The Mégane II Owners' Club

I am posting this on behalf of a friend who's had some engine trouble.

The turbo had stopped working so he had another fitted. The original had broken inside but all the pieces were there.

After starting the car with the replacement on it was fine, until they revved it a little. The engine kept on revving by itself, going up to max rpm's. They tried to stop it by switching off the key, witch didn't work. I think he said he even took the cable off the battery is despair, but it was still going. It was screaming for two minutes or so then slowly came down and stopped.

Replacement turbo taken off, and that's broken inside with metal and oil everywhere. The internet site wants another 200 to send another turbo (original cost about 350 I think) as they don't accept any responceability.

Anything else he can try apart from scraping it, its a frontier 2.2 d but 11 years old

And indication as to why the original turbo failed?

No use just fitting a new turbo...

It needs a new oil feed pipe to the turbo and the entire "air system" cleaned of oil which involves removing the intercooler and air pipework and cleaning all traces of oil so there is non to be sent into the engine and burn uncontrolably as a fuel - as you have discovered.

(happened to my 1981 non turbo golf diesel simply because the rings were worn and tossed fumes into the engine, but i managed to chuck it in gear and stall it )

good luck with it but am wondering what other damage 2 minutes screaming could have done

possible engine damage if its run on the engine oil and only stopped because there was non left , are you sure it has not seized

Think he's decided on scraping it now as wants something smaller and cheaper to run.

Thanks for replies anyway

Yes, the engine is probably gone. There is no point in replacing a turbo, if probability of something else going is high. Yes, running away is what diesels do occasionally.

Eric, why didn't your friend shut down the engine by pushing the actuator of the air intake valve with a finger or just tapping the stop button 5 times?

Alex, I don't think he was ready for that situation and just panic a bit.

I did say after he could of tried stalling it, but being on a farm in a field it may of well took off... never to be seen again..