XC 60 nightmare

[watchboy]

Originally Posted by Daleman

What worries me is that if the oil in the sump is growing in capacity due to the diesel oil intended for combustion getting past the piston rings it must play havoc with the lubricating ability of the genuine oil in the sump.

Thinning it down to such a degree that over say high mileage service intervals the oil in the sump could have very poor lubricating qualities and may not be able to keep up with lubricating big end /crankshaft bearings etc.

These bearings may then look as if they have been starved or run without oil because of poor lubricating ability of the very thin diesel oil in the sump.

I am not saying its a definite but it has crossed my mind that this may occur if the vehicle is used for short journeys mixed with high service intervals.

To my mind full oil changes around 5-6000 miles and keeping short journeys to a minimum may help.

I had a 2008 Mazda 6 2.0 diesel from new. Always serviced ahead of schedule and clocking up approx 30,000 miles per year and plenty of long journeys at decent pace.

Took it in for a service at 89,300 miles and was running fine. That was on a Thursday, Friday I drove oop north from South Wales to a friends near Sheffield. As I came off the motorway I noticed that there was what appeared to be a auxiliary drive belt idler / tensioner bearing noise....

RAC called, agreed there was a slight noise, advised to keep speeds down and if it got worse ring them for recovery.

Ultimately it transpired it was the oil pump bearings that had failed, that in turn had not been working efficiently which caused bottom end damage requiring a full bottom end rebuild, new shells, re-ground crank, new oil pump etc etc .

Factor in that I had a Volvo V70 sat waiting for delivery for 6 weeks and my employer and the Lease company were less than pleased with the bottom end failure.

It was a £2,500 repair bill in the end :-( it was also something that the dealer admitted they had seen on several occasions on higher mileage Mazda 6's. In the end I think Mazda swallowed the entire repair bill even though it was above 60,000 miles as the lease company's argument was that it should have been picked up at the service which it wasn't, the car had fully history showing it was never serviced late and given the amount of cars they leased (the lease company) it probably helped make it a no-brainer to swallow the bill for Mazda.

The dip stick on the 2.0d Mazda engine was hilarious. It had the normal style of min - max markers and then another about 1.5" further up the dip stick; if your car reached this marker it was time for a trip to the dealer to have some oil drained, sorry, I mean oil + diesel mix drained ;-)

It does seem to be relatively common that the regen cycle causes issues but some manufacturers more so than others..... Mazda's was well documented and quite scary when you consider how many litres of diesel it must take to move the 'oil' level 1.5" up a dip stick!!

As you rightly point out, the effectiveness of the oil to lubricate the engine components must be non-existent!

Found this link which shows a Mazda dipstick and the 3 levels.... also an interesting read regarding degradation of the lubricant quality.

http://www.chiptuning.com.au/dpf-removal-service/

Paul

[david philips]

Originally Posted by Neil R

Volvo initially said all symptoms pointed towards excessive oil being introduced to the engine however after the insurance assessor requested that the sump and some of the shells holding the crank in place be removed, they are now saying that the damage to the crank is consistent with the engine being started without oil, the damage occurring oil subsequently being introduced however the due to the initial damage the engine has malfunctioned.

One thing I know for sure is that it was running like clockwork prior to being serviced and then within 22 miles of driving the engine has seized.

if the engine was running fine before it was serviced and volvo now saying damage is consistent with the engine being started with out oil then to me the garage has ran the engine without oil or with some filter that would not let the oil flow though it , just a mater of keeping pointing it out, they are insured so hopefully everything should work out.

[Daleman]

Originally Posted by watchboy

I had a 2008 Mazda 6 2.0 diesel from new. Always serviced ahead of schedule and clocking up approx 30,000 miles per year and plenty of long journeys at decent pace.

Took it in for a service at 89,300 miles and was running fine. That was on a Thursday, Friday I drove oop north from South Wales to a friends near Sheffield. As I came off the motorway I noticed that there was what appeared to be a auxiliary drive belt idler / tensioner bearing noise....

