I've posted previously about the service indicator coming on prematurely on our 14 plate F2.

To recap the story to date...

Oct 21 - we got the car off a family member. Service indicator was on but this was believed to be down to it not being reset at last service
Feb 22ish - Car serviced, all seemed well
Circa April 22 - Service required indicator re-appeared. Put it down to a LR foible.
May 22 - Checked oil level out of curiosity, noticed it was excessively high. Drained out a fair chunk of oil...
May 22 - Got a further oil change done out of precaution. Confirmed levels ok again. Service indicator extinguished
June 22 - several days ago the service required message re-appeared. Checked oil level and it's high again.

I can only assume the oil is being diluted somehow. When I drained out the excess last time, what came out was a bit thinner than it should be. I'd wondered whether it had actually been serviced properly in Feb 22 or overfilled. Now it seems this isn't the case.

There are some other issues with the car and i'm wondering if they are related - advice and thoughts most welcome!

The amber DPF full message keeps appearing. A short bit of driving will then extinguish it again. However the car doesn't really do short journeys so it should be able to regen fine. The last time the amber light came on we had just done a fairly long journey too. When the car went in for its oil change in May 22, the garage read the fault codes and noted there was a recurrent fault with the DPF system - didn't note the code unfortunately.

Reading online it seems at least the disco sports suffer from too frequent / failed DPF regen cycles leading to oil dilution. And this in turn causes the oil condition sensor to flag up a service required. I guess this makes sense if the car is overfuelling to try and promote a regen but keeps failing for some reason. So in my head, the DPF fault may be leading to the rising oil level?

Second issue is I am still getting a slight diesel fume smell coming into the cabin when the car is stationary/reversing. It's had this issue for a while. The exhaust manifold gasket had been replaced previously which seemed to help but not eliminate the problem entirely. I'm now wondering if an injector seal could be leaking. Causing the fume smell and also the oil dilution if its leaking past the seals and rings on engine-off? Although the smell does seem to be more coming from the rear of the engine near the bulkhead...

Not sure if there is a scenario where all 3 are connected though (oil level, dpf and fume smell) ? Not been able to make a connection myself!

Any thoughts or opinions would be most welcome. I'm going to book it in in the mean time to get it looked at with our local....

Thanks!

I had this issue on my Td5 Discovery 2, was due to a cracked cylinder head. The oil was being diluted with diesel raising the level. Was heading to France on holiday with the caravan before fixing it so did 2 precautionary oil changes while at caravan sites! Landrover - turning owners into mechanics since 1948

2014 Orkney grey Freelander SD4 GS.
2004 Zambezi silver Discovery 2 Td5 (Gone)
1963 Surf blue Morris Mini Minor Super de Luxe (my little toy)

Last edited by Bobupndown on 19th Jun 2022 5:34 pm. Edited 1 time in total

Strong possibility you have a leaking injector / injector seal and when you switch off any residual fuel on the rail is seeping into the cylinder. It will run past the piston rings and on down into the sump, dilute the oil and washing any remaining lubrication from the affected cylinder.

See if you can get live values on your injectors when running to see if you have an obviously out-of-balance injector*, then do a leak-off test. If these don't help identify which one is causing a problem then you'll need to pop each injector out and inspect for signs of leaking.

(* a leak on one can result in problems with the other 3, so this is only indicative that injectors are the problem, it won't necessarily give you an absolute confirmation which injector is the problem) Current driveway contents:
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Thanks both... I'd take a leaking injector over a cracked head!

If an injector is leaking enough fuel to be diluting the oil, then it would start up roughly, as the leaking injector will be empty, and the compression chamber in the piston crown will be full of fuel, which will cause smoke when started too.

If the DPF is trying to do a re-gen cycle more than it should, then it's possible for excess fuel to enter the oil. The re-gen fuel isn't burnt in the engine, but injected on the exhaust stroke, so the rising piston pushes the fuel down the exhaust, where it burns in the DPF, cleaning it.

