New engine for 2007 SE TDV6 D3

[Steve Jillett]

I have a 2007 SE TDV6 D3 that has been a fantastic vehicle. Late last year the wife was driving upto Darwin from Katherine to pick me up when she noticed lots of smoke (not sure what colour) coming out of the exhaust and a severe loss of power. She pulled over and called Landrover assist. Landrover assist recovered the vehicle to Darwin LR where they did some checks and said one cylinder was down on compression.

End result is a brand new TDV6 motor as the car was just inside warranty (93,500 kms and 2 yrs 8 mths old) courtesy of Landrover.
Both Landrover Australia and the Darwin Landrover dealership have been fantastic with the repairs, all is good now and everything seems to be running well, only time will tell I suppose.

A have some questions for all the gurus out there:

- has any one else had any engine failures?? is this happening regularly

- I can't get an aftermarket warranty extension as Darwin LR deal with Swan insurance and Swan doesn't cover Landrovers. I contacted Allianz directly but they informed me that they only deal direct with dealerships and because Darwin LR don't deal with them they can't cover me. As the car is a lease car with just over 2 years left on the lease I am a bit concerned about reliability issues. Does anyone know how to get extended warranties outside of a dealer network.

- Up here in the Territory the speed limit is 130 kmh. I regularly do the trip to Darwin and cruise at around 130 kmh, is this sort of constant speed harmful for the engine/gearbox. It does it easily with the engine sitting at 2300 RPM. Most of the 93,000 km have been done on the highway up here in the Territory.

- I know the transmission is supposedly a sealed unit that doesn't require servicing, unless used a lot for 4WD or high speeds. Should I be getting it serviced before warranty runs out.

I definately have the LR bug as despite the drama with the engine I think I will get a new D4 or RRS. They are fantastic vehicles both on and off road despite a few minor (major) issues with the D3. Thank you for any future replies, this site has been a great help providing a huge amount of information over the last couple of years.

Cheers

Steve

[Blknight.aus]

thats the first landrover tdv6 failure that Ive heard of but then the d3 scene isnt one that I do a lot with, I work on the sheds.

landrover offers an extended warrenty providing your vehicle qualifies.


nope once everythings settles in you can wind it up and let it run. no harm till things start cooking or you let the oil go off.

yep the transmission needs to be serviced. Its sealed but its servicable.

[stig0000]

same,, thats the first tdv6 iv herd of,, 1 tdv8, few superchaged, ,, and countless puma's,

[big guy]

European cars are made to sit on way more than the 100km/h average we have here in Australia.
try getting into a Taxi in Frankfurt, on the wrong side(LHD there), doing 160km/h on the autobahn and constantly having to move over to the right to let cars pass you.
Our rental, a 2.7L twin turbo diesel jaguar sat beutifully on 180km/h.
I was still being overtaken and yes many landrovers and Range rovers.

So by doing the 130km/h you be doing the car a favour.
Good to hear land Rover stood by you.
Must be their new way of dealing with problems, good on them.

[mowog]

In the D4 owners manual it talks about the car lowering more at speeds above 160. So I assume 130 isn't that fast even for a D3.

[Jamo]

Those Greek dudes travelling around the world had a TDV6 break on them and LR replaced it. That's the only one I've heard of.

As to the tranny. It's not 'sealed' per se, any more than any other tranny is sealed. It has a removeable pan (held on with 10(?) torx bolts) with an integral filter. There's a mob in Melbourne who make a replacement pan with a separate filter. Search the forum and you'll find a thread about it.

Mine needed a flush from about 130,000 on but I had a lot of extra weight with bars and wheels and stuff.

[John58]

I had my TDV6 serviced by Darwin LR last year. They used Valvoline 15W40 oil! Land Rover strongly recomends castrol 5W30!!! When queried, they said that this is what is recommended in the LR Service Manual for tropical use. I strongly suspect that this is bull****. They are also a Mitsubishi and Volvo dealer, so I reckon the real reason they use this oil is because they bulk-buy it for servicing Pajeros, etc., which they would sell / service more than Land Rovers. The much thicker oil may explain the engine failure.

[John58]

Further to my last post, thicker oil in a new technology engine is like increasing the blood pressure in a human - if you then run hard (or drive at 130 km+) something is likely to give - heart attack in a human or posssibly engine failure in a Land Rover. I found that running a thinner oil (as specified by LR - it's even stamped on the oil filler cap) makes the engine run much better - smoother, more power, less fuel, etc. Basically the engine doesn't have to work as hard pushing thinner oil around.

[Blknight.aus]

Id have guessed at a 10/30 or a 5/40 for darwin use. 10/30 for stop start and 5/40 for highway.

15/40? thats old school engine oil.

[scarry]

Id have guessed at a 10/30 or a 5/40 for darwin use. 10/30 for stop start and 5/40 for highway.

15/40? thats old school engine oil.

And if it's not fully synthetic,it's definitely not for a D3 TDV6,or a D2 TD5 for that matter