Hi

I have a skoda fabia 1.6 diesel 2011, yesterday found while driving it had a slight judder then lost power, engine revving  its head off and it was engulfed in smoke from engine bay to exhaust, car filled up with smoke   engine would not switch off with key  had to stall it to stop it,battery went totally dead,

Got towed home started it with jump start  after a minute sent onto full revs again engulfed in smoke and again unable to switch off with key .any ideas ,?

4 minutes ago, Daviehigg said:

Hi

I have a skoda fabia 1.6 diesel 2011, yesterday found while driving it had a slight judder then lost power, engine revving  its head off and it was engulfed in smoke from engine bay to exhaust, car filled up with smoke   engine would not switch off with key  had to stall it to stop it,battery went totally dead,

Got towed home started it with jump start  after a minute sent onto full revs again engulfed in smoke and again unable to switch off with key .any ideas ,?

The turbocharger has eaten itself resulting in a runaway. If the engine has not overrevved itself to death you are d@mn*d lucky.

 

As an intellectual thing do you have either or both of white smoke and a very low oil level? I think this will be "yes" to both.

White smoke  but oil level is fine

Hello, welcome to the forum. You say the oil level is 'fine' - are you certain that it's not lower than when you last checked, before this runaway event? Had you recently topped up oil before this happened? 

Hadn't checked before journey but oil level is not below maximum

Just to add I switched it off very quickly.

Unless an injector has failed, resulting in uncontrolled fuel supply to engine, the most likely cause is as Paws4 says. 

Edited 28 April, 20242 yr by Warrior193
typo

Thank you for your help now off to strip out the turbo to assess the damage !

1 hour ago, Paws4Thot said:

The turbocharger has eaten itself

Would this most likely be accompanied by screeching or squealing due to bearing failure?

Hard to tell with the juddering but on inspection  I've noticed the air pipe has a lot of oil in it

The 1980's called about ball bearing turbos...

 

Joking aside, the turbo use oil bushes to float the shaft journals, when the shaft breaks the oil is pumped past the seals straight into the inlet and the engine runs away. Tldr, the turbo has failed catastrophically.

They snap their turbine spindle with makes the compressor wheel fall off and allow oil from the turbo into the charge air system and they run away. Only experienced it once, new underwear required.

7 hours ago, Crasher said:

Only experienced it once, new underwear required.

I've seen this twice "live" with my body and my wallet at a safe distance from the vehicle in question. "James Bond" smokescreens generated on both occasions, and oil consumption around one gallon per mile. (estimate)

🤣 certainly might be an expense i could do without !

A few years ago I showed Mrs Crasher some YouTube runaway video’s as we had a car come in that had suffered such an event and the engine quite literally fragged itself. A few weeks later she called and said a neighbour had been driving by in her 3 series when it ran away. She dumped it outside our house and then did one up the road, Mrs Crasher grabbed the cat and hid in the kitchen at the back of the house.