Diesel failure

[pnquegan420]

A friend has recently suffered a catastrophic  engine seizure of his diesel and whilst he was unable to give me chapter and verse, it sounded like the usual dilution of the engine oil by fuel suffered by some X350 owners.  The vehicle is actually  a 5 year old Discovery so JLR have offered to meet  a percentage of the cost of replacement.  Whilst the vehicle is out of warranty, the issue is a known fault and the car has always been serviced by a main dealer.  I wondered what responses X350 owners had received from JLR in similar situations?

[jeff1954]

I had a S Type 2004 diesel pre DPF and I had no problems with the engine and a lot of my journeys were short ones. A question here. Did they fit a non DPF engine in the XJ I think the S Type had it fitted after 2006.

Jeff

[BrianG]

The diesel in the X350 was definitely a DPF type. I had a 2005/6 vintage one for a while and got fed up with the frequent oil dilution problems and DPF blocked messages despite a 20 mile each way motorway run to work every day. Various other web sites recommended not filling the sump fully to allow space for dilution but avoid potential runaway problems, but in my book that is plain stupid; even less oil and more dilution percentage is asking for failed bearings. When I found out about the known fault of bearing shells picking up and turning to block the main bearing oil ways that made me determined to get rid of it. A shame because it drove rather well.