It was supposed to be just another run up the highway — nothing out of the ordinary. The driver was cruising along in his prime mover when he noticed something strange out the mirrors.
Smoke.
A lot of it.
Thick, grey, and pouring out of the stacks like a chimney on fire.
Instinct kicked in. He reached for the key, tried to shut it down. But the engine kept revving. Harder. Faster. Louder.
No throttle. No response.
Just full-blown runaway.
When a turbo oil seal fails in the wrong way, it can start feeding engine oil straight into the intake system. And when that happens, the engine doesn’t need fuel anymore — it feeds itself with oil. No way to shut it down. No way to stop it. All you can do is wait for it to let go.
Eventually, that’s exactly what happened.
Bang. Seized. Dead.
The truck arrived at Webbie’s Mechanical on the back of a tow truck, with the driver looking like he’d just lived through a mechanical horror movie (and honestly, he had).
We got the bonnet open, checked the oil-soaked mess, and confirmed the diagnosis:
Turbo oil seal failure.
It force-fed the engine oil through the intake until it ran away and ultimately seized.
There’s no easy fix when that happens. The damage is done.
This one needs a full engine replacement to get back on the road — new heart, fresh turbo, and peace of mind that it’s not going to scream itself to death next time it sees a hill.
