New Turbo R owner. And some initial questions ...

[jeckman]

Hello everyone,

So I took the plunge and bought a Turbo R! It's a club I've wanted to join for a while as I've been looking at these cars on and off for a year or so. She has 89.5 on the clock and seems solid on top and bottom, free of corrosion and cosmetically in good nick. The chap I bought her from put about 5k on her in the last 5 months which I thought seemed a good starting point for building up a car I can both use and keep.

Details? It's a 1995 SWB in Royal Blue with Magnolia (?) interior. Chassis 55759, which if the info I've found on other sites is true, is the last of the Series III (at least Turbo Rs) cars. Features of note? It has wood inlays to the doors which I haven't seen on too many other cars; I'll post some pics soon. All in all very happy.

I also bought her knowing she had some repairs necessary to bring her up to scratch. In no particular order:
- Hydraulic Service
- A service (we did the 24,000)
- New Tyres all around
- Brakes (discs and pads)
- various bushings, mounts, hoses, Air Con issues, seat ECU ... the list goes on and on!
- Cosmetically underbody cleaning and painting, keep that rust away!
- Fix the 'blown out' rear 1/4 bumper
- And as a little modification I thought she couldn't do without, added a Flying B

Now that all those things are done, I took delivery of her yesterday (after a 100 mile trip from Bournemouth to London) and headed for the Chilterns to take advantage of our lovely weather. Beautiful drive, and all was going smoothly when ...

THE PROBLEM BEGAN: she STALLED at about 25 mph on a back country road !!

Managed to pull over to a side road - but total power cut off (and that steering is heavy!!) with CHECK GEARBOX, CHECK ABS warning etc (all the lights I guess when you have a stall) coming on. I did the following:
- Turned the engine back on: it started fine
- Revved to 3000,3500, all fine.

Found a pub for lunch, drove back to Central London no problems. Drove it again tonight, no issues.

However, and I noticed this yesterday too but didn't think much of it: an OVERWHELMING FUEL SMELL on idle, low speed driving, sitting in traffic - so much so my wife and I could hardly breathe!! Permeating throughout the car.

So my questions, if you wouldn't mind weighing in are:
- 1) WHAT CAUSED THE STALL?
- 2) FUEL SMELL - OVERWHELMING FUEL SMELL, on Idle, low speed etc. - Have any of you experienced this? Fuel filters etc. should have been changed.
- 3) SPUTTERY START - tonight when I started the car it struggled (say 4-5 seconds) to start and then it sort of 'coughed' into life. Is this related?
- 4) IDLE - I noticed after idling for a few minutes the car starts to 'shake', noticeably, like its rocking. Again, related?

Calling the mechanic tomorrow

Edited by jeckman on Tuesday 4th March 18:58

[jeckman]

Thanks for the reply.

Spoke with the mechanic this am: since the smell seems to be strongest from the boot/rear passenger area (vs. under the bonnet) his guess is the breather hoses attached to top of the fuel tank are damaged/disintegrated. Perhaps this accounts for the stronger smell after topping up the tank ...

Will know more Saturday as he's coming up with a diagnostic tool.

Re: The stalling/engine cut out experienced two days ago, does anyone have any ideas? I'm afraid it might be Engine ECU related ... but maybe something electrical around the fuel supply system instead?? Something that's making the fuel pump cut out I'm thinking.

[jeckman]

Matt and Graeme - thank you both very much for the input. It's much appreciated and helpful for me to guide my conversation with my mechanic before he checks it out.

Not that it's necessarily good news, but I'm glad to hear that the symptoms 'sound' mechanical vs. electrical. I had feared it might be Motronic ECU related given what I've read in a few other posts by other Turbo R owners.

I'll update once I know more on Saturday.

I agree these are wonderful cars ... I'm hoping there isn't too much more to sort in the near term!

[jeckman]

2woody said:

the fuel system is actually quite simple - I'm suspecting a split hose.

it's no more than tank-pump-hoses-pressure regulator and injectors on these later cars.

2woody and Balmoral - thanks for the input - I'll add the gummy throttle plate & roll over switch to the list of things to double check on Saturday.

Assuming a few of the parts in the fuel system are shot (pump and/or hoses) do have you an idea of many hours it would take to sort? I'm just curious if it's a big job or not.


Re :the split hose: do you think it could account for the fuel smell that is extra strong in the Boot and Rear Passenger area? I haven't noticed any leaks on the garage floor but maybe it's spraying to some degree up under the car?

[jeckman]

SilverWraith said:

Fuel pump issues are not uncommon with the Turbo R. They can fail, or become noisy and is quite a common thing to have to replace. This would explain the stalling but the fuel smell does sound like a fuel pipe leak. I am sure that this could be sorted relatively easily with a good mechanic and some money but we all have to invest something to get these now aging cars up to snuff.

Thanks for your thoughts - I plan to get all areas of the fuel system inspected tomorrow/next week. I bought this car with the intention of bringing it up to standard and then using and enjoying it, so would prefer to head off any future stalls by investigating all the possibilities everyone has kindly mentioned. So far I've addressed(I think) a good chunk of the things these cars need at this age.

Since it sounds like Graeme might also have something similar with his car (occasionally smelling fuel in the boot) I'll update once we find the remedy

[jeckman]

Hi everyone - I wanted to give the problems some closure especially after all your helpful comments. I feel bad it's taken so long ... it's taken near on a month to get everything fixed. Long story short the cause of the two problem was traced to the following:

- Fuel smell: regulator hose split in centre of engine

- Stalling: nothing specific, but we renewed the Engine Management relay, put in a new Ignition coupling and checked all the other possible areas (fuel pumps - both fine; throttle plate - clean etc.)

In the course of these investigations more problems helpfully revealed themselves (thank you Steering Rack, now replaced) including the fact that the air intake pipe on the bottom of the engine was incorrectly fitted and the bottom of the seals had collapsed. A day's worth of labour and now replaced and corrected; this seems to have sorted out the lumpy/rough idle.

I don't know if any of your saw Chris Harris' post on his 512TR today ... I can definitely sympathise with him about how keeping these 20 yr+ cars alive and in good health is a labour of love - since I bought her in Feb it's had £11,000 put in! Not at all financially sound blah blah but my Turbo R is finally back tomorrow at lunch and I'm feeling good that she's both sorted and in the matter she deserves.

[jeckman]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the radio silence! Life has been a bit busy - work, travel and moving house in week and half.

Life with 'Larry' (as my wife affectionately refers to M278 'LRY') has been fun and I recently completed a 1300 mile round trip to France without any major issues to report. A bit of wobble thru the wheel at 75+ and brake judder from 65+ down to almost 0. Thinking either a bent wheel (s), alignment (which was previously looked at) and judder wise maybe the discs need skimming as it has recently had new discs, pads and caliper refresh. It's being picked up on Monday to look into this and .... drum roll ... the famous fuel smell ! Yes it has never really gone away and a few weeks ago a cabbie flagged me down to say "mate there's something seriously wrong with your car I've been following you a mile and smelled petrol the whole way"

My hope is that whatever has been going on fuel smell wise has finally reached a critical stage such that it will be easier to find. Already torn out the boot trim, replaced breather hoses, new fuel cap ... not really sure what it could be but then I am far from an expert and not very mechanically minded. Looking into the history file "Customer complains of petrol smell" pops up back in 1996/97 when Barclays was maintaining it but no mention of a fix.

All in all 3000 miles on the old girl since I picked her up earlier this year and mileage I don't know something less than 20. Its fun to drive but bloody annoying pottering around London always mindful that it needs refueling. I suppose there are worse places to spend the time.

Oh and it failed MOT back in May - waited 8 weeks for Autoglass to order some stupid clips to replace the cracked windscreen - but she now has a new windscreen, repaired fog lights (about £600 in total including two MOT tests) and a clean MOT until July 15 no advisories.

It has certainly been an enjoyable experience and although Larry may soon need to find a new home I certainly have been bit by the Bentley bug and look fwd to my next one, perhaps a Conti R...

[jeckman]

Byteme said:

Unless you particularly like the Continental R body style I would suggest you're better staying with your current car or changing to a better/later example. If you do decide to go for one avoid any early cars with the short front seat cushions that have one less flute than your BTR.

Edited by Byteme on Thursday 28th August 21:03

I admit I am attracted to the two door style - and to some extent approached the purchase of my current car as a way to get familiar/comfortable with Bentley ownership without the extra upfront outlay for a Continental R. I love both these cars and my perfect garage would have space for both a Turbo R and Conti R but as I'm about to move to a house with no garage I don't think that's realistic! I'd like to sort out the fuel smell and then try and move Larry on as I don't feel right keeping him outdoors.

Just out of interest do you know what year the Conti R got the longer cushion? I'm glad you mentioned this bc my legs are prone to going dead on short cushions

[jeckman]

V8 FOU said:

Have you replaced the fuel gauge sender gasket? There's an upgraded one available. Then only use super unleaded so there won't be any ethanol to attack the seals....

Not yet. I will mention this to Nigel Sandell but I'm sure he'll already be considering it anyway. If the gasket has degraded would the fuel be leaking into the boot/rear seat upholstery? Sorry don't know where the sender unit is located ... I ask bc earlier this year we stripped out the boot trim and no evidence of leaks or wetness

[jeckman]

Byteme said:

Significantly longer, in fact one entire additional flute.

Following complaints with the early short cushion I developed a mod to increased the length. Easy enough apart from the fact that the cushions were also heated. Having added length to the cushion and lower trim, longer BTR heated seat pads were then sewn into new covers.

Why Crewe never did this from the outset is beyond me.

Thanks for the help guys

[jeckman]

Byteme said:

If you find a near perfect, but early car, I can tell you how to modify the cushion. You'll need (if important to you) two longer heated pads from a BTR You may be surprised just how many early parts Crewe have and how affordable they are. They used to be about £40 each.

Heated element failures were common due to rotten design requiring perfect placement of top hide, element and backing foam laminate prior to stitching. The element runs back and forth along each seat flute and it was quite common for them to be nicked by the sewing machine needle during production. Standard covers would have worked perfectly over basic heated pads fitted underneath. I always felt they got far too hot and the added thickness would have been welcome.

The stitch lines of the flutes were sewn on basic manually operated twin stitch machines following lines marked out on the hide with pencil. I bet, even now, upon close examination, many cars will still show them. Magnolia and parchment interiors are the most obvious where a carpenter's pencil was used and was obvious on all new cars for those who looked.

Thanks I'll keep that in mind. You are certainly knowledgeable about these cars. If you don't mind my asking, can you recommend somewhere in the London area for servicing? I've had this morning a rather unpleasant experience with the garage I'm currently using.

[jeckman]

Byteme said:

You could give Wraith Continental in Barnet a call.

Thanks I might do that. I saw you recommended them in another thread; do you patronise them yourself? The frustration with my current arrangement is that the garage seems too busy; maybe a victim of its own success.

[jeckman]

Byteme said:

The main dealer in Barnet has just closed and some of the staff have set up their own business rather than let decades of experience go to waste.

Good to know, I'll check them out

[jeckman]

Update on the fuel smell: fuel injector seals leaking. Obviously the parts aren't expensive but as I am told the things on top of the engine have to be removed leading to a bill of approx £1700.

Thoughts? Anyone else had this problem?