Diesel runaway experience
 

Well I experienced my first diesel runaway yesterday.:( I was actually driving a friends poorly Citroen C4 2.0 HDi VTS which I have been trying to get sorted out for him (anti pollution warnings, engine management light on and bad turbo lag) when I entered a local bypass and started accelerating up the hill. 2nd gear, no power for a few seconds then all hell broke loose! Engine revved up to maximum revs, loads and loads of blue oil smoke out the back and from under the bonnet, so I instinctively turned the key to the off position but that did nothing, so I remembered what I'd read in car mechanics monthly only a month or two back and stuck it in 5th and dropped the clutch. That worked, it stalled and I coasted to a halt (although with no hard shoulder I was stuck in the inside lane with a barrier on my left). After a quick look in my mirror and watching a couple of cars swerve round me at the last second I decided I had to try to limp it the few hundred yards to the exit slip. It started up and ran badly and as soon as I got to about 15mph in second gear it did it all again!:mad: I stalled it again the same way and then just limped off in 1st gear at walking speed.

An incredibly unpleasant and rather frightening experience when you've never known anything like it before, but I thought I'd share it as it might help someone else who reads this to know what to do if it ever happens to them. Because I reacted so quickly (it probably only revved at max for about 5 seconds), on first appraisal by a mechanic he reckons the engine may have been saved although the turbo is shot. The car would most likely have set on fire if it had been left to run on its own engine oil at maximum revs and would at least have resulted in catastrophic engine failure, e.g. a rod through the block.:(

Very scary, I had this happen twice on Hyundai LDV's with Mitsubishi 2.5 motors, the only way to kill it was to block the exhaust. Yes lots and lots of smoke.

Scary indeed! Sounds like you've saved the engine though :)

The worst thing is, with all the issues the car already had (and it is an 05 model with only 76k miles) it might have been best to leave it to burn and get the money through from the insurance!:D I wouldn't have a Citroen given (or a Peugeot come to think of it!)! I wouldn't even consider a modern diesel with all the DPF's and other stuff that goes wrong nowadays because of the quest for cutting emissions and improving economy.:(

Mmm french cars :flog:

Anyone heard of an M47 engine runaway yet?

Or an L series.....

Nope. Pretty much unheard of.

Pretty common on the French stuff though.

Add the Renault DCi engine (also fitted to some Nissan XTrails ?) to that list :(
My son's went bang and ran him through a set of red lights before he could get it stopped - luckily at 6.15am on his way home from night shift when there was little other traffic around.

Happened to one of the private hire cars with a taxi company I worked for. Diesel Renault Espace, big comfy motor, guy was driving it one day when it ran away with him, didn't have the brains to stall it and totally screwed the engine. Nearly closed the A1 because of the amount of smoke it was producing! The reason it ran away was an oil seal in the turbo went and it was running on the engine oil 'til there wasn't any left! Cost the boss a reconditioned engine.

Plenty of L series examples I'm afraid. There is even a video on youtube somewhere.

Often the engine survives though (as it is tough old engine).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg4YS...yer_detailpage