Hi,
I'm a newbie, and I just bought a Multijet with 105,000 miles on it. Going down the motorway yesterday, I noticed some pretty significant smoke when I accelerated hard.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Take it to a dealer?
Thank you in advance.
C

Blue, black or white smoke?


Did it clear up after it had warmed up.

If it was a thick black cloud possibly not been driven properly for years so egr cooler full of carbon. Now it's yours it's getting that full throttle blast over 3k it needs to clear the egr and cooler.

Didn't get any warning light on?

Maybe treating it to fuel cleaner too but the black cloud can clear it's self if it's just built up crap from driving gently for too long.

The colour of the smoke is an indicator, though new drivers to diesels can start to worry when it's dark, as the soot does tend to hang in the headlights of the car behind, a quick look in the mirror and it looks like it's worse than it is!

Bluish and engine oil is getting in there.

White smoke that stings your eyes is a big fuel/air inbalance, usually injector issues.
(too much fuel, not enough air, but raw fuel is being passed out the exhaust)

Black smoke from a diesel is usually soot from a minor fuel/air inbalance.
(too much fuel, not enough air or both, but the fuel's being burnt)

You've already had pointers to the EGR.
This is a device that recirculates exhaust gas back around into the engine when on light throttle or on the over run, this cools combustion and reduces NOx, otherwise the motor would be pumping air (with no/little fuel).

If the valve is jammed open, you end up recirculating exhaust all the time, this takes away a lot of the available air that's needed, hence the black smoke.

The valves aren't known to live too long and do give a lot of trouble, soot, raw fuel and engine oil from the crankcase vent that's fed into the air intake mix together in it and cause a horrid, claggy gunk.

You might get away with cleaning it out, but quite often the motor that operates it become knackered trying to work against the crud in there, so the whole valve becomes FUBAR.

A quick fix/test would be to blank the exhaust feed to it.
A bit of shaped tin/alloy 2 or 3 mm thick will do it, just slipped into the joint.

If it runs better, you need a new EGR.
Leave the blank in and it will eventually cause a engine management light to come on as emission devices have had to been linked to the engine management systems since Euro 5.

Other reasons for the sooty black exhaust are splits and holes in the air intake after the MAF sensor/turbo.
Loosing air after it's been through the MAF (and been measured by it) has the same effect.

Good advice so far, but before you start tinkering, do two basic things:

Examine the air filter and change it if it is at all dirty.
Give the car some wellie for a couple of hundred miles.

Both will help clear the engine of crud, which would have built up if the previous owner was a slow driver or the maintenance was not kept up.

The suggestion to blank off the egr valve, while technically a good one in this instance, is not to be taken lightly on the Panda Multijet. It is a hell of a difficult job to do because access (from underneath) is very restricted and needs pianists fingers and plenty of bandaid!

koalar said:

Blue, black or white smoke?


Did it clear up after it had warmed up.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply- to you and everyone.
It's thick and black, and I can just hit the throttle while it's in park and get a big cloud.

Louie Bee said:

If it was a thick black cloud possibly not been driven properly for years so egr cooler full of carbon. Now it's yours it's getting that full throttle blast over 3k it needs to clear the egr and cooler.

Didn't get any warning light on?

Maybe treating it to fuel cleaner too but the black cloud can clear it's self if it's just built up crap from driving gently for too long.

Click to expand...

Hello,
Sorry- I have had it for a few weeks, and I have taken it on a good few weekly jaunts at over 70mph. I think it's likely been cleared out by now. It gives a good cloud if you goose it sitting still. And yes, it's thick and black.

Goudrons said:

The colour of the smoke is an indicator, though new drivers to diesels can start to worry when it's dark, as the soot does tend to hang in the headlights of the car behind, a quick look in the mirror and it looks like it's worse than it is!

Bluish and engine oil is getting in there.

White smoke that stings your eyes is a big fuel/air inbalance, usually injector issues.
(too much fuel, not enough air, but raw fuel is being passed out the exhaust)

Black smoke from a diesel is usually soot from a minor fuel/air inbalance.
(too much fuel, not enough air or both, but the fuel's being burnt)

You've already had pointers to the EGR.
This is a device that recirculates exhaust gas back around into the engine when on light throttle or on the over run, this cools combustion and reduces NOx, otherwise the motor would be pumping air (with no/little fuel).

If the valve is jammed open, you end up recirculating exhaust all the time, this takes away a lot of the available air that's needed, hence the black smoke.

