Terraclean on an old Diesel

GTE

Hi all,

Has anyone got an old 1.9 TDI or similar old diesel terracleaned?

My wagon can have a bit of smoke on startup, as it has to turn over a couple of extra times then you would think it should.

I also have a good bit of smoke on acceleration, though I can only see it at night when someone following me lights it up, but the smoke does look quite significant.

The engine has done 216,000 miles with original injectors.

Would it be worth doing?

Thanks

Special Circumstances

Could you give us a heads up so we are all upwind? :pac:

pred racer

I got mine done (alfa 159 jtdm) and it made a huge difference, smoother and quieter (never had any smoke anyway). Never seen any real economy gains and like everything else it didn't last. if it was 40 or 50 quid I would have it done once a year, but at 120 odd its too expensive.
For the symptoms you mention, yes it worked for mine.

GTE

Thanks for the reply.

135 euro is a bit steep to try for the hell of it. Since it cleared up stuff for you, I can only imagine that it would clear up something in my engine and hopefully solve some of the smoke issues. The smoke issues certainly are not severe, as you can not see anything significant during the day. It is just when lit up by cars behind me, that it looks more problematic. If it solved startup smoke or eased the startup, that would be great.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

JohnBoy26

Getting a good mechanic to diagnose the issue might be a better bet in the long run.

_Kaiser_

If I remember right there was a pretty big thread about this before and the general consensus seemed to be that any gains were questionable/hard to clearly identify and it was very expensive for what it is.

I had it booked myself at the time but cancelled based on this.

shietpilot

All they really do is run the car off the diesel on the terraclean machine which is mixed with some special cleaning liquid.

Seems no different to me from Sea Foam which you add to the fuel tank. It's a lot cheaper than a terraclean too!

ba_barabus

Personally I'd run some good egr and injector cleaner through the fuel when there is about a quarter a tank of diesel left. I'd also give it an Italian tune up at the same time. Other than a good service at the same time would be worth it. I'd rather spend the money on buying good quality service parts that a terraclean.

shietpilot

ba_barabus wrote: »

Personally I'd run some good egr and injector cleaner through the fuel when there is about a quarter a tank of diesel left.

Exactly. All Terraclean (from what I can see) does is just run some diesel mixed with injector cleaner in a fancy fuel tank and pump presented as a machine.

JohnBoy26

shietpilot wrote: »

Exactly. All Terraclean (from what I can see) does is just run some diesel mixed with injector cleaner in a fancy fuel tank and pump presented as a machine.

But it was used on wheeler dealers so it must be good

pred racer

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

But it was used on wheeler dealers so it must be good

It is good, it's just too expensive for what it is.

C.K Dexter Haven

My mechanic was impressed with what this stuff did to gunge- i.e. dissolve it all- however, what does it do to rubber seals?

Markcheese

shietpilot wrote:

Seems no different to me from Sea Foam which you add to the fuel tank. It's a lot cheaper than a terraclean too!

Much difference between sea foam and dipetane ... or are they all much of a much ...

shietpilot

Markcheese wrote: »

Much difference between sea foam and dipetane ... or are they all much of a much ...

Dipetane I'm not so sure. I don't think it's a cleaner but more an additive. When you mix it with the fuel you don't really see the effects at the exhaust pipe.

With SeaFoam you see the same white smoke from the exhaust as with Terraclean which to me suggests it's the same thing but cheaper

Voodoomelon

Had it done on my petrol E38. Exhaust sounded deeper afterwards, only difference i noticed. Was at around 90k miles.

Lazybones

Hi,

Where can seafoam be purchased? is it stocked by motor factors?

Thanks.

wandererz

I will second the Millers eco max above.

Regarding the slow start, have you changed the glow plugs anytime recently? I could be that they're not heating the fuel sufficiently.

Regarding the smoke on acceleration, i would recommend removing the EGR valve and cleaning.
This gets clogged up with carbon deposits and oil and results in the aweful smokey diesel effect.

bbk

bbk wrote: »

......... The smoke issues certainly are not severe, as you can not see anything significant during the day. It is just when lit up by cars behind me, that it looks more problematic.........

That level of smoke is perfectly normal once you are giving it welly and not just ticking over / cruising along imo.
I always chuckle at the "no" smoke from diesel engines claim, it's totally impossible. Any diesel will push out enough smoke to be shown by a following cars lights at night.

ba_barabus

Augeo wrote: »

That level of smoke is perfectly normal once you are giving it welly and not just ticking over / cruising along imo.
I always chuckle at the "no" smoke from diesel engines claim, it's totally impossible. Any diesel will push out enough smoke to be shown by a following cars lights at night.

