Runaway diesel, have you ever seen it happen?.

Jimmy Garlic

Happened to my sister in law today, I think the turbo seals failed and the engine started to feed off its own oil, destroying the engine in the process.

langdang

Never seen it. The last fella that I remember posting about it here had a Renault Kangoo I think.

Nforce

Happened to my 320d during the summer when it ate it's turbo. I had the good sense to stall the car before the engine was toast.

Jimmy Garlic

langdang wrote: »

Never seen it. The last fella that I remember posting about it here had a Renault Kangoo I think.

Sister in law has/had a Ford Galaxy.

MugMugs

Nforce wrote: »

Happened to my 320d during the summer when it ate it's turbo. I had the good sense to stall the car before the engine was toast.

Heard of this.

Turning the ignition off wont stop the engine right ?

How did you cop it was happening ?

Northern Monkey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-pxsViKF88

Nforce

MugMugs wrote: »

Heard of this.

Turning the ignition off wont stop the engine right ?

How did you cop it was happening ?

I was driving on the M6 motorway...cruise on, taking it very handy at 100kph!:o
Noticed a hiccup in the running of the engine,less than a second later I spotted a massive cloud of exhaust "soot". Was on the brakes hard and heading for the hard shoulder instantly (No other cars about). Revs climbed instantly,so I turned off the ignition,stuck the car in top gear (barely creeping along the hard shoulder at this stage) and stalled it...

I was lucky as the turbo vanes had disintegrated. The engine was flushed out thoroughly afterwards,head removed,oil galleries cleaned,pick up pipe cleaned etc etc.

Edit: It really pissed me off at the time as I'd minded the car like a baby. Proper grade Castrol Edge oil changes every 6k miles,crankcase breather filter done every 12k.

Edit 2: Yep...just like that video above...only I wasn't stupid enough to stand by watching the engine go bang!

MugMugs

MugMugs wrote: »

.............

How did you cop it was happening ?

Revs, lots of them

Drummerboy08

Happened me about 2 years ago in a 2.0TDi Passat. It was DSG so I couldnt stall it, had to leave it blow up on the forecourt!

tuxy

And what do you do if the car is an automatic?

edit: nevermind

langdang

tuxy wrote: »

And what do you do if the car is an automatic

Think of all the money you saved on petrol of course !

Cutting off the air supply will work too if stalling isn't an option or if the clutch isn't up to it, can be easy and quick to do depending on the air intake position.

Nforce

Yeah...If it's an auto you could always run it into a tree/wall/shopping center ...I suppose!!!

alwaysadub

Saw it happen on the n4 just at Liffey Valley a few months ago. Nearly sure it was a BMW. Could hardly see it with all the smoke. A motorbike cop was pulling up just as I was passing. I was on the opposite side of the road so didn't get to stick around to see the outcome.

PseudoFamous

tuxy wrote: »

And what do you do if the car is an automatic?

Brakes, hard shoulder, ignition off, run.

corktina

i heard of it happeneing to a Leyland national bus which the driver decided to drive back to the bus station instead of pulling the emergency shut down. When it blew (underground) they thought it was a bomb (was the 1980s) and called out all the emergency services. I think the driver got the sack...

Nissan doctor

Its common enough when the turbo oil seals fail completely when the boost system is pressurised, i.e higher speeds/rpm, motorway etc.

spank_inferno

Mabey I'm missing something?

Wouldnt just turning off the ignition stop it?
How can an engine run if the ignition is off?

langdang

spank_inferno wrote: »

Mabey I'm missing something?

Wouldnt just turning off the ignition stop it?
How can an engine run if the ignition is off?

In a diesel (sucking its own oil into the cyclinders), what are you removing by turning off the ignition?

Nissan doctor

spank_inferno wrote: »

Mabey I'm missing something?

Wouldnt just turning off the ignition stop it?
How can an engine run if the ignition is off?

Diesel engines use compression to ignite fuel, not spark like a petrol engine.

