Offroad-Express

Driving home today and suddenly the car started to rev excessively. I then couldn't get the car stopped. It reved flat out for about 2 mins until suddenly it stopped. The smoke stopped 4 lanes of traffic. I have just got it towed to my mechanic for him to look at Monday. It has sprayed some oil around the engine and road and there is some oil dripping from exhaust. I'm thinking its the head gasket or turbo.
Does anyone know roughly how much it is to replace turbo?

Cheers

Might be more to worry about than just the turbo if it "suddenly stopped".

What you have experienced is diesel engine "runaway" where instead of the engine running on diesel, it is now running on its own engine oil. This most likely has happened because an oil seal in the turbo has failed, allowing oil under pressure to enter the air intake of the engine and be combusted like diesel usually would. This has caused it to rev uncontrollably, even with the key turned off. This is what all the oil from the exhaust will be from too.

Unfortunately, often once you know what you're experiencing with a runaway diesel engine, it's too late to do much about it. The only way you can stop the engine is to somehow stall it or block off it's air supply, whether the intake is blocked with a rag or a hose is squeezed, or even a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher sprayed down it.

The sudden stoppage of the engine could be due to many things such as the engine overheating and seizing, or something in the valvetrain letting go and causing damage to the pistons and valves. But whatever it was, it should be picked up by your mechanic when he looks over everything.

That as above is called a runaway engine...and if it suddenly stopped then you have bigger issues then just a blown turbo charger seal. If its swallowed enough oil to hydraulic the engine you have bent conrods.

Drain the sump and see how much oil is left

I don't think you can get enough oil through a worn our turbo for the engine to run away on . More likely to be pumping it through the breather

They can and have. And it goes both ways too once the seal goes on the inlet side it forces air down the oil return pipe to the sump.

What engine was it mate 2.7 3.0 or 3.2 ?

fh2014 wrote:What engine was it mate 2.7 3.0 or 3.2 ?

3.2. Got confirmation Monday it was a right-off. Previous own put an electric pump on. Mechanic thinks they would have been having problems starting it cause pump was in way out and this is a cheap fix. Seems the electric pump was pumping full time so engine block was full of diesel. It's now sucking through the breather which he said it shouldn't.
Or atleast that's what he told me. He started it and disconnected the hose and it near sucked his finger in