It's also possible for the HP pump to leak fuel through the drive seal, which would end up in the sump, giving the issue you are having.

It won't be the head, like the TD5 described above, as the TD5 uses completely different unit injectors, which are inside the engine, the Freelander 2 uses common rail injectors, which are outside of the engine. 2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Soon to be sold.
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Nodge68 wrote:

If an injector is leaking enough fuel to be diluting the oil, then it would start up roughly, as the leaking injector will be empty, and the compression chamber in the piston crown will be full of fuel, which will cause smoke when started too.

If the DPF is trying to do a re-gen cycle more than it should, then it's possible for excess fuel to enter the oil. The re-gen fuel isn't burnt in the engine, but injected on the exhaust stroke, so the rising piston pushes the fuel down the exhaust, where it burns in the DPF, cleaning it.

It's also possible for the HP pump to leak fuel through the drive seal, which would end up in the sump, giving the issue you are having.

It won't be the head, like the TD5 described above, as the TD5 uses completely different unit injectors, which are inside the engine, the Freelander 2 uses common rail injectors, which are outside of the engine.

makes interesting viewing Current driveway contents:
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2009 FL2 dog bus and shooting wagon

On Order: 2023 Fisker Ocean Ultra - deposit paid.

Right so had the car looked at. I think it's looking likely the oil dilution is being caused by repeated/failed DPF regens.

There's one fault code logged - P2459 which seems to indicate an irregular frequency of regens? Also the garage tried to initiate a forced static regen but it kept failing saying conditions not met.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on this? Seems like a couple of options at the moment....

1. Try a LR main dealer and see if their kit will force a full static regen cycle - they want silly money for this though which is annoying.
2. Get the existing DPF removed and sent for cleaning
3. Get a replacement DPF - £££££
4. Anything else...?

I'm just a bit unsure whether this is a genuine DPF failure or if something else could be causing the regens to repeatedly fail, and the DPF itself is fine. I know it's not completely clogged as the soot levels were below the max threshold. I wouldn't want to fork out for a DPF clean/replacement and then it re-occur as it was down to something else...

Not sure if anyone can think of any other reasons? Or ways to try and narrow down/confirm the fault?

Thanks!

Is there a decent independent landrover specialist near you? They probably have more ability to 'fix' your car rather than LR who will throw expensive parts at it by highly expensive 'technicians' until the problem is maybe fixed. Landrover - turning owners into mechanics since 1948

2014 Orkney grey Freelander SD4 GS.
2004 Zambezi silver Discovery 2 Td5 (Gone)
1963 Surf blue Morris Mini Minor Super de Luxe (my little toy)

Remember the Freelander 2 stopped being manufactured 7 years ago, so dealer Technicians with less than 5 years experience are unlikely to have had training on them - new cars and cars under warranty being their bread and butter.

The independents on the other hand tend to get cars that are no longer under warranty, so are a better bet for the FL2 Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

Interestingly found a thread over on the FFRR forum where a couple of people had identical symptoms to mine. One seemed to be cured with a temp sensor swap.

I don't suppose there is a description of the F2 EGR system anywhere that states what parameters are used to start a regen? Specifically wondering what temp sensors are used to determine when to start chucking excess fuel down the exhaust, whether its engine coolant temp or just using the two EGT probes?

Wondering if mine might be believing conditions are met for a regen, IE exhaust up to temp but in reality it's too low so fuel isn't burning off. Hence the constant regen attempts (P2459 code), diesel fume smell and oil dilution.

A shot in the dark but you could try adding some DPF cleaner which forces a regen at lower temperature, add some of this then go on a fast long run it worked for a mate of mine on a Audi.

Good luck 2013 FL2 XS.
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freypal wrote:

Wondering if mine might be believing conditions are met for a regen, IE exhaust up to temp but in reality it's too low so fuel isn't burning off. Hence the constant regen attempts (P2459 code), diesel fume smell and oil dilution.

No live values sorry, and just the one fault code logged (P2459).