Thread: TD5 oil pump failures

I checked mine for fear but my bolt was ok. I have an oil pressure gauge and check regularly.

I've had mine checked. All was ok....
Worth getting checked if you haven't already done it IMO.

This happened to my '99 Disco with 140000km on it. The engine was destroyed. No, Land Rover did not want to know me. It is very, very expensive and no fun at all. Get it checked. Don't delay. To those who say there are thousands of Td5s getting around and it's only happened to a small percentage, I think you need to take off your Land Rover enthusiast's hat and admit that this is an unforgivable manufacturing fault that is far, far more prevalent that it should be. Do a search on this on the net and on other forums and you'll find there have been many casualties. Land Rover deserves to lose customers over this.

Thanks for the replies.
We never imagined a problem like this could occur, no one warned us about it. Funnily enough now that it has happened we are hearing that there have been problems with this bolt before.
Like I stated we have taken good care of our car and had it serviced regularly and never really a problem until it suddenly started to spew out fuel. What gets me is that Landrover must have been aware of the potential problem, and if they had made it known we would have had the bolt checked immediately. They must have been aware of the problem when they sold us 'a reliable workhorse' 6 years ago. It would be different if it was a new problem - 6 years from this car is not long enough, but you would have to lump it as these things do happen.
We chose a Landrover for their reputation, to have a car that would be with us as our family grew up. I am afraid that after this (not warning consumers about the potential problem before it blew out our engine, and then being so unhelpful when we rang looking for answers as to what may be wrong with our vehicle) means that I could not recommend this make of car to anyone, which is a real pity.
What happened to quality control anyway? Or customer service – even after a warraty expires. I had to find out what has happened to our car on the internet rather directly from customer service, who must have been having quite a relapse in memory when they said they was unaware of any car with similar problems, and that they did not keep data on that sort of thing anyway. Please?! Or am I still existing in a previous century?
Sorry for the tirade, but the more I read, the more senseless the damage to our engine seems, when it may have been prevented with a little bit more communication.
Cheers to all, Pat.

We had ours checked as well, cost $270 bucks. Oil drained, sump off, bolt out and refitted correctly, sump on and our original oil put back in. The oil was recently new hence re-using it. If I had known of the problem when we had it serviced I would have just had it checked then. Still was a cheap security blanket.
Shano

Originally Posted by fabfour

Thanks for the replies.
We never imagined a problem like this could occur, no one warned us about it. Funnily enough now that it has happened we are hearing that there have been problems with this bolt before.
Like I stated we have taken good care of our car and had it serviced regularly and never really a problem until it suddenly started to spew out fuel. What gets me is that Landrover must have been aware of the potential problem, and if they had made it known we would have had the bolt checked immediately. They must have been aware of the problem when they sold us 'a reliable workhorse' 6 years ago. It would be different if it was a new problem - 6 years from this car is not long enough, but you would have to lump it as these things do happen.
We chose a Landrover for their reputation, to have a car that would be with us as our family grew up. I am afraid that after this (not warning consumers about the potential problem before it blew out our engine, and then being so unhelpful when we rang looking for answers as to what may be wrong with our vehicle) means that I could not recommend this make of car to anyone, which is a real pity.
What happened to quality control anyway? Or customer service – even after a warraty expires. I had to find out what has happened to our car on the internet rather directly from customer service, who must have been having quite a relapse in memory when they said they was unaware of any car with similar problems, and that they did not keep data on that sort of thing anyway. Please?! Or am I still existing in a previous century?
Sorry for the tirade, but the more I read, the more senseless the damage to our engine seems, when it may have been prevented with a little bit more communication.
Cheers to all, Pat.

I understand your pain and agree with everything you've said. We bought our Disco secondhand and chose it because it had obviously been well cared for and had an impeccable service history. Nine weeks later the engine had to be thrown away. The problem is well known to Land Rover, but if you're out of warranty, you're out of luck. They just don't care.

I do my own servicing and replaced the bolt in mine. But was glad to hear, for other owners' sakes, that my local dealers have been replacing the bolt at the 1st service of any TD5 vehicle that they haven't already changed the bolt. At least they are trying to prevent such disasters.

Originally Posted by fabfour

Hi, we have a 2001 Landrover Discovery TD5 which has suddenly caused us some problems. Fuel (LOTS!) suddenly started to spray out of the car en route to work and my car had to be towed to the repairers.
The bolt on the oil pump had come loose, resulting in no oil pressure. The car now makes a horrible noise when running and blows smoke (we can’t drive it). The mechanic reported metal filings in the sump oil. He advises us to ditch the car asap or to replace the engine.
My gripe is that our car is 6 years old - we bought it new and have maintained it well. We haven't even taken it off road yet! When I rang Landrover they did not want to know about it. I asked if anyone else had reported a similar problem, as surely this would not be a common occurrence in a car with only 137,000km on it? I was told that they did not record that sort of data. Basically the lady at the other end of the phone said the car is out of warranty, it wasn't their problem, and why was I telling her about it?

I have gone online in an attempt to understand what has happened and am reading about the exact same problem in models from '98, '99' 2000 and 2001. Apparently the bolt failure causes no oil pressure which in turn causes the engine to seize. To top it off, it could be prevented by replacing the faulty bolt and fixing the replacement on properly with loc-tight (which articles indicate may not have been done originally and is the cause of the problem), which would have saved us the drama and expense of now possibly having to get a new engine in our car. Regular servicing hasn't prevented the problem as apparently (I have read) that this all happens on a non serviceable part.
Not happy! Has anyone else encountered this problem and did they find Landrover more helpful? Surely they must have more to say than 'bad luck', especially since they must be aware of the potential problem? Today I have read of the same problems being addressed in South Africa and the UK – and I have only being reading for a few hours!
Cheers, Pat.

Yes it's known problem and has been for ages, there is even court action been taken out on LandRover in the UK.
The case doesn't look good for LandRover, and hopefully it will transfer to here once it's finished.

I had mine taken out to check (mine had locktite on it) i did mine for peice of mind.

Baz.