2012 Spanish YD25 died

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Zephyr

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My 2012 VSK YD25 let go completely at 360,000km.
No definite cause but it has no compression on any cylinder.
Suspicion is that camchain wear allowed the pistons to lightly touch the valves, although it also looks as if the pistons have got very hot on the exhaust side.
I'm not sure if that's normal or not for a relatively high-mileage engine.
There are really light marks on the valve reliefs in the pistons, such that you can only see them with a bright light at the right angle, but it does look like they made enough contact to scuff the carbon on the pistons. No bright metal is showing on the pistons or valves.
It went quietly, without overheating or any other sign of impending doom. One day it went into limp mode, cleared that and it made another 300m before going into limp again. After that it went into limp mode on every start and after a few of starts, nothing- it was totally dead.
Mechanic initially suspected a fuel issue, replaced the fuel suction valve with no result.
After the final start it cranked slowly, as if it had done a bearing, but as I said, no overheating and also no metal in the oil.
Engine removed by my mechanic who confirmed no compression but due to labour cost hasn't done more than remove the head to look for damage.

I'll get to it in time and work out exactly what went wrong, unless I exchange it for a rebuild, but for now I have two questions:

1. There was no camchain noise, ever, so is it really likely that the chain was stretched or slack enough to cause contact? As I understand it, the 140kW YD25 has the weak camchain issues solved. The tensioner can always fail, or course, but everything was checked and the timing was OK before the head was removed.

2. A wrecker suggested that the gudgeon bushes wear and allow the pistons enough vertical movement to contact the valves. This sounds unlikely to me, especially as there was no knock (even if there was unnoticeable, very light contact with the valves, surely I would have heard the little ends knocking???), and I have searched the forum and found no previous mention of a similar issue.
Is this a known problem?

Update: I've spoken to my mechanic again, he thinks the injectors are the cause of the failure and the pistons are worse than they look. We turned it over and one of them is definitely very tight. I say one, because it has a tight spot when #2 is near the bottom of the bore. There's no damage visible in the bores and no tight spots when the other pistons are at the bottom.

TIA for your input.
Rich
 
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Injectors? I'm confused.

How would the injectors cause complete engine failure? (genuinely asking)
 
I'm not sure either, but that's what I've been told.

I've now spoken to three mechanics who say it's probably the injectors but were very vague about how they would cause such a failure.
The cause of the fault is most unlikely to be the injectors themselves though, as all cylinders were affected at the same time, but a fuel metering issue could presumably make it run lean enough to overheat the pistons... maybe?

A replacement engine is on the way, and it shouldn't be too long before I get the dead engine home for a closer look at the damage.
 
These threads make me think that getting a Hilux for a couple more grand might've been a better idea
 
Maybe...!
It depends which Hilux though.
I'm currently driving a borrowed 2002 Hilux with the excellent :sarcastic: 3 litre diesel.
As they say, always late with a 2.8, but it's still too slow with the 3.0.

I can live with it though, it does still run, unlike my Navara.
 
These threads make me think that getting a Hilux for a couple more grand might've been a better idea
Yeah a lot of doom and gloom, trouble is you never hear the good stories, I have a Thai built 2014 D22, 145700 km and it’s perfect, I maintain it, change oil in engine, diff, gear box, and transfer case. And don’t drive it like I stole it. Sadly a lot of Navara’s get the **** thrashed out them. YouTube has some horror videos, definitely buyer beware. If it was me I buy a new long motor, have to do the maths.
 
Yeah a lot of doom and gloom, trouble is you never hear the good stories, I have a Thai built 2014 D22, 145700 km and it’s perfect, I maintain it, change oil in engine, diff, gear box, and transfer case. And don’t drive it like I stole it. Sadly a lot of Navara’s get the **** thrashed out them. YouTube has some horror videos, definitely buyer beware. If it was me I buy a new long motor, have to do the maths.

Mine is a 13 VSK with 270k on the clock and knock on wood still runs like a champ. In the back of my mind whenever I hear a noise it has me wondering.

I should probably just quit this forum!

Like google, everyone only goes on to talk about when something went bad, not when it's working fine.
 
I've spoken to a few people who have got to 500,000km with their VSK D40s with no trouble.
My car was bought new by me and looked after with scrupulous attention to servicing and maintenance but unfortunately it developed an issue that wasn't and probably couldn't be detected during normal servicing.

The vast majority of them are probably just fine, but you can get unlucky with any vehicle...
 
New low km engine is in and I will get the car back in a day or two.
I'll get the dead engine in about a week and have a closer look at what went wrong.

Edit: got it back, everything is good including the new Exedy clutch with solid flywheel.
There's significant low frequency vibration when pulling away from a standing start but it's smooth through the rev range once moving.
I drove it for about 100km and got a check engine light.
Will get that sorted out but probably not anything significant.
 
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It's been a bit, check engine light turned out to be the glowplug circuit.
The plastic boots on the connectors are brittle and don't fit as well as they did, #2 wasn't making good contact with the glowplug.
I had to take it back to the mechanic as I don't have a code reader. He crimped the connector slightly, problem solved.

It's now done 1000km. All good.
The EGR delete made no noticeable difference except that it no longer smokes like a freight train when you floor it.

Just after I got it back, the LH steering wheel controls stopped working so I replaced the clock spring
If I get a new gearbox and rear axle it will be a new car...

It's cost me about $9000 to get it back on the road.
I looked at the cost of buying a used vehicle that suited my needs and it wasn't a difficult choice.
 

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