The valves aren't known to live too long and do give a lot of trouble, soot, raw fuel and engine oil from the crankcase vent that's fed into the air intake mix together in it and cause a horrid, claggy gunk.

You might get away with cleaning it out, but quite often the motor that operates it become knackered trying to work against the crud in there, so the whole valve becomes FUBAR.

A quick fix/test would be to blank the exhaust feed to it.
A bit of shaped tin/alloy 2 or 3 mm thick will do it, just slipped into the joint.

If it runs better, you need a new EGR.
Leave the blank in and it will eventually cause a engine management light to come on as emission devices have had to been linked to the engine management systems since Euro 5.

Other reasons for the sooty black exhaust are splits and holes in the air intake after the MAF sensor/turbo.
Loosing air after it's been through the MAF (and been measured by it) has the same effect.

Click to expand...

Hi, it's black and thick. And I've driven it for plenty of motorway miles by now. It has a bit less power than I expected, maybe that's telling, I don't know. The ones I drove previously were petrol.

Sweetsixteen said:

Good advice so far, but before you start tinkering, do two basic things:

Examine the air cleaner and change it if it is at all dirty.
Give the car some wellie for a couple of hundred miles.

Both will help clear the engine of crud, which would have built up if the previous owner was a slow driver or the maintenance was not kept up.

The suggestion to blank off the egr valve, while technically a good one in this instance, is not to be taken lightly on the Panda Multijet. It is a hell of a difficult job to do because access (from underneath) is very restricted and needs pianists fingers and plenty of bandaid!

Click to expand...

Hi, and thanks. I've given her plenty of wellie by now, so I'll check the air filter first thing.

Hi,

Had something similar recently on a 2005 Doblo 1.3 multijet. Black smoke under abit of accel.

had a good look, and discovered the exhaust manifold was ........WARPED!!!

It threw up an error code relating to the MAP sensor via Multiecuscan.

The top and bottom bolts closest to the camshaft end were sheered off.

Retapped the head and put a new exhaust manifold in place at 265 euros from Agnelli.

With all this done, the engine was like a bullet.............and no black smoke.

Apparently the o2 sensor was seeing a lean condition due to the exhaust leak, then the

ECU gave the injectors extra fuel to compensate for the leak. The turbo didn't work either,

because exhaust fumes were escaping via the exhaust manifold.

The error code is no longer on, and hasn't been seen since.

Hope this might help you out, along with the previous contributions.

John.

Get the ECU codes read... even when the EML is not lit there may well be transient errors logged and they may be instructive.

Also, it's a fairly good bet that your EGR is a bit clogged, but it will light the EML if it is stuck in most situations. If it has been driven gently for quite a while it is possible that a few weeks of a more "italian" style of driving will clear it out. There are fuel additives which claim to help clean the EGR - some people say they help, others say they do nothing.

Check your oil level. If it's not been changed in your ownership and/or you don't have a record of the last oilchange, it might be a good idea to change it anyway for peace of mind.

What year Panda is it?

I had a VW suddenly start belching black smoke. VW swore that is was the EGR because their computer said so. The reality was a blown hose between turbo and engine. There was no manifold pressure so too much fuel was being injected.

The hoses are easy to rough check - rev the engine, all turbo outlet hoses should feel as hard as cooling system hoses they go softer at tickover. If they do not pressurise you have an air leak.

Check the inlet manifold pressure (pressure gauge or maybe Multuecuscan)

The turbo vanes are operating (rev engine and watch the arm move. No move = clogged up turbo)

EGR is not clogged up (see above)

Clogged air filter (see above)

Sweetsixteen said:

The suggestion to blank off the egr valve, while technically a good one in this instance, is not to be taken lightly on the Panda Multijet. It is a hell of a difficult job to do because access (from underneath) is very restricted and needs pianists fingers and plenty of bandaid!

Click to expand...

That might be correct, but I would want to confirm the issue first before blindly forking out on a new valve, struggling to fit it, then still having the same problem!

Goudrons said:

You've already had pointers to the EGR.
This is a device that recirculates exhaust gas back around into the engine when on light throttle or on the over run, this cools combustion and reduces NOx, otherwise the motor would be pumping air (with no/little fuel).

Click to expand...

No it's doing quite the opposite. Egr valve opens at higher revs under heavy load.

This is why gently driven cars get a sticky valve because is sees little movement...

When pushed under load at higher revs the black cloud is the result of the valve correctly opening for the first time in ages and blasting through all that saved up crap.

this is crap ^^^ :devil:

I think you might want to read up on NOx emissions and EGR operation.

