Yesterday my oil light went on and the engine started loudly clacking in my 2004 Land Rover Discovery. The car starts and will move, but there’s a loud and fast ticking/clacking sound coming at regular intervals (think like a very loud, sped up clock tick). Please help! I had the car towed and the mechanic could tell I knew very little about cars and is trying to rip me off in a major way. Might it be the oil pump? Is my beloved car done for? It was my dad’s car, but he passed away in September, so I don’t have his insight available to me anymore.
Any advice would be much appreciated. The car has never given me a problem before this, and it has roughly 84,300 miles on it. I put additional oil in it in January. I read somewhere than there is a design flaw that cause a whole bunch if 2003s to fail because of the oil pump.
You stated that back in January you put additional oil in the engine but have not stated how low the engine was on oil, who discovered this lack of oil, and the circumstances about operation of the vehicle when you found out the engine needed oil.
You’re assuming the pump is the problem and that may well be but any problems could also be related to lack of regular oil changes and/or running it low or out of oil several months ago.
If the mechanic gives you bad news on this thing don’t automatically assume that he’s trying to rip you off. Based on your post bad news should be expected.
I would have checked the oil level first thing when this started. Did it gradually get worse or just happen all at once? It could be a bad oil pump, low oil, or some sludge broke loose and clogged something. The sludge is more of an issue on certain engines than others, especially if oil isn’t changed frequently.
The best thing you did was stop driving the car and have it towed. This may or may not have been able to prevent serious damage to the engine. Low oil pressure and overheating are two instances were you cannot keep driving with the idiot lights on if you care about your engine.