Smokey TDI 130 PD

[Deleted member 28319]

Noticed that my Mk1 Leon's smoking a lot more recently despite having the air and fuel filter changed at the last service. I also use Millers and have nearly used my 1st 500 ml bottle. The performance of the car is fine but i leave everything behind me covered in Soot !! . The Cars done 89K and i'd hate to think it's a Turbo related so could it be anything else, I've never used supermarket derv and usually fill up with regular diesel at my local Total garage. Could it be the colder weather or a maf issue.Also the Mpg is not that great with real mpg about 43 mpg. Welcome ideas

 

[Robb1990]

Sounds like MAF or coolant temp sensor to me tbh. Vag-com or a code reader will put you in the right place first though.

 

[Danny_FR]

The smoke could be a number of things or maybe it smoked before and you haven't noticed it till now. As for the mpg, mine is the same now it's gone alot colder. In the "summer" months, on my way to work I could get 55mpg easily (10 miles motorway, 2 miles B-roads, 1 mile town) but now it's touching freezing, the best I can get is 42-ish mpg. It takes alot longer for your engine to warm up now and an engine uses more fuel when cold.

 

[Deleted member 28319]

Thanks guys, my drive to work is about 8 miles each way on b roads. Did a slightly longer trip tonight and the obc registered 46.7 which i guess equates to about 42 mpg as mine is about 10% out. In the summer on the occasional trip (+ 20 miles)it would measure about 54 so that'd be a real 48-49 mpg

With regard to the temp sensor i had this changed about 4 months back so that only leaves the MAF. Any other symptoms i should be aware of for a failing MAF,

 

[s10mph]

Bad MAF's cause the turbo to switch of and go into limp mode, usually happens when accelerating hard through the gears. Switching of the ignition and re-starting brings everything back to normal.
Lots off white oily smoke would be yer turbo falling to bits.
Black sooty smoke and rough idling when cold is usually the EGR valve or manifolds sooted up. Maybe yours at 89k miles has just decided to clean it's self out. . Bernie

 

[Ibiza Dan]

Boost leak maybe causing the extra smoke?

 

[Deleted member 28319]

I got my MOT coming up soon so i'm a little concerned that it may fail on the emissions. Plan on giving it a good run on the Motorway the night before but still a little concerned. With regard to the MAF the car pulls fine and i have no performance problems but the engine can sound 'Chuggy' from the inside in the morning for the 1st couple of miles and then calms down. Think i'm gonna have to bite another bullet and put the car into my local 'Indy'. Had tracking arms bushes fitted 1 month ago for £212 then an exhaust bracket snapped 2 weeks ago so that was another £168 to replace half an exhaust, bit like a Money pit at the moment..

 

[s10mph]

Feeling a bit "Chuggy" when cold is normal when cold.

 

[Deleted member 28319]

Well it's in the Garage tomorrow so will see what they say..I also unplugged the MAF on Sunday, added a little vaseline to the connectors and plugged and unplugged it a few times.. Smoke's still there on start up, but not sure if its my imagination but the car also seems a lot smoother and responsive, anyway thanks for the input and I'll report back when the garage have checked it out..

 

[muddyboots]

The MOT emissions test isn't done under any load, so you'd have to have really serious problems for it to fail on the smoke test....

 

[muddyboots]

Bad MAF's cause the turbo to switch of and go into limp mode, usually happens when accelerating hard through the gears.

Not normally - a failing MAF usually causes hesitation but doesn't throw a fault (which is why they're hard to diagnose without logging readings).

 

[Deleted member 28319]

The place i get my MOT done always ask for proof of cam belt change when MOT'g diesels,
this i assume rightly or wrongly is because they'll be revving the engine hard....

 

[s10mph]

The place i get my MOT done always ask for proof of cam belt change when MOT'g diesels,
this i assume rightly or wrongly is because they'll be revving the engine hard....

Perhaps you should not have your car tested at this garage as they should not be revving the engine hard for the smoke opacity test.
Muddyboot, Yeah, I know other fuel problems occur on dodgy mafs, just though I'll share what happened when my maf started playing up. No fault codes registered on mine either. Had a Golf PD130.
I still think the most likely cause of our friends smoke is a clogged up EGR valve and manifold. Bernie.

 

[silver surfer]

its a requirement by vosa to ask if cambelt is ok and the owner takes any risk of engine damage if not as you do rev them for a short blast to rev limiter

 

[Deleted member 28319]

Well Garage put the diagnostics on the car and could not find any fauly with the engine management system. I did mention the EGR valve and they said that would have shown up on the diagnostic. The Garage are Audi/Vw/Seat specialists so i would have thought they know there stuff. They did comment however that they found oil leaking from the Intercooler however i have not noticed any drop in oil level since the car was serviced 4k ago. So wander if this is a red herring, asking if they could give the intercooler a good going over they advised that this would probably take a couple of days to do and be an expensive job which put me off so guess i'll leave as is. To be honest does'nt seem so bad now after i took it to 3500 - 4000 rpm a couple of times and the weathers warmed up a little...

 

[s10mph]

Shame the fault was not found. The EGR clogging does not show up as fault on VAG.com. If you are doing short journeys over a period of time the injectors will also clog up, again nothing shows up on VAG.com. As you now have done some high revs. it may have well have cleared all yer tubes out.
If the bad smoking comes back cleaning the EGR valve is easily done yourself, was in Volkswagen Driver mag. a couple of months ago. Cleaning the injectors is not diy, they have to be cleaned on a ultrasonic cleaning rig and can be done by any fuel injection workshop. Bernie.

 

[muddyboots]

Oil leaking around the intercooler is perfectly normal.
I would have thought that a VW/Seat/Audi specialist should know this, as all TDIs do it !

In any case, pulling the IC off is a fairly straightforward job, think they're taking you for a ride if they're quoting a couple of days to do that. On my Ibiza PD130 I had the bumper off, intercooler off, cleaned/flushed it out, replaced it all, all within an afternoon on my driveway.

(A pointless exercise by the way, it won't fix your problems.)

 

[muddyboots]

Given that you can drive with an intake pipe popped off, losing loads of boost, without an error being flagged - if the EGR wasn't closing properly and losing boost, that wouldn't show up a fault either, but could cause smoke.

 

[Johnsey]

How would you diagnose a dodgy EGR out of interest?

 

[Deleted member 28319]

Thanks for the info guys if the problem returns i'll look at the EGR valve, bonus i suppose is they only charged me £35 all in, diagnostic log is quite impressive ! showed up i'd removed the aerial antenna yesterday, anyhow thanks again Bernie, Muddy boots and all...