Saab 93 not well, need advice

duffman3833

My 08 Saab 93 diesel (150) is not well. When i start her in the mornings a lot of smoke comes out with a hint of blue in it
The car runs fine after a few seconds
If i drive and accelerate hard a lot of black smoke is pumped out the exhaust also
Looking online this could be head gasket issue. My mate mentioned turbo, but its pulling grand and no whistle noises so not sure its that


Is there any way of testing this myself or will i have to get it check by a garage


If it is a head gasket i may well need to replace her

Interslice

Doesnt sound much like a head gasket. Are you topping coolant or oil? Sounds more like the turbo is leaking oil into the intake side.

Slasher

"When i start her in the mornings a lot of smoke comes out with a hint of blue in it"

I had similar in my 9-5. It was the turbo - got it replaced, and no more smoke.

"If i drive and accelerate hard a lot of black smoke is pumped out the exhaust also" - sorry, don't know what's causing that.

What's the mileage? Could abe the diesel injectors needing replacing or a rebuild as when those age the spray pattern and injected volume changes causing issues. The black smoke could also be that or maybe a glogged inlet manifold and inoperature swirl flaps due to EGR contamination.

Better get it analyzed properly somewhere. Cleaning the inlet manifold if not done recently would my first port of call and then take it from there. The manifolds are somewhat fragle and a new part is not a bad option.

corsav6

Same engine in our Vectra, same problem was fixed with heater plugs.
Morning start produced a fair bit of smoke with a hint of blue, hard acceleration chucked out black smoke too.
Also if the egr was never cleaned then whip it off and give it a quick clean. Simple job and tons of guides online.

duffman3833

its got 200km on her. I haven't topped up any fluids. I did do an oil change last week but this was happening before that and i changed the glow plugs and cleaned the EGR as much as i could

Make sure the inlet manifold flaps move freely and that the inlet manifold is not chocked with soot from the EGR (see the pic for the swirl flap mechanism).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SAAB-93-9-3-TID-1-9-16V-DIESEL-Z19DTH-SWIRL-FLAP-INLET-MANIFOLD-GASKET-NEW-/142869872600

Get the injectors checked if the manifold is good.

duffman3833

would getting the system clean using something like this help?
Terraclean

duffman3833

I had it in with my mechanic and he thinks its worn valve stem seals (correct me if i said them wrong) because its fine after a minute from startup so oil is leaking in. He is going to check it over on Thursday to see if he can find out more but don't think he will find much more without having to tear open the engine. I think i will have to let her go unfortunately by the sound of things

corsav6

duffman3833 wrote: »

I had it in with my mechanic and he thinks its worn valve stem seals (correct me if i said them wrong) because its fine after a minute from startup so oil is leaking in. He is going to check it over on Thursday to see if he can find out more but don't think he will find much more without having to tear open the engine. I think i will have to let her go unfortunately by the sound of things

Keep us updated please, I've 150k on the Vectra so expecting some issues over the next few miles.

XsApollo

I had this on my 05 9-3 150.
It used to missfire when it was spewing the smoke too after starting.
Never did anything to fix the problem, and the car didn’t break down because of it.
Actually during the winter it didn’t happen. Colder morning so the engine idle was higher on start up was my thinking.
Think it was doing that for 2 years before I traded it in for a petrol aero, because the blue smoke on start up was the least of that engines problems.

duffman3833

he mentioned the first thing to check is fuel filter in case its full of crap, its cheap so he will swap that on thursday. If i can get the car to not puff a ton of black smoke on acceleration and get it through the nct ill keep her

dar_cool

Sounds like 2 seperate issues. Probably not worth doing the valve stem oil seals but ive heard of people driving for years with them like that. Bit of blue smoke on startup wouldnt bother me that much

duffman3833

dar_cool wrote: »

Sounds like 2 seperate issues. Probably not worth doing the valve stem oil seals but ive heard of people driving for years with them like that. Bit of blue smoke on startup wouldnt bother me that much

yes im pretty sure they are separate issues, if i can get the black smoke reduced and it will pass the NCT ill be grand then