The ignition will switch off the fuel system, but in the situation where the turbo seals fail while on boost, the engine is spinning, creating a vacuum on the intake side, this sucks in the leaking oil, which gets compressed and burned as fuel, engine keeps running and sucking the leaking oil until either the oil runs out(engine knackered) or you manually stall the engine with the clutch/gearbox.

swhyte027

Had it happen last year on a merc in the garage wasn't pritty at all.needless to say the engine was ruined

s14driftking

heard before if u take it the oil filler cap off it stalls the engine

Nforce

s14driftking wrote: »

heard before if u take it the oil filler cap off it stalls the engine

Probably because all of the oil is pissed out and it seizes!:D

Nissan doctor

s14driftking wrote: »

heard before if u take it the oil filler cap off it stalls the engine

Once the engine is spinning, the oil pump is pumping the oil and the down stroke of the pistons creates the vacuum.

Removing the oil cap doesn't effect any of that.

galwaytt

s14driftking wrote: »

heard before if u take it the oil filler cap off it stalls the engine

O.
M.
G.


In other news: Ultimate Fixing Machine's, huh, those BeeEmms ?

Absurdum

I petrol

Justjens

Managed to do it to a friends Laguna in France, they have a habit of eating turbos, loads of smoke and lots of revs, was easy enough to stall, luckily it was just replacement turbo.

Frightened the bo**ocks out of me!!!:eek:

Rovi

A now retired diesel mechanic I know well tells of when he was serving his time in a Bedford dealership in England in the 1960's.

There was one particular commercial engine type that was notorious for running away with itself due to a design flaw in the injector pump governor.

Anyhow, these things blowing themselves up was such a common occurrence that the workshop had a 'protocol' in place to deal with it.

Apparently, they had a fire axe hanging on the wall, and if the engine you were working on started to eat itself, you were supposed to shout at everyone else to get out, grab the axe, and start chopping fuel and injector lines until the thing stopped. :eek:

Or your nerve failed and you fled the scene and left it to sort itself out.

Fishtits

Its not only turbo diesels this happens to.

I was driving a Merc fitted with a Hi-Ace engine (wasn't mine - don't ask) back in the late '80's that decided to go for a gallop on the Naas Rd.

It took a few seconds to realise what was happening, left it in gear and braked it to a stall. The owner reckoned it was a regular occurance and he was used to dealing with it... he was a stay calm carry on type. :rolleyes:

LLU

Saw it happen on Scrapheap Challenge once. It was the first episode of a set where they built something in the first program, then drove it to a series of locations around the country to do various challenges in the other programs. One of the teams had put a second engine onto a scania tractor unit or somesuch, leaving it with a huge protruding bonnet. It was brilliantly done and looked like a cross between a truck and diesel locomotive.

So the camera was on one of the other teams when there was a roar of an engine in the background, the camera spun around and you could see the lorry team running around their lorry with smoke and noise belching from it. One guy had his hands over the air intake trying to block it but that didn't seem to be doing any good. But another guy ran and got a powder fire extinguisher which he blasted into the air intake and that shut it off.

Apparently they had the injector pumps partly disassembled to link together and decided to do a test run of the engines while one of them held part of the governor in place with his hand. The engine juddered, he lost his grip, and off it went minus governor. Sadly one of the engines was destroyed, think it ended up breaking a connecting rod or two, so they had to compete with just one engine instead of the planned two. A costly little mistake.

Great idea with the fire extinguisher though!

Alkers

So what can you do if this happens? Change to top gear and let the clutch out quickly (if stopped)? Leave it in top gear and brake hard (if still moving)?

Nissan doctor

Simona1986 wrote: »

So what can you do if this happens? Change to top gear and let the clutch out quickly (if stopped)? Leave it in top gear and brake hard (if still moving)?

Either/or if you have a manual.

D_murph

I saw that happen to a Laguna once in my local village. Same as the video, loads of white/blue smoke and revving away like mad. The man "driving" it pulled over and got out of it. I was in traffic so I had to move on and didnt see what happened after that. Most likely that it ended badly .

