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Recently this cars turbocharger had broken due to a retaining nut coming loose and being ingested basically writing off the turbo charger. So we're replaced the turbocharger with a new one and tried to start the engine.
Initially the engine started then after a few seconds it stuttered and stumbled then slowly stalled. After trickle changing the battery and making sure every thing was in the right place we tried to start it again...the same thing happened only it got to higher revs before stopping. Now when we try to start the engine it is cranking (quickly) but will not start. It sounds exactly like the cam belt has snapped however we checked the cam belt and it's practically like new. We think there might be an issue with compression or the hydraulic lift valves but we can't be certain. Just wondering if anyone has came across this before?

Also you could still drive the car in time after the turbocharger broke and before the replacment was fitted it just wasn't very pleasant.

More on the vehicle
NISSAN QASHQAI 1.5L TDCI
08 REG
70K MILES

Thanks for reading :).

Check and/or replace the diesel filter.

Is it a common rail diesel? It sounds like there could be air in the system, did you disconnect any fuel pipes to access the turbo? When I've had air in the system after changing fuel pipes etc it took a good 30~60 secs of turning over to pull the fuel through. I am only guessing here though as I'm not familiar with the engine.

my father has this car. its a 13 plate and has 40k on it.

i cant offer any advice sorry. ill follow the thread though just incase out of interest like.

since my dad bought it ive heard nowt but stories of how poor an engine these cars have unfortunately.

Hope you get lucky and get it fixed though dude

Thank you for the reply

Post subject: Re: Nissan Qashqai 1.5tdci engine wont start. Reply with quote
Is it a common rail diesel? It sounds like there could be air in the system, did you disconnect any fuel pipes to access the turbo? When I've had air in the system after changing fuel pipes etc it took a good 30~60 secs of turning over to pull the fuel through. I am only guessing here though as I'm not familiar with the engine.

During the whole repair we never touched anything to do with the fuel system. We removed the exhuast and the turbocharger then fitted a new turbo and refitted the exhuast. We thought there might of been air in the fuel system aswell so we did bleed the system but still no joy. Yes it is a rail diesel engine. Thank you.

Check and/or replace the diesel filter.

We could try that but we are pretty sure that wouldn't be the problem but again we will try. Thank you

Some of these engines, the Peugeot 1.6 hdi for sure, has a rubber primer bulb in the fuel system. On the Peugeot it's near the top of the engine.
If it sounds as if the cam belt has snapped, and it hasn't, and the engine is cranking quickly you have to wonder if there's any compression. Something could have got into the top end and done some damage.

Fin, the engines do have a poor rep, I've got the similar unit in a Pug. Doing some reading it seems that a lot of it is down to them being quite high performance, over long service intervals being recommended, and using the wrong oil. People in the know recommend changing the oil at half the recommended, draining the oil by the sump plug when it is hot, not by pumping it out through the dip, and using a good quality oil of the type recommended by the maker. There's a service bulletin referred to here
http://c4owners.org/plugins/faq/faq.php?0.cat.5.110

Thank you for the reply dave.

Yes there is a primer bulb top left of the engine we have taken into account the fuel system but we think it's safe to assume that it isn't the problem.
Yes that's exactly what we are thinking there might be a problem with compression but we can't figure out what everything is back on the way it should be with no visible damage. Will have to carry out a compression check.

On a side note when we did refit the turbocharger we did forget to do one thing which is before you turn the engine on you should disable the fuel injectors and crank the engine to establish pressure in the new turbocharger before enabling the injectors and actually trying to start the engine. Could this have caused an issue? The car has had an oil change with the correct specified oil so we are at loss.

We have also heard about issues with these engines but you just hope nothing actually goes wrong

Short term at least I can't really see why failing to crank the engine to bring the oil pressure up in the turbo would give a problem with starting. I don't know for sure though.
I'd say that you're right, and a comp test has to be the next thing.

Yeah that's what I thought I can't see no logical reason why it would cause this kind of fault but you never know

Yeah will have to carry out a compression test and see what going on in there

Priming the turbo before the engine kicks into life helps prevent initial dry running and damage.
One has to ask the question which side of the turbo failed, if air side could some debri have gone into the valve guide area of the head or cyclinders, this would be unlikely if it has an intercooler!

I cannot remember which side of the turbocharger failed but what I do know is when we removed the turbocharger a nut fell out on to the floor from inside the turbocharger. After looking into the turbocharger we found where it had come from (internal) and that it had not caused any substantial fragments to break off the fins to then cause further damage. This vehicle does have an intercooler and we doubt FOD ingestion is a culprit as the engine was running before the repair (albeit noisy because of turbo) and started twice after the repair (for a short while) and now it won't start at all. Would it cause all cylinders to stop at the same time? I'm not sure but I think it's unlikely.

thank you for your reply.

Suggest you seek a Nissan / Renault forum for more engine specific advice tbh.

Ideas :

Check for fault codes pending in ECM
Do you know why the old turbo failed? Oil starvation? Has the oil seal blown dumping oil into the intercooler/engine?
Check CPS signal present (scope or via OBD)
Check CAM signal " "
Check MPS signal - plausible?
Check MAF signal - " "
Check for fuel injection pulse (scope) (+black smoke from exh)
Exhaust may be obstructed
If excess fuel is injected it can cause bore wash (oil is dispersed from piston rings result in loss comp)

1.5 DCI is a Renault K9K engine, have you scanned it for codes ?? any flashing lights on the dash ? does the nats light go out when you crank it ?

is the cam belt tight ? are the vacuum lines connected to the turbo and air pump correctly have you taken the intercooler off as it could of dumped a load of oil, do you have fuel pressure, done a leak down test ?

you say a nut destroyed the turbo how do you know that ? the engine could of dropped a valve

Thank you for your replies.
Cantseeitfrommyhouse

Thank you for your suggestions we will go through them when we start working on it again. It wouldn't be a bad I seek to seek help from a Nissan forum
The old turbo failed due to FOD ingestion which bent and damaged the blades

We haven't checked the intercooler so we will look at it

We checked the exhaust there's no obvious obstruction. Sorry I haven't answered them all but we will use them!

Flash22
We haven't scanned for codes (purely because we don't have the equipment) there is no flashing lights on the dash and the nats light does extinguish.

When we checked the cam belt it was tight and not loose. The vacuum line has been reconnected properly we have checked that a few times along with the air pump. We didn't take the intercooler off so.we will definitely have a look at that. We do have fuel pressure and we are going to carry out a leak test today.

Yes the nut fell out so we had a look around the turbocharger and found a thread with no nut on it.

Cheapest way to read OBD codes if you don't have a mate with a garage is to download an OBD reader to your smartphone and get a Bluetooth adapter which plugs into the cars port. The Bluetooth adapter is around a fiver on ebay and will enable you to read and clear any stored codes.