turbo sabotage?

Hi all, Just after some advice. My car was in a crash about 6-7 weeks ago and has been in the body shop since, with the car being rejected four times due to very poor quality work. The insurance company got an independent engineer involved who agreed with all my concerns about the work, and other garage have had to redo all the work to a higher standard.

After collecting the car, it got less than 4 miles down the road when there was a loud bang and a cloud of white smoke out the back. I stopped the car as soon as I could, and stopped the engine which was sounding very lumpy.

While waiting for recovery I checked the oil level, which was off the bottom of the dipstick. There doesn't seem to be any oil sprayed around the engine bay, there was none under the car where it stopped, nor was there any in the toad where the car went bang.

I'm obviously concerned that something may have been done by the garage to cause the engine to fail after I left them. I wasn't driving the car hard, it's done about 75,000 miles in the 7 years since it was built. Is it possible to sabotage a car like this? The oil warning light isn't staying on when the ignition is turned on to the first stage (without trying to start the engine) although it does flash on so the bulb is working.

Thanks for your help!

Reply to
Simon Finnigan
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The oil pressure light should obviously come on when the ignition is switched on and stay on until the engine is running and there is sufficient oil pressure to switch it off again. I'm not sure how one would arrange for the light to just flash on briefly and then go out again when there is no oil pressure but if someone has managed this and also drained all the oil out it would explain your problem. An expert would surely be able to find evidence of the tampering though.

Reply to
Dave Baker

On 05/04/2014 09:56, Dave Baker wrote: > just flash on briefly and then go out > again when there is no oil pressure but if someone has managed this and > also drained all the oil out it would explain your problem. An expert > would surely be able to find evidence of the tampering though.

You remove its own feed, and then cross connect it to some other light, such as the alternator/battery symbol.

Some people do this to airbag/seatbelt/abs lights for MOTs rather than replace the faulty bit.

As for sabotage, if I wanted to cause a turboe to fail in such a way i think i would use a blob of wax to stick a chunk of something upstream of the turbo then when it gets hot the wax melts and releases the chunk of whatever into the turbo.

But thats just a horrible thing to do to a precision engineered part.

Reply to
Tom Burton

Would that have happened within 10 minutes of the engine being started?

Reply to
Simon Finnigan

Depends on all manor of things, what is the melting point of the wax, how close is the pipework where the wax is to something hot, how enthusiastic the driving was, ambient temperature etc.

That said an inadvertantly dropped nut ot washer dropped into the intake could hang around until jolted out of its resting place by a bump and then sucked unto the turbo.

Either way I would then expect to seen turbine/impeller damag, it would also take some doing. For it to use all the oil up i think you would expect several mins of beyond red line revving and clouds of smoke.

Probably more likely a sticking oil pressure switch and someone has forgot to refill with oil.

Or somthing else.

Reply to
Tom Burton

It's my car, and I had topped the oil up a couple of weeks before the crash. The car was burning about 500ml of oil between services, and the car will throw a "check oil level" message on the screen the moment the oil level gets near the bottom of the acceptable range on the dip stick. That's what was surprising me about the lack of a warning for oil when the ignition is turned on- the car has done it in the past when the oil level was low but acceptable, never mind off the bottom of the dip stick.

The engine was running for about 20-30 seconds after the bang, running quickly down from about 3000rpm to idle as I coasted into a safe parking bay off the road and killed the engine. It hadn't come near the red line since being collected from the garage, and certainly hadn't been revved silly for minutes. The was a bang, white smoke with a slight blue tinge out the back, stop the car, still smoke coming out so stopped the engine and it hasn't been run since.

I've got the car recovered to my local garage where I trust the mechanics and asked them to check it.

Reply to
Simon Finnigan

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