My name is Andrew Klimacki living near Belfast, Northern Ireland. We bought one of the new 110 defenders in August 2007. Quite happy with it and use it for towing and farm work. However we did have a fuel contamination problem with it earlier in the year, January. This could have come about through a contaminated filling at a petrol station (my wife had problems at the first pump and had to move to a second one) or as a result of driving through heavy snow at about the same time. (Having come to a grinding halt soon after these events we suffered the indignity of an AA tow back to the dealer in a vehicle only 6 months old) Dealer not very helpful but gave us reason for break down as contaminated fuel, did drain tank and presented us with a sample of the contaminated fuel. We have recently heard through an independent Land Rover garage who also bought a 110 at about the same time and who also had a similar problem with contaminated fuel that there may be a design defect in this area with breather pipes allowing water to contaminate fuel with the new 110s. Prior to going back to the dealer (for our first service) I would be very interested to hear from anyone who may know something about this, if indeed there is a problem with fuel contamination with the new 110s. I have been lead to believe there may be but this is not being made public by Land Rover or their dealers. Fuel injectors have been checked but the motor is still a bit noisier than I feel it should be. I would welcome any feed back. Thank you.
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Further to my comments above. I have since been to see a third 110 owner, this time in Dublin, with the same age and model vehicle as mine and he also has had problems with fuel and timing. His 110 is due a service soon and some modifications are to be carried out under warranty. Something to do with the/a "common pair system switch". Means very little to me at the moment but may increasingly become of interest. That is the story so far. I will keep you posted. Andrew Klimacki

Andrew
There is a problem with the fuel tank breather location, its situated at the rear of the rear passenger side wheel arch. Its a small pipe with a goose neck on it. Water gets thrown up and as you use the fuel in the tank water gets in. Ours manifested itself after 7 weeks of owning the vehicle, we came back from Edinburgh via the high roads around Braemar and the roads were awash with water. Constant downpour for 2 hours. The next day after starting the vehicle it shook and the engine rocked in the engine bay. Upshot was the dealer blamed us for filling the fuel tank with contaminated fuel. They took the fuel sample and a high percent was water. This took at least 3 weeks for the dealer to admit there was a problem with the vehicle and it would be covered by warranty. We needed to do alot of investigating ourselves to get the dealer to believe us that we did not fill the tank with water. We contacted the local area where we last filled up to see if local garages were getting contaminated fuel problem cars in but nothing from there. Another dealer told us that they have had 2 in like this and eventually 1 fuel pump 6 injectors 2 visits to the dealers and the vehicle off the road for 6 weeks we got it fixed.
The tank breather should be either moved behind the plastic cover taht protects the lights or as some people have done extend the goose neck withn another pipe to the location mentione earlier.
If you search other Forums LRO i think had a good thread on this.
Tony

Good morning Tony
Well thank you very much indeed for your story which is almost identical to mine with our 110 . it could have been contaminated fuel from a garage pump but I do feel and have always felt this was unlikely. We talked about this to our local petrol garage where we have an account and the back up systems, and alarm systems, and print out checks he was able to show us would indicate to me that this was very unlikely to happen at established petrol stations. But at the same time we did have a heavy snow fall and just could not resist, as a family, taking the vehicle out for a really good run around in the snow. Up hills, through drifts etc. It was brilliant as was the county which was truly impressive (maybe in hind sight we should not have been quite so smug about our ability to drive through snow while others were getting stuck. Actually we did help a few individuals with our tow rope) Anyway the next time we used the 110 which was for towing a horse box we came to a grinding halt and once back with the dealer I did find them very non committal, unhelpful and certainly were unwilling to suggest or carry out any checks other than clear the system and get us running again, present us with the sample and charge us for the privelage. Ever since the 110 has been much nosier and very much more like a sawing machine which the dealer again would do nothing about when i returned to see them. Oh by the way it is CHARLES HURST Boucher Road Belfast. It's only thanks to an independent Landrover garage in Saintfield who actually checked our injectors for damage (Hurst didn't even suggest it) as they also had the problem that gradually we have realised there may be a fault. So Tony thank you. I am due for a 1st service soon and gathering a bit of a case to present to Hurst't so that we can get back to a normal sounding and running County. My next step is to do an accurate fuel consumption check. I'll keep you posted here. Andrew Klimacki