RAC called, agreed there was a slight noise, advised to keep speeds down and if it got worse ring them for recovery.

Ultimately it transpired it was the oil pump bearings that had failed, that in turn had not been working efficiently which caused bottom end damage requiring a full bottom end rebuild, new shells, re-ground crank, new oil pump etc etc .

Factor in that I had a Volvo V70 sat waiting for delivery for 6 weeks and my employer and the Lease company were less than pleased with the bottom end failure.

It was a £2,500 repair bill in the end :-( it was also something that the dealer admitted they had seen on several occasions on higher mileage Mazda 6's. In the end I think Mazda swallowed the entire repair bill even though it was above 60,000 miles as the lease company's argument was that it should have been picked up at the service which it wasn't, the car had fully history showing it was never serviced late and given the amount of cars they leased (the lease company) it probably helped make it a no-brainer to swallow the bill for Mazda.

The dip stick on the 2.0d Mazda engine was hilarious. It had the normal style of min - max markers and then another about 1.5" further up the dip stick; if your car reached this marker it was time for a trip to the dealer to have some oil drained, sorry, I mean oil + diesel mix drained ;-)

It does seem to be relatively common that the regen cycle causes issues but some manufacturers more so than others..... Mazda's was well documented and quite scary when you consider how many litres of diesel it must take to move the 'oil' level 1.5" up a dip stick!!

As you rightly point out, the effectiveness of the oil to lubricate the engine components must be non-existent!

Found this link which shows a Mazda dipstick and the 3 levels.... also an interesting read regarding degradation of the lubricant quality.

http://www.chiptuning.com.au/dpf-removal-service/

Paul

The video in the above link explains perfectly what I thought might be happening insofar as the watered down engine oil (with diesel) dramatically reduces the ability of the oils shear ability which leads to bearing failure.

Regular oil changes with good quality oil is recommended to help cure the problem !

[Rooster]

The reason why the service interval is 18k or a year,

If the cars doing 18k a year it will probably be getting banged down motorway alot so will regen naturally and won't go into a full blown regen to empty its filter so oil will last the 18k.

The people that do less that is why the 1 year bits counts as say people that do alot of town driving the engine will regen more often so dilute more hence why it should be done every year.

This is why good quality oil matters as it has more resistant to dilution, hence why it is more expensive,

If the engine has run away, depending on how badly it has run away the bottom end will have taken a hell of a beating especially the bearings and i have seen a couple of police D5 engines that we suspected had also been over revved and taken the big end bearings out,

[Crockers]

DPF. what a stupid stupid idea.....surely there must be a better way to reduce particle emissions.

They add to the cost, use more fuel so are environmental negative. Were they a knee jerk reaction?

My mercedes was one of the last without them so didn't need the low ash Mobil 1 oil saving me money each service. Did 40- 50 mpg and went like a bat out of hell. New ones are less fuel efficient, need low ash oil and are no faster....is this really progress?

I suppose one day diesel may be banned as the future is moving towards electric / fuel cells/ petrol hybrids etc. My wife'sAuris hybrid easily does 45-55 a gallon on cheaper petrol....but is boring to drive .

Ideas on a postcard....

[craigv60]

The problem isn't the DPF as such, it's that the early implementations of the technology weren't done properly because it was rushed into mass production. Volvo knew they'd got it a bit wrong initially (with all the rising oil level problems) and so had to refine the ECU software, issue service bulletins etc. Luckily, they didn't get it as wrong as some manufacturers (Mazda, for example).

It's a bit like when catalytic converters were made mandatory in the early 90s. Programmes like Top Gear and the motoring mags ran regular shock! Horror! stories about how cats increased fuel consumption, how fragile cat cores could be ruined by driving over a speed bump, costing the owner £500 to replace, and costly lambda sensors failing. Yet who even gives a single thought about the cat on their car now?