td5 engine life

[scarry]

I am only new on this site & have read a lot about problems td5 engines in particular head problems.has any one had these engines with mileages of around 200 to 300 thousand ks& had no major trouble.maybe only people who have had trouble have replied.(i hope so).my current one is a 2004 disco now got 65000 on the clock,dont do any towing but do some hard 4wding.is the later updated td5 any better.any info would be appreciated.
no problems with current disco only a leaking rocker cover gasket

[Disco_owner]

G'day Scarry;

I don't own a TD5 but would like to be a proud owner of one very soon.

as Far as I know the problems that exist with Td5's are the Plastic Head dowls Failing and the oli in wiring loom,,

There was a Thread running here not that long ago and has Truckloads of useful info init , read this thread.

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/technical-chatter/48451-300tdi-vs-td5.html

[Slunnie]

The issues tend to be with the TD5's that have been overheated somehow.

[Disco_owner]

From what i've read in that thread simon , a lot of the isses with TD5's can be avoided Just thru regular servicing ,for eg the oil in the wiring harness , AFAIK the wiring harness replacement intervals are about the same time as a Tdi timing belt , so every 80,000K , and they are a couple of hundred ea it's not a big price to ask for replacement of the wiring harness if it means it avoids you getting stranded somewhere, also there are other things like Regular Cleaning of MAF sensors.

[Blknight.aus]

lots of problems come from lack of knowlodge, ignoring the warning signs, poor maintenance and plain old dumb ass mechanics who should be suspeneded by their joy deparments from thier hoists and beaten with user manuals (works better if you print them hitting people with rave CD's is hardly an effective influence unless your playing them CDs from a Rave which might be against the geneva convention)

the biggies that keep coming up are

1. oil in the harness that makes it run like a bit of a pig Theres not much you can do other than replace the harness with one thats been sealed up properly and wait for it to happen again, think of it as the td5s answer to"replace the timing belt every 80K Km" for a TDI
2. oil getting on sensors in the inlet system that makes the ECU think the boost is off. Pay attention to the engine and fix cause of the oil getting in there be it from the turbo or excess coming out the crank case vent.
3. oil leaks from the filters or the turbo return lines. thats just bad mechanicing some backyard mechs will leave the turbo to sit on the return pipe when they do work on the exhaust this damages the line and its flanges speaking of exhausts
4. exhuast manifold/turbo flange leaks, partly poor maintenance partly poor design. if you get this one you'll know it from the whistles pull the manifold, new gasksts, reskim the faces, remove some webbing and then elongate the wholes and refit with self centering washers
5. fuel leaking past the injectors, not all that common and fairly easy to fix just a case of pulling the injectos and replacing the seals
6. fuel leaking past the fuel pressure regulator, almost common place 3 bolts and about 1hr with a new kit or reg fixes it
7. EGR fouling open, it'll happen and you have 3 choices clean it up, clean it up and disable it or remove it
8. collapsing intercooler hoses, just a maintenance thing replace them with silicone and forget it (do the EGR while your at it)
9. slight leaks on the cooling system joints, this is mainly at the hoses, pay immediate attention to this one. If your wifes water breaks and youve just noticed a drip on the floor of your OAT from the TD5 fix the TD5 first. speaking of OAT
10. Wrong coolant. Bad for the engine maintenance thing goto the effort of doing a full chemical flush and clean out before going to OAT coolant its a maintenance issue normally
11. intank fuel pump failure, its sometime connections sometimes the relay you can do some stuff to extend the life of it but its a murphy factor as to when it lets go.
12. ABS/TC/HDC aka the 3 amigos, not really to do with the engine but common to the td5 powered rovers usually a wiring fault, a sensor thats gunked/failed or gunk in the rotor that it reads. maintenance thing in most cases
13. head failure. I havent seen one yet that I havent been comfortable calling a symptom rather than a cause. usually when push comes to shove there will be something like a clogged radiator grill or a stuck thermostat thats caused an over heat. the wrong coolant also falls into this catagory as it causes the erosion of the metal of the head from the coolant jacket side that weakens it enough to fail.
14. head slide. usually refered to as the plastic dowel fault. not really a fault of the dowls but for some reason the head bolts loose tension and the head slops around. my money is on overheating and incorrect initial tenioning combined with age or a combination of all 3 providing youre willing to chuck a head gasket and a set of bolts at it every XXX (still havent found enough of a pattern to it to put a number on it) Km its preventable If it happens and you have the steel dowels you blow out the head gasket and can damage the head from the steel dowls having no give. (of course you do damage when the plastic dowels go but its differnt)