Andrew

LR certainly do know about it but i think they are not advertising the fact. Get the LR dealer to ring the technical services at LR and explain the symptoms. Ours needed a new HP fuel pump and 4 injectors. This took 5 weeks to get parts as they were on back order. We can only assume that there has been a run on these. When we got it back it only took 10 miles for it to sound like a tractor. Back on a tow truck and another 2 injectors. Ours was the first the dealer had seen of this fault and after the 6 weeks trauma we had they said that they had seen others coming in with the same faults.
If the dealer is unwilling to talk to LR technical services then you could always write a letter to customer services outlineing your problems and unhelpfull dealer. We heard that there was a service bulliten issued to relocate the fuel tank breather. This seems to be doing things on the quiet rather than a recall to fix it before the problems happen.
Best of luck with your problems.
Tony

Andrew,

I am led to believe the problems I am having , Sounding odd and not always running smooth on start -up , is as a result of a faulty switch in the Common Rail Fuel System. Some transits have been reporting this also.

And Welcome to the forum !!

Nidge

I have seen mention of the fuel tank breather issue before. As an aside the location on my Puma is the same as it was on my last TD5.

My 110 going to main dealer to have modified breather fitted under warranty.

I have an 07 Defender and have just had the fuel breather relocated, under warranty, to behind the rear light shield.

Looking on various forums this seemed to be a serious design flaw on the 07 Defender, are they losing the plot?

Just had a look at a 54 plate TD5 and the fuel breather is in exactly the same place.

Was it a problem with the TD5'S? If so,why have they just decided to move it?(I saw an 08 plate with it still under the wheelarch). If not, why has it become a problem?

Jas wrote:

Looking on various forums this seemed to be a serious design flaw on the 07 Defender, are they losing the plot?

I'm beginning to be glad I bought a TD5 not a Puma

I'm not. Over the past 30+ years I've owned most models of square LR's produced and the current Puma is by far the best of the bunch.

Miserableolgit wrote:

I'm not. Over the past 30+ years I've owned most models of square LR's produced and the current Puma is by far the best of the bunch.

With regard to my original posting about 'fuel contamination', thank you ALL very much for your comments, experiences and advice. What i have read has been most enlightening and much appreciated. i will now be better armed to tackle the dealer and the issue of warranty work on breather pipes which hopefully will solve water contamination problems in the future.

i suppose my next question has to be, what might the cause of the 'knocking' from the engine be? damaged fuel injectors? The motor does sound rather like a sawing machine/tractor at the moment particularly under load and when reversing. It's not serious noise (well it might be for all I know!) but laud enough and more so than other 110's i have heard.

Thank you. Andrew Klimacki

Hi there...defender 110 xs sat in the garage 7000miles '08 - currently with fuel problem. Originated with engine management warning light coming on intermittently, was reset by man in van from roadside assistance- popped into dealer and they gave me a disco 3 no ifs buts they were keeping it! Technical bulletin has been issued about the fuel system/breather and contamination issues by landrover. Not sure yet what the fix is, but I’m getting a new pump and injectors.

Other than that, top motor! Fuel economy typical 29.5 rural and 25 on motorways sitting at ‘normal’ motorway speeds 80ish…… around 27 if I stay around 65-70mph. what a motor….shame about the stupid engine management that takes over your idle speed in low range (anti-stall??)….. who ever thought that one up does need a good slap…… and clearly could not drive, and or use a clutch properly-it’s utterly pointless and would love to get rid of that feature. Otherwise completely satisfied…..except the percentage of fuel tax we pay….but that’s another story that I won’t win!

happy landrovering days.......

simon
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Tigger

Following reading this post I moved the breather on mine myself, took about 2 mins to relocate it behind the splash guard. Still not sure its an ideal place though, could easily end up submerged when exiting deep water.
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Andy

110 2.4d XS CSW