrive. Now its running like a dream the new engine feels much stronger than the original so there must have been something up with the first one from day one.

I must say during all this going on the dealer and VW were brilliant I couldn't have been better looked after so to full marks to them...

[BAIKAR]

Can't believe a garage would have let the car run till it starved itself of oil and stopped! Must admit it is scary when this happens and your not normally prepared for it but nothing that sticking the car in topgear, foot and handbrake on and let out the clutch can't stop, dsg would be a problem though! Must have been a hell of alot of smoke until she stopped. Good you got sorted though.

[maisbitt]

Never heard a story like that before. It must be weird to be unable to switch the engine off, but diesels are self perpetuating - turning the ignition off in a diesel is effectively starving the car of fuel until it stops, or in your case, starving it of the oil it's burning.

I'd be pushing for a new car to be honest, and get VW to lend you a demonstrator/stock car while you wait. Depends upon the state of the engine compartment in yours, I suppose. If there'd been any heat damage to the engine bay i'd definitely not be wanting a repair, i'd insist upon a replacement.

Are they giving you a goodwill gesture, like a free service? Catastrophic engine failure after 10 days deserves a decent goodwill gesture. You'd have still been without your car for probably the best part of 2 weeks I would've thought (some parts seem to take forever for VW to get in).

[AL1874]

I have not owned a car diesel in years but I know that several car companies (Citroen, Peugeot) used to fit emergency fuel cut outs under the bonnet similar to idea to what you see on busses for such an eventuality.

But it explains why my car came with a complimentary litre of Castrol in the boot.

[maisbitt]

Consuming 2 litres of oil in a matter of seconds seems poor mpg!

I've had 5 TDIs and one of them had a dodgy turbo, but i've never had anything as catastrophic as that happen to mine, seems like an extremely rare occurrence.

[trix]

Thats major!! I hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction Klippie. I agree with Maisbitt on getting some free servicing thrown in especially after a scare like that.

My current car is a diesel & threw its toys out of the pram (or cam shaft out of the engine housing to be exact) a few years ago on a motorway with a severe lack of hard shoulder while in the middle lane which was just a bit hairy. turned out the big end bolt sheared, apparently its a known fault with 306 Turbo Diesel's....
was interesting opening the bonnet & finding yourself looking directly into the sump though..

S

[Turbo]

my god that is frightening thing 2 happen it actually happened one of the lads at work last week and i was with him if it does happen 2 somebody throw it into top gear ya have and leave off the clutch and if ur goin slow the gearbox will stop the engine runnin over

[maisbitt]

Ali: an emergency fuel cut out would not help in this situation, if the source of the "fuel" is oil from a seal leak. The easiest way to stop it would be to jump in the car and stall the engine.

I think this is a pretty isolated incident, i've had 4 previous TDI's and they've been pretty good (apart from the one with the turbo that just seemed to work when it wanted to). Unless they've just changed suppliers for the turbo on TDIs, I wouldn't worry about repeats.

[chr15]

Can't believe a garage would have let the car run till it starved itself of oil and stopped! Must admit it is scary when this happens and your not normally prepared for it but nothing that sticking the car in topgear, foot and handbrake on and let out the clutch can't stop, dsg would be a problem though! Must have been a hell of alot of smoke until she stopped. Good you got sorted though.

A diesel will run on its own accord if oil gets into the inlet and there is no turning it off. Scary things.

[AL1874]

You could always carry an emergency King Edward to ram up the exhaust pipe.

[klippie]

I'd be pushing for a new car to be honest, and get VW to lend you a demonstrator/stock car while you wait. Depends upon the state of the engine compartment in yours, I suppose. If there'd been any heat damage to the engine bay i'd definitely not be wanting a repair, i'd insist upon a replacement.

Are they giving you a goodwill gesture, like a free service?

A replacement would have taken 4 months to arrive and VW was going to supply a car for that time period, I wasn't prepared to wait that long.

No heat or any kind of damage in the engine bay either.

And as for a goodwill gesture lets just say I got a very nice additional amount of discount...

The thing is the more oil/air the engine got the faster it ran so it drew in more oil/air and so on and so on, the rev-counter needle was sitting on the stop pin at 6000rpm it was spinning way faster than that... , there should be a air cut of flap fitted to diesels for runaway conditions like this, if the ECU senses an over speed it shuts the flap and the engine stops dead, simple.

As for carrying a spud for the pipe a roll of toilet paper would have been more handy on the day...

[true]

Flooding the inlet with CO2 like from a fire extiguisher would probably have killed it, but it would have made a mess in the process

[BAIKAR]

Ali: The easiest way to stop it would be to jump in the car and stall the engine..

it is easy to do but when it happens it comes as such a shock to some people they just freeze and have no idea what its doing or how to stop it for that matter

[MarkoRocco]

Showing my age now but this used to happen with Mk 1 golf diesels. They would pull all of the oil out of the sump. VW came up with a 'fix' but I don't believe it cured all of the instances of it happening. It happened to a friend of mine. Pretty frightening stuff.