Thread: Possible TD5 Turbo Failure

Hi guys,
I am a new Land Rover owner (2001 td5 discovery 2 with 285,000 kms) and new to this forum so I hope this is posted in the correct place.
The other day I was driving along at 100 km/h when a large plume of blue smoke came out of the exhaust, however this went away almost immediately. I pulled over to inspect the oil, coolant, etc and everything seemed ok. About 10 minutes later this happened again, however the smoke continued even at idle after I had pulled over. I shut the engine off and got the car towed home (I started the engine when I got home and the exhaust seemed completely normal).

I took the turbo intake pipe off and observed quite a thick coating of oil inside the pipe (especially towards the turbo side where this was much thicker) as well as a reasonable amount of play in the impeller.

Would I be correct in thinking I've got a bad turbo or are there other things that should be checked out.
Many thanks,
Noah

There are 2 other things that I can think of which can do this... and these may not be the problem but....

First check your engine oil level. If you get injector leaking from a failed seal or cracked injector port in the head, you will get diesel pumped into the oil and as the sump fills up with fuel into the oil then it will eventually blow through the crankcase ventilation system into the intake which gives you the big oily smoke puffs. Drop and replace the all of the oil and get that fixed before going too far at all! You may get puffs etc because the intake fills with oil, it floods the intercooler and surges around a bit.

The other area I would also check is the short turbo outlet hose between the turbo and the metal pipe that goes to the intercooler. The internals delaminate and blow up like a balloon which causes similar symptons to what you've describes, also with a sudden loss of power, smoke etc. This is a common enough problem.

If this is the problem, you can strip out the delaminated pipe insides and reinstall the hose to get you home.

This is how they present



and then you will be able to strip out the insides of the pipe and reinstall the outer to get you home