Strange problems in 05 Avensis 2L D4D

iregk

Right all this is a strange one.

Driving down the M7 a few weeks back my car started to loose power and pump white smoke out. When I say loss of power I mean 80km in 5th is all it would give me. Well I got it back to the house gave it to the garage who ran a diag that showed nothing at all. I could drive it up to them no problem. They topped all fluids up and gave it back to me.

I drove it for a week with no problems. Second trip on the M7 and the same problem again. 100km in 5th white smoke but this time no loss of power. Stopped for 5 minutes. Turned it back on and no smoke, car drove the rest of the way fine. Checked oil and water levels, no drop off.

Drove it fine for another week and on the way home from town last sunday going up the N81 I'd a complete loss of power. 10km in 1st was all it would give me. Again turned it off for 5 minutes and back on, drove home no problem. All week its been fine.

I've checked the rad and it looks clean enough but to be safe I changed the air filter. Was considering changing the fuel and oil filters as well.

Any clues?

Plug

Was the coolant low when they topped it up? Head gasket maybe. When your driving on a motorway the engine will be operating at higher temps/engine speed so between that and thermal expansion in the engine maybe the head gasket started leaking coolant into the cylinders. Do a coolant pressure test.

iregk

How does one do a coolant pressure test?

johnos1984

White smoke out the tail pipe in this case is unburnt fuel I'd wager.

My Passat done it. Turned out to be over fueling due to a whole host of niggly issues but it's sorted now.

Plug

iregk wrote: »

How does one do a coolant pressure test?

With a coolant pressure tester. The garage should have one, basically they will pressurize the coolant system and it should show a leak if it is leaking. If its leaking into the cylinders well then you know you have a blown head gasket. White smoke often means that you are burning coolant. I don't think it a fuelling issue as it showed up no faults with the diagnostic computer and the smoke was not black. Tell the garage to do a compression test too. Good luck

johnos1984

Plug wrote: »

With a coolant pressure tester. The garage should have one, basically they will pressurize the coolant system and it should show a leak if it is leaking. If its leaking into the cylinders well then you know you have a blown head gasket. White smoke often means that you are burning coolant. I don't think it a fuelling issue as it showed up no faults with the diagnostic computer and the smoke was not black. Tell the garage to do a compression test too. Good luck

White smoke is unburnt diesel

There was no change in coolant levels according to the OP.

It can indicate injector failure in a serious case. In mine it was over fueling due to all the ecu readings being off due to a failed egr and the exhaust manifold gasket having disintegrated

kildare.17hmr

They give terrible trouble with injectors them D4D, it causes the car to go into limp mode, alot of the time we found white smoke accompanied the problem and also they would be very hard to start when it got worse.

Did you have any light on the dash or did the garage plug it in and get a fault code? Cant remember the code off hand but it shows as "major fuel leak"

mondeoman2

iregk wrote: »

Right all this is a strange one.

Driving down the M7 a few weeks back my car started to loose power and pump white smoke out. When I say loss of power I mean 80km in 5th is all it would give me. Well I got it back to the house gave it to the garage who ran a diag that showed nothing at all. I could drive it up to them no problem. They topped all fluids up and gave it back to me.

I drove it for a week with no problems. Second trip on the M7 and the same problem again. 100km in 5th white smoke but this time no loss of power. Stopped for 5 minutes. Turned it back on and no smoke, car drove the rest of the way fine. Checked oil and water levels, no drop off.

Drove it fine for another week and on the way home from town last sunday going up the N81 I'd a complete loss of power. 10km in 1st was all it would give me. Again turned it off for 5 minutes and back on, drove home no problem. All week its been fine.

I've checked the rad and it looks clean enough but to be safe I changed the air filter. Was considering changing the fuel and oil filters as well.

Any clues?

Same happened to my Brother in laws 04 Avensis d4d,turned out to be the EGR valve,not sure how much it cost him:)

George Dalton

Second vote for EGR valve here. They are expensive from Toyota unfortunately. €250 + VAT IIRC.

