Hello. Earlier today me and my family set off for a 3 day camping trip in our Outlander 2008. The car was performing as it normally would. I remember I had checked all fluids of the car a day or two before setting off.
The issue; after about 2.5 hours and 250km, a oil check warning had appeared on the multi-information display screen. We went to see a mechanic that was nearby. The oil levels were fine, meaning it was either the oil pump, oil itself (dirty), the oil filter or the pressure sensor.

We had lifted the car up and took out the oil pressure sensor and used a manual oil pressure gauge; it said 3.5 bar, is this normal? Anyway, after this - we put the sensor back in and decided to (stupidly) ignorethe warning.

We started to continue our trip, driving another hour and 80km before the engine had started to lose power (intermittently), after about 170m of the first sign, a huge power drop occurred as the engine revved up to 6k RPM. We pulled over immediately and as we slowed down the car it suddenly came to an abrupt stop (because at this moment, the engine seized).
This was unfortunately on a moderately lonely road in the middle of no-where. Like, 1 person out of 60 offered us help. We called for a tow truck (flatbed) and about $100 later we were at a mechanic. He offered to keep the car until we can tow it up - because this is 300km and 3 hours away)

tldr we got an oil pressure warning and checked it manually, it was pretty high. Continued to drive ignoring warning and seized the engine.



So I know so far that the engine is seized. We tried to manually crank it and it didn't budge. The mechanic said he will take off the sump and assess the situation (worst case scenario - we need a new engine).

Were we stupid to continue driving while ignoring the oil pressure warning? Even though we had manually checked the oil pressure?

Is it possible for dirty oil to cause such an alarm and seize the engine? Keep in mind that this oil is only 15,000km old since that was the last service.

Intermittently working oil pump? We drove maybe 25 kilometers after the first incident before the warning appeared again.

How much are we looking at for a new and old/barely used engine?

The car has only done 87,000 kilometers. What would you have done?

 

need more info. what engine is this? where are you from?

15k km, IMO, is pretty far on an oil. Should have been changed. Curious to know what your standard oil change intervals are. have the mechanic check your oil filter, hopefully it disintegrated and 15k km is within reason for your filter...then you get to battle the filter manufacturer for a new engine...all depending if it disintegrated. Some filter are sketchy after 5k miles, some are good for 25k miles....all depends on what filter you have.

definitely sounded like you had the oil clogged somewhere in the engine. Probably was not a good idea to continue on.

Used 3.0L in the USA/midwest region is around 1000USD up to 1900 USD...then you get to install it, I'm sure that's some labor on top of that. New, I'm sure would hit $4k USD.

 

It's the 2.4 Mivec with a CVT. Its normal oil interval is 15-20k km. I'm from South Africa. We only continued because everything was okay when we checked the car at a mechanic and we presumed we had a faulty oil pressure sensor.

 

15-20k km per oil change, in my opinion, is still a bit long. I have the 3.0L and I do used oil analysis to see how long I should actually use my oil before the additive packs are depleted. Based on my driving, 60% highway, the oil is only good for 8000 miles / 12,800 km. You can get longer oil changes if you have more oil in the sump or you drive nearly all highway miles...but that's what my 3.0L with 5 quarts of oil can do on synthetic oil.

if it is not too late, see if the mechanic can get a sample of the oil. Might be worth its weight in gold to determine condition of the oil when the engine locked up. I don't know of the services in South Africa...but google "used oil analysis" and hopefully there is a service down there.

 

Thank you. The mechanic said he'll look at the car today, take off the sump and see if maybe it's just seized bearings (is it possible?)
The car mainly drove around town, maybe 10% of driving is highway. Maybe because the oil had already done 15k km and drove another 400km on a highway (or average speed of like, 60mph), it finally gave up.

 

if you are doing a lot of city driving, especially a lot of short trips, then there is generally a lot of fuel dilution that goes into the oil...thins it more and affects the job that oil does.

For more oil based information, and could help you out maybe, go to these guys:
https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forum...s.php?ubb=cfrm
Post your issue there, might help more than here.

 

Sorry for the late reply. We towed the car back. The engine is entirely seized so we have bought a second hand one (50-80k km) for R27, 000 which is roughly $2000. We're putting it in tomorrow. We couldn't get a sample of the oil. Thanks for the help.

 

Sounds like something I might could use too, how much does it cost you where you are located?

 

I use blackstone labs based out of Fort Wayne, IN. Cost is about $35 with TBN test added on and takes 2 weeks to run....but tells you quite a bit. Had an old ranger, they found it had a coolant leak and that my oil change interval should go down from 5k miles to 3.5k miles due to the coolant deteriorating the oil and causing more wear. Sold it off...

 

Wow, I'll have to look around for one of those here.