I think thats most of the common ones I get asked about.

oh

15. belt tensioner and idler bearings but they should get 100K from new with a bit of care
16 cooling system bleed. Its a bitch get it wrong and you can hotspot the head with nasty results.
17. Evil looks from v8 owners when you pass them as they pull into servos
18, Evil looks from toyota drivers when you pass them or offer to pull them out of "trationally demotivated" situations
19. the hatred of sydney sider hug atree groups
20. trying to get into underground carparks.

That ought to cover it.

[rick130]

there were a few cracked or porous heads around the unit injectors, but I think theses were early production engines.
These were characterised by high oil levels (fuel dilution)

[Redback]

To answer your question, Land Rover say it's designed to last 300 to 350,000 miles or 550,000 to 600,000Ks:)

Whether they do or not, only time will tell.

Baz.

[scarry]

thanks everyone dave (blknight) your post was excellent.it should be read by all td5 owners.
how do you know if the egr needs repair?
also this later td5 has had only one rocker cover gasket and has no oil in the injector harness
maybe they did some changes to this model engine
the 1999 one i had need a new rocker cover every service and injector harnesses every so often
i have extended factory warranty on present vehicle so keep a very good eye on what is going on under the bonnet & elsewhere

i have done some hard work in the disco td5s i have own ed & never seen the temp guage move.you can often hear the viscous fan go on & off.
once in some heavey sand work on a 38c day i had the auto tranny high temp light come on. i did what the manual said give it a rest, & did not have any further problems

[Redback]

I made the cardinal sin of owning a TD5, i ran it for 2yrs on non OAT coolent:(

I am now paying the price of that mistake:(

A blown head gasket.

Baz.

[Handbrake hates Camping]

I'm approaching 200,000km (1500 to go) and have had regular servicing with the only things outside of normal servicing being.

1. Checking oil pump bolt
2. Blew copper washer for oil return near turbo 10k after having exhaust manifold done
3. exhaust manifold
4. rear airbags
5. replaced alternator
6. replaced different cooling hoses at time to time

So you could say 200,000 km without any major issues.

May the next 200,000 km be the same.


Doc

[Kalbee118]

I have 216K on my clock. No major issues. Had radiator replaced at 180K due to pinhole leaks, Fuel Regulator. Just replaced clutch slave cylinder, didn't realise how bad original one had become. Biggest pain is the ABS Modulator. I've had the shuttle valves repalced and the the codes that come up now all point to the modulator. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and replace it one day.

[Blknight.aus]

thanks everyone dave (blknight) your post was excellent.it should be read by all td5 owners.
how do you know if the egr needs repair?
also this later td5 has had only one rocker cover gasket and has no oil in the injector harness
maybe they did some changes to this model engine
the 1999 one i had need a new rocker cover every service and injector harnesses every so often
i have extended factory warranty on present vehicle so keep a very good eye on what is going on under the bonnet & elsewhere

i have done some hard work in the disco td5s i have own ed & never seen the temp guage move.you can often hear the viscous fan go on & off.
once in some heavey sand work on a 38c day i had the auto tranny high temp light come on. i did what the manual said give it a rest, & did not have any further problems

By the book if you take the rocker cover off you are supposed to replace it. Theres a couple of tricks you can do to not have to BUT you have to be very carefull when doing it Its the same rocker cover on all the td5 engines. If you get the trick wrong the thing will leak like a sieve. I've pulled mine twice, once to do a temp repair on the injector harness and the second to replace it (I replaced mine on the second pass)

the EGR giving problems is typically indicated by rough running and poor power. It caused by an accumulation of cabon on the valve faces preventing them from closing and letting exhaust gasses past it into the air intake side of business.. the fault shares similar symptoms to delaminating turbo -intercooler hoses, oil in the injection harness, contamination of the MAP sensor, failing fuel pump. do the checks for these when you think youve got the EGR fault and if in doubt replace the intercooler hoses with silicone ones and clean the EGR.