Mine doesn't but it's the first I've had with a dpf. I put it down to that as every other diesel has put out some regardless of maintenance etc.

dr.fuzzenstein

I kind of did this by accident by driving through a flood and sucking some of it through my engine. All you need is water. Actually made an appreciable difference. He does it using a spray bottle, I did it on the second car using a garden hose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOoIuBu5xO4

And I can confirm it works on petrol and diesel.

ba_barabus

ba_barabus wrote: »

Mine doesn't..

chuckle

GTE

wandererz wrote: »

I will second the Millers eco max above.

Regarding the slow start, have you changed the glow plugs anytime recently? I could be that they're not heating the fuel sufficiently.

Regarding the smoke on acceleration, i would recommend removing the EGR valve and cleaning.
This gets clogged up with carbon deposits and oil and results in the aweful smokey diesel effect.

The glowplugs have been changed in the last couple of years, and work fine. There may be a temp sensor issue meaning that they do not come on when required, however. I wonder would this temp sensor issue cause a fueling mixup in certain circumstances and give me the smoke, as there are times when there is no smoke visible in the lights of cars. The old coolant sensor was replaced with the new type in 2010.

Augeo wrote: »

That level of smoke is perfectly normal once you are giving it welly and not just ticking over / cruising along imo.
I always chuckle at the "no" smoke from diesel engines claim, it's totally impossible. Any diesel will push out enough smoke to be shown by a following cars lights at night.

I am not sure why you chuckle in this thread, but I am not part of that brigade. The smoke is apparent from light to moderate acceleration.

wandererz

Glow plugs are (generally) only used at startup.
Aside from testing them, if you notice a fuel smell when starting the car then chances are that you have a glow plug or glow plug relay problem.

I have a 2.0 Jag X-type. It has the same 2L (1995cc) Ford engine as on the Mondeo.

Had the smoke problem. Removed and cleaned the EGR and installed an EGR blanking plate. Result: no more smoke. 120K miles and pulls like a train with no end in sight. Could do with a sixth gear IMO.

Other car is a 320D. Similar thing. Cleaned the EGR, but did not blank in this case. Reduced smoke and peace of mind knowing i won't have to do it for a while again.

It happens with diesel engines. Try these steps first before terraclean.

A few years ago i terracleaned a 1.9L Volvo S40. Did not notice much difference if any at all initially. But after a full service and a remap it seemed like a different driving experience altogether.

There's also the chance that removal of some of those carbon deposits may expose problems with your injectors, especially in high mileage vehicles. Then you got the cost of new injectors to contend with.

I also regularly add a dose of Dipetane to a full tank.

Diesels can do with a good spin on a motorway on a regular basis.

It you've got a smoke or performance problem then adding Millers or Dipetane followed by a lively drive on a motorway in 3rd gear for about 20-30mins may help to burn off some of the crud.

A colleague of mine also has a 320D. After i introduced him to Dipetane he now swears it's the reason for his improved fuel economy. To the point where he recently bought in 5ltr quantities rather than the regular small bottle.

My advice is, clean the EGR, add some Millers or Dipetane to the fuel and do an Italian tune-up as above.
Then, if you're still not satisfied, try the terraclean.

I will be doing so again on both my cars, but thats only because I'm curious and have money to burn to satisfy my curiousity!

bbk

bbk wrote: »

.............



I am not sure why you chuckle in this thread, but I am not part of that brigade. ..........

No doubt, apologies if you thought I was referring to you.

I chuckle because it's a daft theory, conceptually impossible for a diesel to not emit visible levels of smoke when given a boot full of throttle.

GTE

wandererz wrote: »

Glow plugs are (generally) only used at startup.
Aside from testing them, if you notice a fuel smell when starting the car then chances are that you have a glow plug or glow plug relay problem.

I have a 2.0 Jag X-type. It has the same 2L (1995cc) Ford engine as on the Mondeo.

Had the smoke problem. Removed and cleaned the EGR and installed an EGR blanking plate. Result: no more smoke. 120K miles and pulls like a train with no end in sight. Could do with a sixth gear IMO.

Other car is a 320D. Similar thing. Cleaned the EGR, but did not blank in this case. Reduced smoke and peace of mind knowing i won't have to do it for a while again.

It happens with diesel engines. Try these steps first before terraclean.

A few years ago i terracleaned a 1.9L Volvo S40. Did not notice much difference if any at all initially. But after a full service and a remap it seemed like a different driving experience altogether.

There's also the chance that removal of some of those carbon deposits may expose problems with your injectors, especially in high mileage vehicles. Then you got the cost of new injectors to contend with.

I also regularly add a dose of Dipetane to a full tank.

Diesels can do with a good spin on a motorway on a regular basis.