Next time I see something like this happen, I hope I can tell the person what to do to save their engine.

CJhaughey

Co2 fire extinguisher fired into the intake will stop a runaway diesel.

Wiggy

Years ago, this happened to me on the Stillorgan Dual Carraigeway, southbound, just by RTE.

I was in a Daihatsu Charade 1.0L D. (I know....)

I never knew the explanation for what happened until now.

Thanks!!!!!

Nissan doctor

CJhaughey wrote: »

Co2 fire extinguisher fired into the intake will stop a runaway diesel.

I can't imagine many people having the facility to do that at the side of the road even if they new that would stop it!

maxfresh

Had this happen to some of the older vans in work , is it a solenoid sticking or something ?

101sean

Spoke to an RCT driver years ago who had this happen on a Scammell Commander tank transporter, Rolls CV12 diesel. He stopped it by discharging the fire extinguisher down the air intake.

I saw a BMW on the M7 three years ago sailing past at 120ish with clouds of blue smoke coming out and thought he won't be going far. Sure enough, on the hard shoulder 5 miles later, clouds of smoke, bonnet up, driver scratching head looking at engine self destructing :rolleyes:

Also happened to a mate with a Td5 defender on the M7, huge clouds of smoke. Guards turned up and actually stopped the traffic! His turbo actually snapped the centre shaft and the exhaust turbine dropped down the downpipe which stopped it. Sold him my spare turbo at a tidy profit, luckily there was no engine damage.

combine96

Stuff should be fitted with air shutoffs

eg :

http://www.chalwyn.co.uk/en/auto_air_intake/intake_shutdown_valves.html

some of the little Mitsubishi trucks had something similar just before the intake manifold

Mycroft H

LLU wrote: »

Saw it happen on Scrapheap Challenge once. It was the first episode of a set where they built something in the first program, then drove it to a series of locations around the country to do various challenges in the other programs. One of the teams had put a second engine onto a scania tractor unit or somesuch, leaving it with a huge protruding bonnet. It was brilliantly done and looked like a cross between a truck and diesel locomotive.

So the camera was on one of the other teams when there was a roar of an engine in the background, the camera spun around and you could see the lorry team running around their lorry with smoke and noise belching from it. One guy had his hands over the air intake trying to block it but that didn't seem to be doing any good. But another guy ran and got a powder fire extinguisher which he blasted into the air intake and that shut it off.

Apparently they had the injector pumps partly disassembled to link together and decided to do a test run of the engines while one of them held part of the governor in place with his hand. The engine juddered, he lost his grip, and off it went minus governor. Sadly one of the engines was destroyed, think it ended up breaking a connecting rod or two, so they had to compete with just one engine instead of the planned two. A costly little mistake.

Great idea with the fire extinguisher though!

I'm pretty sure it was a Rolls-Royce unit if i remember correctly. 16 cylinder 12.8 liter diesel. Sounded awesome. I felt a pang of sadness when that engine tore away on itself

LLU

BX 19 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure it was a Rolls-Royce unit if i remember correctly. 16 cylinder 12.8 liter diesel. Sounded awesome. I felt a pang of sadness when that engine tore away on itself

Yes! That's the one, well done for finding it, yeah I couldn't remember the exact details of the engine, only that it ended up looking like a giant tractor but very well proportioned. A brilliant looking design, such a pity they didn't get the benefit of that second engine. And it was even road legal because all the vehicles had to be able to travel from venue to venue under their own power.

JJJJNR

Would this happen on remapped engines ? can you do any checks.

Nissan doctor

JJJJNR wrote: »

Would this happen on remapped engines ? can you do any checks.

Its can happen to any turbo charged diesel engine.

But there are plenty of badly mapped cars out there which will put more strain on the turbo meaning its more likely to fail but the fact that its mapped or not has no bearing on the engine ingesting oil like we're talking about here.