Plug

johnos1984 wrote: »

White smoke is unburnt diesel

There was no change in coolant levels according to the OP.

It can indicate injector failure in a serious case. In mine it was over fueling due to all the ecu readings being off due to a failed egr and the exhaust manifold gasket having disintegrated

White smoke in most cases does indicate burning coolant, if its darker white well then it could be a fuelling issue. I would have thought a fuelling issue would make the smoke go darker and worse case scenario, pure black. I heard these give issues with both head gaskets and injectors. Either way it will cost a bomb.

iregk

kildare.17hmr wrote: »

They give terrible trouble with injectors them D4D, it causes the car to go into limp mode, alot of the time we found white smoke accompanied the problem and also they would be very hard to start when it got worse.

Did you have any light on the dash or did the garage plug it in and get a fault code? Cant remember the code off hand but it shows as "major fuel leak"

Thanks for the replies lads. So we have 3 possibles. HG, injector or EGR valve.

Didn't have any light on the dash and when the garage plugged it in he said it came back with nothing. No errors, all sensors reporting back perfectly. Thats mostly whats annoying me. At least if it said something then there is something concrete.

maidhc

iregk wrote: »

Didn't have any light on the dash and when the garage plugged it in he said it came back with nothing. No errors, all sensors reporting back perfectly. Thats mostly whats annoying me. At least if it said something then there is something concrete.

I think you need to go to real mechanic rather than someone who merely reports that "the computer says no"!

George Dalton

In fairness to the mechanic I don't see what more he could have done in this case. From reading the post the car was running perfectly when the mechanic had it and the ECU had no faults logged.

We traded in and subsequently sold on a 05 D4D a couple of months back and the new owner rang up a few days later and reported similar symptoms to the OP. We had the car in twice and couldn't get it to misbehave while with us. No faults were logged in the ECU. I suspected the EGR valve and just happened to have a new one in stock that I had ordered in for a customer who had never showed up. So I fitted the new part and it solved the problem. It was no more than an educated guess though really.

magicray

Just reading this, the hubbys 09 toyota avensis estate d4d is having power trouble too, it will srtuggle after 2000 revs with no power and will struggle to go uphill - this only started on Saturday so as its still under warranty we will take it back to the garage this week
There is no light on the dash to indicate any engine problems but there is def something wrong
btw we didnt have any white smoke etc

Any ideas ?

AzureAuto

Isn't black smoke indicative of overfuelling problems? The likes of inlet piping splits and faulty turbo seals etc.

White smoke would be oil in the combustion chamber, surely? Are you having the oil level checked when it is cold before and cold after your journey?
I would check the likes of the crankcase ventilation system, and if the car is goin into a limited operation, (i.e. unable to get over 80 kmph) I would expect a fault code to be generated. i would be interested to know what diagnostic equipment your garage are using.

sandydan

had trouble with 08 avensis D4D ,whining noise coming from turbo when changing gear,fitted new turbo and a few days later we could hear rattlig noise coming from injectors when taking off or under pressure,repair centre suspected suspected washed or contaminated dsl, changed filter and filled bowl with injector cleaner and put rest of container in tank sorted issue, went back two weeks later and checked contents of filter again and filled it with injector cleaner again,now I buy branded dsl only eg topaz ,maxol esso etc:

PADRAIC.M

sandydan wrote: »

had trouble with 08 avensis D4D ,whining noise coming from turbo when changing gear,fitted new turbo and a few days later we could hear rattlig noise coming from injectors when taking off or under pressure,repair centre suspected suspected washed or contaminated dsl, changed filter and filled bowl with injector cleaner and put rest of container in tank sorted issue, went back two weeks later and checked contents of filter again and filled it with injector cleaner again,now I buy branded dsl only eg topaz ,maxol esso etc:

2 year old thread! Really?

sandydan

its still followed, and problems with newer cars still exist:eek: