Good Td5's??

...and Derry Argue spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

I've never heard of anyone with major problems (or any, come to that) with a Td5. (The thread you mention refers to a P38 with a 4.6 V8 - no relation. The computer in question there seems to be the BECM which controls bodily functions, and the issues with low voltages and stray signals locking owners out of their cars are legendary.)

I've heard the Td5 decribed (in one of the mags) as the best engine Land Rover ever made. My only complaint (early manual Disco) was a lack of torque off tickover, but I've heard of no complaints of that with the Defender application and IIRC it was fixed for the later Discos. Autos have always been OK - my current one is a blinder.

The Td5 is computer controlled, but it seems to be one of the discreet ones that just gets on with the job and doesn't throw a wobbler every time it rains/gets dark/incorrect phase of moon etc.

FWIW, I've just gone from a 300Tdi auto Disco to an early Td5 auto Disco. The difference between the engines is substantial. Even with the full Jeremy Fearn treatment, the 300 was not a patch on the Td5. Dave (edeowner on this group) drives a Td5 Defender regularly for work, towing 3-4 tonnes of boat, and he loves it.

On or around 25 Feb 2006 21:13:54 GMT, Derry Argue enlightened us thusly:

The first ones are reckoned to be a pain to drive due to the nature of the power delivery - little torque at low revs making it easy to stall it, ISTR.

I've an idea there might be a chip tweak to improve this. But that might not be so, so don't take it as gospel.

...and Austin Shackles spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

This is what I found with the manual Disco II (2001). However, I talked to a lot of Disco and Defender owners while trying to find out whether mine was wrong in some way or if "they are all like that sir", and I never found one Defender Td5 owner who had any problem at all. The fuel mapping is very different between the Def and Disco anyway (and between the Disco manual and auto) with the Defender having less power and more torque IIRC, so if the OP is looking for a Defender I think he should be fine.

They are all "chippable", and there are plenty of chip shops out there.

Mine (2001 DII TD5 Manual) will happily move along in tickover in any gear (hi ratio selected) but doesn't like much of a hill in 5th at

20+mph... Very handy for slow moving traffic and manouvering. I do find there is a gap in the available power/torque from tickover to about 1200rpm, this can cause a stall when you forget about it.

The other "gotcha" is, I feel, down to the complete control of the engine by the computer there is a *tiny* lag between you pushing the go pedal and the engine responding whilst the computer thinks about what it needs to tell the engine to do and the relevant parts moving etc.

Just as well as there is no manual mechanical control of the engine at all the computer does it all...

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.howhill.com:

That's what scares me. But I suppose so long as Microsoft isn't involved, it might be OK.

Thanks, guys. Any more comments are very welcome!

Derry

A bit off the original topic here but:

I towed around 1.5 tonnes with a TD5 Disco 2003 model recently and found that (apart from the pulling off lag as described above) that engine braking down a steep hill in (high) second gear appeared to be non-existent. The engine revs would drop to tickover as soon as I took my foot of the throttle but I could feel no slowing down (and yes - it was in gear :-)) as a result.

Am I mad?

graeme

They appear to "just work" and keep working. Mine takes quite a while to learn the engine if the car is powered down (as in battery disconnected) for a while. For "quite a while" read 100 miles or more and it is quite sluggish until it has learn't.

...and Graeme spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

Auto or manual? I find this with the auto if you allow the revs to drop. It seems to fall out of the "zone" and drop to tickover, as you say. If the revs are high enough to start with (2500+?) it seems to stay up there and provide decent engine braking. If it's manual and doing this, it's b*ggered!

Early reports of the new engine criticised the accelerator pedal, which had a small potentiometer underneath it that told the ECU what the accelerator pedal was doing. If this got muddy or wet, it stopped working leaving you with tickover and nothing else. One of the landy mags went on an off-road excursion with a few of the then-new trucks and took them through a river but lost the accelerator pedals on all of them until they'd dried out. They had to get through and out of the river using no throttle control on just tickover. I'm not sure if this is still a problem or one that got fixed early on.

A friend of mine who recently converted to the landrover faith tried TD5 and 300TDi defenders, and went for a 300TDi as he spotted the lack of low-rev torque immediately and managed to stall the TD5 when pulling away quite a few times.

If you intend to do mainly on-road driving then perhaps a TD5 will be OK, but I'd be inclined to stick to the mechanical 300TDi with better torque and little fear of water or mud if I was going to off-road.

...and Dave Liquorice spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

And the reverse is true as well - if you are accelerating and need to brake suddenly, there is a tiny lag between taking your foot off the gas and the car starting to slow, whereas a cable throttle would react instantly. This can be a little unnerving until you get used to it. Disco again, though - a Defender might be set up differently.

Td5' are as good, if not better, that most, if not all, the competition.

Very early ones had an issue with injectors/intector timing, but that as usual was blown up out of all proportion by the motoring press.

There is an occasional problem with a plastic "dowel" lifting the head - again it's not every engine by any means and the feeling round here is that the problem is usualy a result of something else (i.e. overheating).

The "throttle" problem of very early motors has been addresed - the accelerator pedal potentiometer response has been modded to give better low speed control.

There was an issue with oil seeping back down the harness into the ECU and causing "interesting" running - there was/is a free engine harness upgrade from LR to solve this (basically a new type of grommet).

Lack of torque at low revs is an issue for "commercial" users, but is not a show stopper.

Most of the Td5 Defender owners we support are perfectly happy with the Td5, though quite a few would go for a 200/300Tdi if the choice were available - but then they really do want a tractor with fantastic road performance and no electronics!

To sum up - there is no way the Td5 could be described as a disaster, ask a Toyota Surf 2.8 owners about disaters!

Richard

Hi Richard

It was an auto - previously I'd done a lot of towing with an auto RR Classic and found the ability to use the auto gearbox as a 'semi-manual' gave a smooth tow ideal for horses.

This Disco was - well, simply naff. High first gave decent engine braking but no speed, high second - like I said - scary

Graeme

I look after loads of Td5's and apart from the odd water leak I really have to do very little to them.

I know the insides of the 200 and 300 very well but still think they are great engines.

I now do "chips" for the Td5's and have just done my 110, It is fantastic now for towing. The extra torque that you get from the chip makes them a different vehicle.

Interestingly one of the ways LR have improved the throttle damping on the later models is to tell the ECU that it is permanently in low range. Makes it much smoother.

On or around Sun, 26 Feb 2006 09:31:30 -0000, "Richard Brookman" enlightened us thusly:

In the case of the TDi ones, discos are seriously high-geared.

There is also one issue with the engine oil pump which could fail, resulting in a seized engine. I don't know the build timescale of the effected engines but this was/is an occasional nuisance ;-(

Huw

In , beamendsltd said

My experience is that a TD5 is both reliable and eminently thrashable in its Defender-implementation.

_averaging_ 72MPH on a night-time trip from Berkshire to Perth is good going; when you consider that I had a couple of tons of structural steelwork on the trailer behind me it can only be described as 'bloody brilliant'.

Thankfully I wasn't paying the fuel bill! (is 16MPG a record for a diesel Defender? I got really friendly with the service-areas on M6 and A74)

Overtaking cars up Shap Fell while towing a big trailer is fun.

...and Huw spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

I believe that was a very early problem, sorted under a recall for all affected vehicles (after it appeared on Watchdog IIRC).

I know of a Discovery that it happened to less than four months ago. Car had

40,000 miles on and was dealer serviced. The oil light came on and the driver stopped immediately. Dealer diagnosed and changed the wiring loom due to known problem. After restarting the engine they could not extinguish the light and tried revving the hell out of it to see what happened. Guess what happened?

Huw

...and Huw spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

Ouch!