2000 Vauxhall Astra LS from UK and Ireland - Comments

12th Nov 2001, 07:16

"A high revving deathtrap"

What things have gone wrong with the car?

This vehicle has been fine, and reliable. Until last night, driving home from a friends house I noticed the engine was revving oddly, then it took over and started to get out of control (revving). I pulled over onto a lay-by, turned the key and took it out, still nothing happened, the engine was running at extreme RPM, at this point I panicked and got out, I stood on the grass verge as it did this for several minutes, then it gave in, seized I would assume. It red lines @5000rpm, but had gone off the clock whilst in the lay-by, the smoke from it was unreal, as was the noise. I called the fire brigade to assist, they said it was extremely high in temperature, nothing they'd seen before on a car.

General comments?

I was lucky not to have been hurt, as I was driving along at 80mph without control, only steering. Vauxhall will need to investigate this, before someone gets hurt or killed. I am awaiting Vauxhall to collect this to check it out, and will reply on here once I have heard what was wrong with it. Very scary stuff I have to say!


5th Aug 2002, 06:35

It sounds like your oil level was too high, this can cause oil being sucked into the compression chamber and nothing will stop the engine revving to explosion.


18th Nov 2005, 19:39

This problem is caused by a bearing in the turbo failing, causing the engine to burn the oil sucked up from the sump, the engine will keep running at max revs until all the oil from the sump is used up, it's scary when this happens, but it dosen't last for long.

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