smoky diesels

kyote00

Was behind a A6 (1.9tdi) at the weekend and a Peugeot 307 (hdi) this morning...

Both seemed to emit very smoky exhaust fumes when putting the boot down....

The A6 was an '04 and the 307 was an '06 --- is this normal for a diesel ?

JohnCleary

In a sense, yes. However they can get more smokey over time.

Could be the result of a clogged Crankcase Breather Filter, or a caked up EGR valve

siralfalot

yeah normal enough

barryfitz

mainly unburnt fuel and burnt oil, Ive never seen a diesel any other way under heavy accelertion. They'l do that immediately after leaving the forecourt.

or they were using green diesel :P

normal for a little bit of black smoke just before the turbo comes on

siralfalot

yep, but if it churns out clouds of black smoke continously while the turbo is under load you may have a problem

cantdecide

People think their diesels are indestructable and I've seen a lot of bravado when it comes to maintaining them.

HungryJoey

Can be a botch turbo!

But its pretty common for them to churn out the smoke under heavy acceleration anyway, my dads Passat TDi does it when he puts down the boot and when the turbo is under heavy load.

Hj

peasant

Every diesel smokes ...diesel doesn't burn without producing some soot or small particulates. When you put the welly down, have the turbo at full boost and the injectors at full capacity ..then yes, it does smoke. High pressure injected modern diesels are particularly smoky and the soot particles are a lot smaller than on old pre-chamber diesels.

A lot of badly maintained diesels also smoke on the overrun, as the fuel injection isn't adjusted downward quickly enough and the mixture is too rich.


Give another 3 - 5 years (once the whole of Ireland drives a diesel) and there will be a "particulate emissions tax" or "pollution exclusion zones" (like they have in Germany now) where the governement will claw back all the money they lost with the introduction of the CO2 tax

guy I know has a 07 TDI with a particulate filter and it doesnt smoke AT ALL :O

he had the same model car in a 05 before without the filter and it used to smoke just before the turbo kicked in.

I once saw a TDI golf driven with a blown turbo and it left a trail of smog
so as said above it could be a turbo problem too


Ive used the ultra low sulphur diesel in my ten year old turbo diesel and there is very little smoke, anyone else notice a difference?
Does anyone add kerosene to their diesel in winter either? My car manual says you can (at very low temperatures) was wondering what difference it would make (if it would decrease smoke) and if its legal in Ireland !!

E92

peasant wrote: »

Give another 3 - 5 years (once the whole of Ireland drives a diesel) and there will be a "particulate emissions tax" or "pollution exclusion zones" (like they have in Germany now) where the governement will claw back all the money they lost with the introduction of the CO2 tax

Aren't the "pollution exclusion zones" in Germany just for cars that are high emitters of CO2, though?

peasant

E92 wrote: »

Aren't the "pollution exclusion zones" in Germany just for cars that are high emitters of CO2, though?

nope ...it's all about "Feinstaub" ...i.e. small particulate emissions

JHMEG

Medical advances being what they are they recently identified the particular variation of lung cancer caused by diesel fumes, just as they have for tobacco and asbestos.

Will be interesting in the future when we start getting specific numbers of deaths caused by diesel fumes.

blackbox

Deleted User wrote: »

Does anyone add kerosene to their diesel in winter either? My car manual says you can (at very low temperatures) was wondering what difference it would make (if it would decrease smoke) and if its legal in Ireland !!

No - it is not legal to use kerosene in a road vehicle as excise duty will not have been paid on it. i.e. it has the same status as green diesel - OK to use it in an agricultural vehicle (or boat).

cantdecide

blackbox wrote: »

No - it is not legal to use kerosene in a road vehicle as excise duty will not have been paid on it. i.e. it has the same status as green diesel - OK to use it in an agricultural vehicle (or boat).

I have an uncle with a 2 cyl volvo engine in his boat. It's from 1980 and the iowner of the boatyard says it should have given upyears ago but it's going relatively strong except that it's intermittantly fairly smoky even after new injectors and a serviced pump.

Will adding kerosene help this??

craichoe

kyote00 wrote: »

Was behind a A6 (1.9tdi) at the weekend and a Peugeot 307 (hdi) this morning...

Both seemed to emit very smoky exhaust fumes when putting the boot down....

The A6 was an '04 and the 307 was an '06 --- is this normal for a diesel ?

It can also happen from a failed MAF, common enough problem. Air/Fuel mix is wrong and can cause excess smoke.

JohnCleary

craichoe wrote: »

It can also happen from a failed MAF, common enough problem. Air/Fuel mix is wrong and can cause excess smoke.

And MAF's do like to fail.. quite often!

tossy

Diesels are far from indestructable,but if cared fro properly the are pretty much bullet proof.

Ive never seen smoke from the back of mine apart from the odd cold moring,even then its not black,i see alot of this on the orads too most would be fitted with cheapo e bay tuning boxes and a few with dodgey cowboy remaps.

Ta me anseo

Just wondering about this question again:

My diesel (2.0 TDCI) smokes when accelerating in any way hard. It looks more like dust coming out the back and certainly isn't black smoke, but it's there all the same. It reduces a little once the Turbo kicks in but does not go away.

Sometimes when pulling away in first gear it will give out a small little bit of dusty smoke.

Normal or not?

Steve

Don't worry, it's only cancer causing NOx and PP emissions that you can see - not harmfull to the environment at all if you believe the government... at least the CO2 cost is low.

Oilrig

The latest generation diesels should not smoke. ECU controlled injector tech should eliminate this. Anyone noticed that the current D's no longer have the exhaust pointed down but now straight out ala their petrol cousins?

I had one of the last indirect injection, pre digi control, diesels, it had a very simple answer to full boost combustion temp increase - overfuel... it resembled a squid when under acceleration... black fog.

Common rail & electric injector technology has cracked the Holy Grail with regards diesel engines, no longer noisy, 170bhp from a docile 2.0 litre, 50 MPG, way to go IMHO...

JHMEG

stevec wrote: »

Don't worry, it's only cancer causing NOx and PP emissions that you can see - not harmfull to the environment at all if you believe the government... at least the CO2 cost is low.

Well said.

Wish someone had told Gormley that there's more, a lot more, to diesel fumes than just CO2.