[jf1056]

Just finished spending $3500 on replacing head gasket, radiater, t/stat, all hoses and the viscous fan. The wire harness was also done, as well as the broken studs on the exhaust manifold and the fuel regulator. I bought this knowing these problems existed and after buying the car and doing the repairs I still have not spent $15k in total, lucky me so far!!
All this work was done by Grahme Cooper in Sydney and I have immense respect for this guy, I have been taking my last four rovers to him for over 20 years. The D2 has some issues but know more than patrols, cruisers or any other car.
Maintenance is the key to longevity and being aware of existing known issues and dealing with them.
Long live Land Rover, best by far!!!

By the way, as to putting OAT coolant in TD5 motors, this COULD be a myth! According to Grahme Cooper, ordinary GREEN coolant is all they ever use in TD5's, they just recommend change it every 12 months regardless and you will not have any issues, they haven't and I would assume they would know.
(this will open up a can of worms now won't it??)

[simonr23]

re- green coolant. i have been told the same thing by TRS in adelaide. i was told that as the td5's develop small coolant leaks that are exposed to the air, the oat coolant wont form a crust and in effect reseal itself. the regular green stuff, o nthe other hand, will. also they havent seen any evidence of it causing internal problems.

[Blknight.aus]

By the way, as to putting OAT coolant in TD5 motors, this COULD be a myth! According to Grahme Cooper, ordinary GREEN coolant is all they ever use in TD5's, they just recommend change it every 12 months regardless and you will not have any issues, they haven't and I would assume they would know.
(this will open up a can of worms now won't it??)


not really coolants aint coolants.

depending on which particular green coolant they are using it could be fine if the concentration is right and when they do the change they flush the system properly.

of all the coolants Im aware of non have a 12month use life the shortest is 2 years and they're changing it every year.

this has the advantage of you can see what the cooling system is doing every year and knowing the coopers boys they will be doing the right thing pretty much all the time.

But that costs ya.

factor in the cost of a change every year for 3 years as opposed to the slightly increased cost of the OAT every 3 4 or 6 years depending on which OAT manufacturer you want to use.

[ak]

not really coolants aint coolants.

depending on which particular green coolant they are using it could be fine if the concentration is right and when they do the change they flush the system properly.

of all the coolants Im aware of non have a 12month use life the shortest is 2 years and they're changing it every year.

this has the advantage of you can see what the cooling system is doing every year and knowing the coopers boys they will be doing the right thing pretty much all the time.

But that costs ya.

factor in the cost of a change every year for 3 years as opposed to the slightly increased cost of the OAT every 3 4 or 6 years depending on which OAT manufacturer you want to use.

Hi Dave,

Along the lines of jf1056 post, I have been going to Coopers for about 3 years now.

I have had lengthly conversations with Graeme & Ward re the right coolant for a TD5 and they said everyone will say you can't use the green stuff not true.

They use Penrite Pro anti freeze anti boil.

They have never had a problem with the TD5's they regularly service. They have however even seen problems with TD5's that have used OAT coolant but this is related to poor servicing or abuse and so on. So I do think the OAT coolant TD5 thing is a bit of a myth. Remember Coopers service more TD5's in the greater Sydney area than most and there ones are showing no signs of any problems. So where talking about TD5's here that have been running around for more than 5 years with the green stuff and no problems. However I think the big thing is as you said Dave spend the money and change the coolant every 12 months even if it looks OK.