Club 80-90 Forums

Hi

I’ve had a bit of bother with my 1989 turbo diesel VW Westfalia California today and was wondering whether anybody could give me some input

While out and about, luckily near home the dreaded buzzer of doom came on and stayed on. A friend previously explained that this means the van needs oil and I should stop asap. I did this and luckily had some oil in the van, although only about a litre.

I put it in, but then the van wouldn’t start. Luckily after about 30 minutes all was OK. I drove to a nearby supermarket, which was only about a mile away and bought a 5L bottle. I put in about 2 ½ litres and assumed that would be OK

A few hours later, having parked up in the meantime, I set off for home, thinking all would be OK. Sadly about 5 minutes later … another buzzer, again full time. I topped up the oil and had to wait another 20 minutes or so before it would start. Q. is there a delay built in preventing a quick restart.

Another 3 miles away, same story, buy only a very short buzzer, not fulltime. I had no more oil, so left van safely, walked to, a nearby garage and bought oil. Filled van and it started immediately.

One mile later, in rear window ‘big time smoke’ so pulled over immediately and called my breakdown recovery company

He checked the oil but it was in fact too much. Anyway he towed me home

Tomorrow I’ll contact a local garage which I have used before, but they are not regular VW campervan repairers. What’s going on … what could the problem be please ?

The recovery man wasn’t too sure, but said that fact it was too full of oil means my initial thought of a blown engine was unlikely.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanks !

Did you check the oil level before you put the oil in? They only take 4.5 litres to max line so you may have put in too much.

BOD means low oil pressure, low oil level could be a cause of low pressure.

There's a good write up in the wiki under DOPWS. It states that over filling can also cause the same issue as the oil foams. Worth a read if you havn't already.

Fingers crossed it's not serious.

Rich

If you put that much oil in without checking the dipstick your a dipstick to be honest.

To much oil can cause blown seals, hydro static lock, etc etc......

The smoke will be the oil being burnt by the turbo and kicking it straight out the exhaust hopefully you haven't caused damage.
As above the BOD means low oil pressure it's more than likely a poor earth or sensor and for the sake of pulling you a dipstick you could potential cause £100's of pounds of damage