Landrover SDV6 TDV6 Engine failures

pjbracer1

Hi All
Not sure if anyone else has come across this but thought I'd try and get it out in the open so that hopefully others are aware of the issue!
Landrovers are a premium brand and known to have reliability issues, many will be things that other brands suffer from but there is one that is a known fault to them and is not widely advertised for obvious reasons!
They have and still offer a 3.0 SDV6 or TDV6 engine that has an issue that can render the engine as dead and needing replacement at an as you can imagine high cost! Now any car that is under it 3-year warranty is covered (not always without a fight) but anything outside of this is not and the owner is expected to pay (unless they have an expensive 3rd party warranty that expressly covers this issue, many exclude it). The cars that are fitted with this engine are across the brand range including Range Rovers, Range Rover Sports, Discovery's 3, 4, 5 and Jaguars and the fault is not an occasional one at that, as it would appear after some digging around that there are lots of reports of this issue on forums and other sites around the world and lots of small businesses that only cater to replace engines just not at dealer prices!
There are a couple of service update documents that have leaked out that were sent around to the dealer network explaining the issue and what to look for and how to deal with it should a customer complain. One is back in 2014 and the other is 2016 so the issue is well known to them just not to the public or any potential second hand buyers either for that matter.
It would appear that Landrover have been keeping this quiet for quite some time as there are reports of cars engines still failing on later models and these engines have not even passed 50K miles and the majority have all been serviced by Landrovers own dealer network. 
When these engines fail it renders the car totally useless unless you have space for it as an ornament on the drive! The engine either suffers from a snapped crankshaft or failed big end bearings resulting in the requirement for a new or refurbished engine to make the car useable in its capacity as a car again, all at the expense of the owner. The problem seems to be either a design or manufacturing fault on LR's parts but they don’t want to take any responsibility for it! The owner is expected to pay almost 50% of the vehicle value to get it back on the road and this also give LR another small profit for a fault that was theirs and they still have not rectified the problem as this has been ongoing since around 2012.
They blame age is a factor when reviewing each request for help but an engine and its main components if properly serviced shouldn’t "go off" like fruit! It would appear that these engines were "lemons" when they left the factory as even the cheapest of engines should by today's standards be expected to cover 100K without a major internal failure if properly maintained? Maybe not in some really high-performance sports engines but an engine that is placed in a brand that builds Rufty tufty go anywhere off roaders with a brand motto of "Above and Beyond" it should not be happening and they should really be embarrassed by the whole issue. Landrover has never had a great reputation for customer service but maybe this is the type of thing that would help build that trust by putting right a wrong without question. Problems happen but it’s how they are dealt with that should matter, and the JLR groups are clear on this that they don’t give a damn apart from when you buy new!
Residuals have always been good on Range Rovers and Landrovers as they have an appeal of luxury but multipurpose and tough when in actual fact if you pick that engine it like having a golden eagles egg under the bonnet that could rack at any time.
There is a report of a family with a new shape discovery having this exact problem the engine failing in the outside lane and having to get the family out too safety and then someone crashed into it and wrote the car off (LR didn’t have to repair that one as the insurance covered the cost)
I know the cars are not new but if they have been looked after and not really covered many miles over their lifetime these engines should not be failing and LR should put them right when they fail at least within 10 yrs or 100K where maybe the customer pays towards if based on how much use its had!
I think this has been on Watchdog back in 2019 but as the saying goes the more things change the more things stay the same
So I hope that anyone who sees this post makes provision for a replacement engine and being without a car for while if this is the engine fitted to the their potential next car! 
Long gone are those days of the old defender that has been around the world with one can of oil and a 5 yearly service that is 30 years old or more! 

AdrianC

It's not just the 3.0 - if anything, the 2.7 had a worse rep for crank failures. That was launched in 2004 in the Disco3... Failures seem to be much less prevalent in post-2016 engines, so 5yo vehicles now...

This is very widely known, and has been for at least a decade. The usual failure mode seems to be that main bearing shells pick up and rotate, due to poor lubrication. That cuts the lubrication off completely, and that bearing seizes, sometimes snapping the crank.

One of the main contributory factors seems to be... yes, you guessed it, oil dilution from incomplete DPF regens. All those people buying big diesel 4x4s for short-run urban use seem to be the ones worst affected... Add in missed services or the wrong oil being used.

This is also why the LR products using the engine are worse-affected than Jaguar or PSA installations... because of the customer use-profile...

Still, that engine's more or less completely phased out now, replaced by the Ingenium.

scrappy_returns

Try a land rover forum

[Deleted User]

delete 123

AdrianC

[DELETED USER] said:

TL;DR

Can you boil it down to a few sentences?

"I've just found out these engines break"
Rest of world... "We know"

fred246

Sounds like a problem that would never happen with good quality DIY servicing. I change my oil more frequently than is strictly supposed to be done. I use the correct oil where most garages wouldn't bother and because I do it I know the job has been done. Take it to a garage and it's fingers crossed they will change the oil.  My current engine is over 17 years old with over 175000 miles on the clock. It has only ever had oil changes. Nothing else has ever gone wrong with it. If you can run a bath you can do an oil change. Take out the plug. Let the oil drain out. Put the plug back and refill.

GrumpyDil

So is your car's sump plug attached to a chain which you pull to remove then?
Mine isn't and to get to it you have to remove a rather large and heavy metal plate attached to the underside of the car. 

BOWFER

fred246 said:

Sounds like a problem that would never happen with good quality DIY servicing. I change my oil more frequently than is strictly supposed to be done. I use the correct oil where most garages wouldn't bother and because I do it I know the job has been done. Take it to a garage and it's fingers crossed they will change the oil.  My current engine is over 17 years old with over 175000 miles on the clock. It has only ever had oil changes. Nothing else has ever gone wrong with it. If you can run a bath you can do an oil change. Take out the plug. Let the oil drain out. Put the plug back and refill.

This is just such a pile of cack.
Access to filters can be a pain, getting them off can be a pain, then you have to dispose of the oil correctly.
Then you have to remember a new crush washer for the sump plug, because good luck trying to get the old one to seal.
And remember to get a torque wrench, you don't want to strip the threads or crack the casing.
In reality, far from being very easy, you need a fair bit of preparation and tools to do an oil change.

Jenni_D

Ignore fred - he's a stuck record who'll cause someone to get killed if they blindly follow his advice. .🙄

AdrianC

Oh, and FWIW, that engine was designed and is built by Ford. It's a joint venture with PSA, but it was led by Ford.

Who, if you remember, used to own JLR back in 2004 when the TDV6 was first used.