Thread: New Engine or Reconditioned Engine

I really like the drive and comfort of a D4 and don't mind spending money to keep it well serviced (every 10K max) etc. It gets more love lavished on it than any other family member. I don't personally know anyone who has had a catastrophic incident with one but I'm unhappy at the thought of it happening and being left with a completely unfixable vehicle worth nothing.
The Cooks not much help either and is leaving the decision to me...... but no doubt will have plenty to say if I buy something she doesn't like as much.
Maybe I'll flog it, maybe I won't.
AlanH.

Originally Posted by scarry

The two local Indies around here are doing them all the time,but hard to know exact numbers,i recon at least 1%,which is what most Indies say as well.
Then there are the failures under warranty.

D4 sold at around 2000 per year,it's last year being the highest amount which was around 2400.Includes 2.7L,early on,but not many of them sold.

Of course the Ford Territory SUV also had the 2.7 for a number of years too.

On replacing the motor, I read someone in the UK who bought for his Range Rover 3 litre, a crate Ford engine for $US6,000. I guess landed after GST and transport maybe $Au12,000. But I wonder what Ford sells one for here as they are recently supplying the engine.

But the chap said on the internet that the engine mounts wouldn't fit and he couldn't get an Indi to make the appropriate engine mount brackets. But if someone did, it sounds like a solution.

Also a more recent Lion - 2017 ? I am not sure - had the revised increased oil feed for the centre bearing of the crankshaft. Some say if its rattling on start up, be careful. Idle you engine for several minutes, then increase the revs to 1500 RPM for 30 seconds. That ensure the oil pressure is higher and would feed the crankshaft. The rattling evidently goes away. So far mine doesn't rattle ... but I worry about going around Australia towing 2.5 tonne.

The issue if one breaks down in the Pilbara or anywhere remote in W.A. the vehicle has to be towed out, then repaired in somewhere like Darwin or Perth. And what happens about the caravan? One might have to them buy a tow vehicle in Broome or fly out and pick up a replacement vehicle? I hate worse case scenarios but am concerned about it.

Originally Posted by Melbourne Park

Of course the Ford Territory SUV also had the 2.7 for a number of years too.

On replacing the motor, I read someone in the UK who bought for his Range Rover 3 litre, a crate Ford engine for $US6,000. I guess landed after GST and transport maybe $Au12,000. But I wonder what Ford sells one for here as they are recently supplying the engine.

But the chap said on the internet that the engine mounts wouldn't fit and he couldn't get an Indi to make the appropriate engine mount brackets. But if someone did, it sounds like a solution.

Also a more recent Lion - 2017 ? I am not sure - had the revised increased oil feed for the centre bearing of the crankshaft. Some say if its rattling on start up, be careful. Idle you engine for several minutes, then increase the revs to 1500 RPM for 30 seconds. That ensure the oil pressure is higher and would feed the crankshaft. The rattling evidently goes away. So far mine doesn't rattle ... but I worry about going around Australia towing 2.5 tonne.

The issue if one breaks down in the Pilbara or anywhere remote in W.A. the vehicle has to be towed out, then repaired in somewhere like Darwin or Perth. And what happens about the caravan? One might have to them buy a tow vehicle in Broome or fly out and pick up a replacement vehicle? I hate worse case scenarios but am concerned about it.

The (top end) rattling on startup is quite a normal noise and is removed a lot when you go to 5-40 oil.

There is a specialist mob that reconditions/rebuilds these motors see link below;

Land Rover Engine Specialist | Jaguar Engine Specialist

I have no connection to them, but at one stage did enquire as there was a very nice D4 with rare colour i liked that had a blown engine.

Their quote was approximately $24k tow in drive out & they claim to fit 2nd generation crank

Long storey short the car was sold before i could confirm research etc - if it was not sold probably would have gone ahead with it.

They seem to specialise in all Landrover / Jaguar motors and provide a reasonable warranty.

Given the price of new large 4 x 4', if the rebuilt engine was good & the car with the damaged motor was good, would not be a bad solution to terrible situation.

Originally Posted by PerthDisco

The (top end) rattling on startup is quite a normal noise and is removed a lot when you go to 5-40 oil.

LR time reckoned it's worthwhile to warm it up(but they are in Germany) and increased the revs. And they have said 5-40 ...

As far as crank failures go, according to LR time, the crank fails for 3 main reasons (besides the design): a complex issue: not railer pulling; not really driving behaviour (that does effect bearing failure). It's the material quality itself - an out of spec piece of steel, the forging process itself and the hardening process. So the hardening process for instance requires a good induction hardening control quality control. So material, the forge or the hardening process.

The reason being that some crankshafts last for half a million KM. Others have failed early on. This one failed at 60,000 or so KM.

16:40 on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpUZoD5_Kjs

He has spoken about the same issues several times, saying if its Monday and some fellow's football team went bad, quality could drop in Dagenhiem. The video about that crank failure says the crank was "made" on Tuesday 16th of February 2016 at around 6:40 pm. I don't know the time interval though between getting the metal forged and finally stamping it. We can presume from evidence that the English processes that make those cranks are not as good as they should be.

Also the parts pricing for the crank and some bolts and a connecting rod and a few other things he said was 3,000 Euro, or $Au 5,000 (plus extra shipping costs to Australia) and that video was one year old.

Land Rover repair cost? 28,000 Euro (over $Au46,000).

Get a hot idle pressure test done if concerned about the condition of the bearings, or better still, permanently fit a good digital gauge. Whist the WSM is rather general with the TDV6/SDV6 oil pressure specs, the TDV8 WSM is very specfic with 12 psi idle with the oil at least 65 degC for an almost identically designed engine apart from 8 cylinders vs 6 cylinders and their crankshafts. They even use the same man and big-end bearings excepting for the rear mains with their different thrust bearing profiles.

If the hot idle pressure is below spec then have the sump dropped and a complete set of good brand main and big-end bearngs fitted.

Not completely following the timeline of this thread, somehow seems to have jumped from Sept 2022 to Dec 2024.

I for one have had 2 catastrophic engine failures, the first at 28K replaced under warranty without any failure report from LRA, in fact my dealer was instructed by LRA not to examine the engine, merely to remove and replace the engine with a long crate motor.

The second failure happened around 200K (172K after original replacement) I looked around for my options, a new engine from LRA would cost me around 50K fitted at my dealer (one specialist LR repairer refused to fit a new or replacement engine because of litigation by a previous customer), given that my first engine failure happened at such low KM I was reluctant to go second hand although I could get one from All Four x 4 for around $18K with 85K on the clock plus fitting. I decided to go with a re-manufactured engine from Automotive Skills, and although there was a couple of issues with the installation, e.g. washer hoses swapped about (wipe front screen wash rear) all were rectified without issue.

All in all, while I love the D4, the engine reliability is a constant concern particularly for long trips.

According to YouTube, the LION engines are considered one of the least reliable engines on the planet Ford has discontinued fitting the 3.0l to F150 pickups and even while essentially the same block there are many differences like the single variable vane turbo on the F150 against the twin turbos on the JLR products.

Ford are still fitting the F150 engine to the Ranger.