2012 2.4L Defender catastrophic engine failure

[RodneyB]

Any insights on what I should do - Bought this defender new from a landrover dealer in coffs harbour and had regular service's with them it has about 130,000KM on the clock. On a recent trip by my wife down the highway to sydney the car made a rattling noise started shaking she pulled to the side and was unwilling to drive any further after notice oil splatter and leakes. It ended up being towed to the nearest Landrover dealer in sydney.

This is the initial diagnosis

"It's always hard to say why these things happen as we never really know particularly when the vehicle is not maintained by us but unfortunately the internals of the motor have failed. Especially in cylinder one. See below:

Found oil leaking from every seal on vehicle, car running very rough.
Found number 1 injector leaking oil very badly from inside motor up past seals.
Removed engine cap with engine running, engine compression coming straight up out of oil filler tube (backwards)
Removed inlet manifold and carried out compression test on all cylinders.
Numbers 2-4 have around 400PSI. Number 1 cylinder has 10PSI?.
This will be caused by an internal mechanical failure of cylinder 1, piston rings and vales.

I have a parts interpreter currently looking into the quote required to replace the motor and will follow up with this shortly.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news."


Following this I have got them to test an oil sample and are awaiting results.
How do I go about dealing with this as its probably a 15k exercise to replace the motor? and without an external reason for the failure insurance won't cover it?
Any thoughts or advice appreciated.

Thanks Rod

[justinc]

Get an INDEPENDENT specialist to inspect it. I have gone through similar and LR did NOT want to know or help.
In our case a bore squirter was to blame and caused a piston to destroy itself and the bore. Yours sounds very like an injector failure and subsequent piston meltdown particularly if the other 3 cylinders are in good order.

Jc

[Tombie]

Sounds spot on JC - have seen a few failures posted showing the same damage.

[alittlebitconcerned]

Jeez I'm sorry for your bad luck.

To anyone that knows, what would cause such a failure? Mildly terrified.

[Tombie]

JC answered that!

[Scouse]

Get an INDEPENDENT specialist to inspect it. I have gone through similar and LR did NOT want to know or help.I'm not sure about that at this stage. This is an original owner car with (full?)dealership service history. At less than 5 years old & that sort of km, I would hope that LR would come to the party if the Sydney dealership approached them.

[MLD]

Any insights on what I should do - Bought this defender new from a landrover dealer in coffs harbour and had regular service's with them it has about 130,000KM on the clock. On a recent trip by my wife down the highway to sydney the car made a rattling noise started shaking she pulled to the side and was unwilling to drive any further after notice oil splatter and leakes. It ended up being towed to the nearest Landrover dealer in sydney.

This is the initial diagnosis

"It's always hard to say why these things happen as we never really know particularly when the vehicle is not maintained by us but unfortunately the internals of the motor have failed. Especially in cylinder one. See below:

Found oil leaking from every seal on vehicle, car running very rough.
Found number 1 injector leaking oil very badly from inside motor up past seals.
Removed engine cap with engine running, engine compression coming straight up out of oil filler tube (backwards)
Removed inlet manifold and carried out compression test on all cylinders.
Numbers 2-4 have around 400PSI. Number 1 cylinder has 10PSI?.
This will be caused by an internal mechanical failure of cylinder 1, piston rings and vales.

I have a parts interpreter currently looking into the quote required to replace the motor and will follow up with this shortly.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news."


Following this I have got them to test an oil sample and are awaiting results.
How do I go about dealing with this as its probably a 15k exercise to replace the motor? and without an external reason for the failure insurance won't cover it?
Any thoughts or advice appreciated.

Thanks Rod

I'll try to find the reference but there is a transit ford mechanicin VIC that will do a roll in drive out long block replacement for $7k. Been there recently. Feel your pain.

[Tombie]

If worst comes to worst. There's a member here that's doing Ranger 3.2 into the Defenders. That's a lovey set up..

[rar110]

A maintained engine failing at 130,000 km is not of merchantable quality. If JLR don't agree early to pay at least 60% walk away and start looking at legal options as they should pay 70%. It should last at least 400,000 if properly maintained. In all likelihood they will say it's out of warranty and pay us $15k to fix it.

[justinc]

I'm not sure about that at this stage. This is an original owner car with (full?)dealership service history. At less than 5 years old & that sort of km, I would hope that LR would come to the party if the Sydney dealership approached them.

Hoping that is the Case S. Our situation was different due to the vehicle being very rarely seen at the dealer and in fact the owner was careful NEVER to take it there...😮.

A dealer history is very helpful in this instance , however a second opinion is still something that I would be keen to obtain if no joy with an explanation as to what and why this happened at such a low km and age.

Jc

[Scouse]

A dealer history is very helpful in this instance It is critical to any LR support outside of the warranty period.

[MLD]

This is the mob i referred to: Transit Automotive (http://transitauto.com.au)

They import the engine from the factory in Turkey. They will sell a long block for 6k or roll in drive out supply and fit for 7k. They do 2 to 3 engine replacements a week. I was quoted $450 ish an injector. I would have your injectors tested before taking the truck back (with new engine). If it is an injector you are destined to repeat history soon enough.

I had an injector go on cylinder 4 resulting in a burned and cracked piston head. Less than 100,000kms on the odo. Somewhere along the line an air filter wasn't fitted correct and the turbo impellor was chewed up from grit. Poor engine was being bashed over the head with an iron bar. It only came to light because i had a suspected head gasket failure and spiralled out of control from there.

[alan48]

Hi,
as your car has been LR dealer serviced it still has some warranty after the 3 years--LR will provide you roadside assist for up to 3 more years foc if you keep dealer servicing AND you are entitled to one major 'warranty' claim per year for the 3 years where LR will pay 100% year one, 50% year 2 and 25% year 3 after the normal 3 yr warranty so you should get some help--speak to them as Trivetts have been excellent re warranty issues on one of our pumas.

[RodneyB]

Ran out of options the oil test showed nothing so insurance wouldn't cover - wrote to landrover and they ended up putting a goodwill offer together of 50% which will cost me $5500 - I guess this is not to bad considering it will have a new engine - Cheers for all the advice Rod

[rar110]

I think 50% is pretty poor form as it shouldn't happen. But the total cost seems quite good (I assume $5500 is your total contribution).

[PAT303]

Poor form compared to what,Nissan and Toyota who gave nothing to the hundreds of ZD30 and D4D owners in the same situation. Pat

[rar110]

Compared to what TPA requires, which JLR Australia would be fully aware of:
Goods must be of merchantable quality ? they must meet a level of quality and performance that would be reasonable to expect, given their price and description.

An engine that fails after 130,000km when it's been serviced as prescribed by JLR dealers is not of merchantable quality.

[Tombie]

Sad news at least there is some offer of assistance.

While I agree that 130k isn't a great deal it must be a tough call..

My old mans D3 (MY08) had just 23,000km on it when he sold it in 2014.

It has been serviced every 6 months and had the major services as well as minor services each time.

It's still in the family and will be 12 years old before it rolls through 100,000km.

What would be expected then?

[rar110]

If it had been serviced by Land Rover (JLR arguably have some responsibility for supervising Dealers and there own records show the work done) in accordance with their service schedule, and the motor failed after 100,000km, i think you would have a very good argument the motor was not of a quality that would be reasonable to expect.