It you've got a smoke or performance problem then adding Millers or Dipetane followed by a lively drive on a motorway in 3rd gear for about 20-30mins may help to burn off some of the crud.

A colleague of mine also has a 320D. After i introduced him to Dipetane he now swears it's the reason for his improved fuel economy. To the point where he recently bought in 5ltr quantities rather than the regular small bottle.

My advice is, clean the EGR, add some Millers or Dipetane to the fuel and do an Italian tune-up as above.
Then, if you're still not satisfied, try the terraclean.

I will be doing so again on both my cars, but thats only because I'm curious and have money to burn to satisfy my curiousity!

Thanks.

I check the EGR often and that's quite clean. It has been a while since I've used Dipetane. A local store stocks it now so I may have a go with it.

I'm lucky that the car lives on the motorway at 3,000 revs and that would explain the clean EGR. I have noticed smoke when absolutely goosing it up through second and third gear; it only appears visible in the day when doing this when the revs pass 3500. I'd imagine that's okay but at night, when lit up, I can get a lot anywhere in the rev range from maybe 50% accelerator upwards.

If your point about cleaning the engine revealing issues with injectors has serious results then I may try to find smoke causes in more difficult areas.

Perhaps its a temp sensor related, I remember now my car very rarely if ever gets up to 90 degrees as per temp guage. I wonder what VAGCOM says temp wise.
Could a worst case of no temp sensor cause smoke issues by confusing the ECU?

bbk

What are smoke test NCT results like, if they aren't close to the limit of 3 iirc than I wouldn't worry. A turbo will deliver slightly more fuel than the engine will burn without causing excessive EGTs.

Again, you are seeing the smoke by car headlight illumination, not in daylight, no problem.

bbk wrote: »

..........
Could a worst case of no temp sensor cause smoke issues by confusing the ECU?

Cooler than optimum operating temp would result in unburnt diesel, ie smoke.
so too would excess fuel delivery due to "sensed" temps lower than actual.

ba_barabus

Augeo wrote: »

No doubt, apologies if you thought I was referring to you.

I don't know why the chuckle was at me. My old Passat used to give out smoke that was visible at night as you describe. The current car doesn't. I'm not sure why it doesn't, as I said, I put it down to the dpf filtering out the ****e and burning it off during a regen.

wandererz

In my case, both cars don't have DPFs.
Both EGRs have been cleaned.
One has an EGR blanking plate as it could be inserted without ECU lights coming on.

On the car with the Blanking plate: no smoke.
On the car without the blanking plate: slight smoke but only visible at night with lights behind me when I'm moving off... and paying attention.

So, no big deal.
I'm more interested now in how i can extract an extra 30-40 bhp from these turbo diesels.

ba_barabus

ba_barabus wrote: »

I don't know why the chuckle was at me. My old Passat used to give out smoke that was visible at night as you describe. The current car doesn't. I'm not sure why it doesn't, as I said, I put it down to the dpf filtering out the ****e and burning it off during a regen.

There is no way your turbo diesel car emits no visible smoke under load when there's illumination. DPFs don't filter out all the exhaust emissions.

It's a laughable claim you and others make, unless the car behind only has parks on.

ba_barabus

Augeo wrote: »

It's a laughable claim you and others make

Can you give me a full technical breakdown of why?

I can only go on what I see (or in my case not see)

ba_barabus

ba_barabus wrote: »

Can you give me a full technical breakdown of why?

No, I cannot give you a full technical breakdown but I can give you a high level logical view in plain English

DPFs do not retain 100% of the particles.
Total particulate retention can be less than 70%.
Smoke is still emitted, illumination will highlight this when the engine is operating under acceleration. It's the ECU supplying more fuel to allow turbo to spool up as fast as required, 99% of the time there will be an element of overfueling.

If there was no smoke than the interior of the exhaust system would be very clean.

dr.fuzzenstein

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I kind of did this by accident by driving through a flood and sucking some of it through my engine. All you need is water. Actually made an appreciable difference. He does it using a spray bottle, I did it on the second car using a garden hose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOoIuBu5xO4

And I can confirm it works on petrol and diesel.

Quoting myself here, I found an old NCT report from 2011. Smoke 0.015.
Next one was 0.6 something, way up, but still passed.
After inhaling half a river, next NCT, smoke was back down at (I think) 0.03 something, way down on what it was.
I'll check the current NCT cert when I get home and post the actual result.
So if you want to clean your engine, all you need is a spray bottle or a garden hose. And every now and then, tip in a bottle of injector cleaner, any which one, I just grab whatever is on the shelf. Comma Diesel Magic seemed to achieve the desired effect. Engine at 355k km and very little smoke seems to support the water theory. But a lot of motorway driving also helps.