They are not meant to open and recirculate exhaust gases under heavy/high load as the exhaust gas has little/no air in it to burn.

Since modern diesels inject little fuel and more often then not, no fuel what so ever on the over run, the engine will just start to pump what it can suck in (air).

This causes a lean combustion and that leads to higher temps in the combustion chambers and that causes NOx to proliferate.

At this point the EGR opens and diverts the exhaust gasses back around into the air intake so it can pump that in, as we know less air, less bang, lower combustion temps.

Motor operated valves don't usually stick, but the motor in them fails as the valve becomes clogged, it just can't work long against all the crude in there before burning out.

If it fails open that causes the dreaded black smoke on acceleration, as it's in effect running rich, the fuel that's injected has little available air (it's been replaced by exhaust gas), which is why another common complaint is lack of power.

They also don't often tend to light a EML if they fail open.
Since Euro 5 regs, emissions devices have had to be monitored by the on board management system.
This means it needs to detect it's working at the correct times.
If it's failed open, the management system isn't clever enough to know, it just knows it's open when it looks!

The thing about short trips and gentle driving is it's though the increased air speed of an "Italian tune up" past the valve will shift the crud, but as the valve is actually closed, it actually does little, though longer trips under higher load keeps the valve closed and some of the exhaust soot away from one side of the valve.

Earlier valves tended to be operated by vacuum and a spring and weren't connected to the management system. As the vacuum increased, the valve opened and the spring pushed it closed when the vacuum decreased, far simpler and a little more reliable.

Well I've had no engine management light come on. I guess I'll get someone to run a diagnostic on it.

Goudrons said:

I think you might want to read up on NOx emissions and EGR operation.

Click to expand...

Sorry I think you're right... I read up in the wrong place (the internet). How about this for a proper place to read about the MJ setup

Panda Elearn said:

The fuel injection control unit, with coolant temperature > 20° C and engine speed of between 800 and 3000 rpm, drives the E.G.R. solenoid with a square-wave signal. The change in this signal allows the EGR coil to move a plunger and thus adjust the flow of burnt gases from the exhaust manifold to the intake manifold; two results are thus obtained:

• 
  less air is introduced;
  combustion temperature is reduced (due to the presence of inert gases) to reduce NOx (nitrogen oxide) production.

The engine control unit is kept constantly informed of recirculated gas quantity by information from the flow meter. If the intake of a certain amount of air (Qam) rpm is required at a certain rpm and the amount sent by the flow meter (Qar) is less, the difference (Qgr) is the recirculated gas quantity.

Qam - Qar = Qgr

Qam - Theoretical air quantity in memory

Qar - True air quantity

Qgr - Recirculated gas quantity

The atmospheric pressure signal is used when controllling the EGR valve to recognize when the car is driving at altitude and so reduce the quantity of recirculated gas and prevent the engine from producing fumes.

Click to expand...

That told me I was reciting crap from the internet before hand

Just checked my notes from when our 55plate MJ was smoking on acceleration.
Had p0401 EGR error and a couple of others. Main problem was actually the MAF sensor, which I changed out with a spare one (coz I had one, it was a likely suspect, and some muppet had broken off one of the bolt holes on it). Smoke instantly reduced and ran much smoother too.

Might be worth cleaning the MAF on yours (search forum for method) as it might help, and is cheap to do.

Get the fault codes read!

Our EGR error remained for a few hundred miles and then stopped for about 8 months.

Has recently started giving error code again, so EGR swap is still on my to-do list but I was thinking of waiting until I grow a new pair of hands as it's a b*tch of a job for people with big hands and arthritis.

I had a couple of diesel cars although neither were a Fiat.


Both would smoke occasionally under the right conditions.


Lots of light throttle followed by wide open throttle.


Leaving the car in a lower gear so it revs higher for a few minutes would settle it back down.

If It doesn't


Black smoke is too much diesel. Could be anything from blocked air filter to faulty injector and just about anything in between.


When did it last pass a MOT.

koalar said:

I had a couple of diesel cars although neither were a Fiat.


Both would smoke occasionally under the right conditions.


Lots of light throttle followed by wide open throttle.


Leaving the car in a lower gear so it revs higher for a few minutes would settle it back down.

If It doesn't


Black smoke is too much diesel. Could be anything from blocked air filter to faulty injector and just about anything in between.


When did it last pass a MOT.

Click to expand...

A naturally aspirated diesel will make about 25bhp per litre. 1.3 Pandas have a turbo so can make more than 50bhp per litre. So a black smoking is highly likely to be a turbo problem or compressed air leak.