Dez my 2005 Multijet with 133K miles on the clock has been becoming gradually more smokey over the last while. It's got to the point that I can barely put my foot down without leaving a big black cloud behind me.

He regularly gets serviced. Last service was 3K miles ago. MPG is also down and I'm suspecting with his symptoms that it could be an injector fault. Any other suggestions as to the problem? No fault codes BTW.

My husband is now thinking of changing his name once more. He previously named him The yellow peril, but is now thinking Old Smokey.

Hi Old Smokey,

There could be a number of reasons for the black smoke.

As you suggested....faulty injector.

EGR valve clogging up. Remove and give it good clean.

Maf sensor. Remove and good clean up.

Fuel pressure sensor stuck resulting in high fuel pressure.

Air filter clogged up. But this is unlikely as the car has had recent service.

Oxygen sensor faulty. Reporting back to the ECU with incorrect data.

Turbo charger. Unlikely though, since you don't mention drastic loss of power

on acceleration.

Hope this is of some help.

John.

check the boost hoses, a split hose will reduce the amount of air and the unburnt diesel will cause black smoke.

A split hose can be hard to spot it may only open under pressure. You can often hiss or bubbles if wiped with soapy water

Fit the symptoms and fairly common fault.


Wastegate stuck open but there should be a loss of power ?

A dirty/sticky EGR fits the symptoms you describe.

The colour of the smoke gives a clue to where the problem might be.
Black is a fuel/air imbalance.
White, eye stinging smoke on a diesel is unburnt fuel.
Smoke with a blue tinge is oil.

Black smoke is the most common, first things to check have already been pointed out.
Air leaks after the turbo, pipes and intercooler need checking
EGR valve and MAP.

From what you write, I would first check out the EGR, intercooler, turbo pipes and inlet manifold.
133k and this lot will no doubt be clogged up with sooty, oily gunk.

Injectors do wear and can cause smoke though modern common rails ones usually fail completely long before the nozzles wear out.
You could if all the above check out, get them tested, there are diesel specialists around that can bench test them and recon them if needed at a fraction of the price of new.


Another point you might consider is it's quite a common complaint this time of year that diesel owners start noticing smoke hanging in the lights on the car behind in the dark.

Darker evenings and mornings lead to owners noticing soot particles in the lights and it makes it look really far worse then it actually is.

Thanks for the replies. And hello John - thought you had disappeared!

I had the egr checked a while back and was told that it was functioning as it should.

It has been smokey for a while but he seems to have gone from a 20 a day habit to around 60 a day now. It makes me feel bad when I need to put the boot down and I'm filling the poor person behind with smoke.

The split pipe does sound plausible. Another angle to check.

Wee Smurf said:

Thanks for the replies. And hello John - thought you had disappeared!

I had the egr checked a while back and was told that it was functioning as it should.

It has been smokey for a while but he seems to have gone from a 20 a day habit to around 60 a day now. It makes me feel bad when I need to put the boot down and I'm filling the poor person behind with smoke.

The split pipe does sound plausible. Another angle to check.

Click to expand...

Is Dez colour blind..?

Black smoke = not enough air or too much fuel injected. Check turbo, air hoses and air filter.

EGR may also affect the smoke but it only circulates a percentage of exhaust gas and little or none at high power.

I have a yellow panda and i have to steal The yellow peril from your husband

Daft question time...

As of Tuesday, I'm now suspecting that it is in actual fact the turbo at fault.

When I come out of work, I have a relatively steep hill to climb. I usually can get up in 3rd gear, but I've struggled in 2nd gear over the last two days. I'm not sure if I should expect any warning lights to appear to indicate turbo failure, but no lights have come on as yet.

I'm wondering how much turbo replacement will cost. The Yellow Peril doesn't seem to like me having too merry a Christmas, as all the costly things over the years have come in the Christmas season...

It might not be the turbo.

Black smoke is, as already mentioned a sign of a fuel/air imbalance.
With the power dropping off as well it might be a split or hole in the air intake after the turbo so all the boosted air is escaping so you've no boost/torque.

Old and rotten rubber hoses and rusty jubilee clips are common causes of this, particularly where they are in the firing line of the weather, like around the intercooler.

Sometimes the engine will sound rough, louder or chuggy under the bonnet and other times, if there's just a small split in a pipe it might sound a bit er farty or hissy, like it's blowing a raspberry when you put your foot down.

Other things that affect the air entering the engine are also worth checking, an EGR's stuck open would also starve the engine of enough air to cause it to smoke it's heart out and lack a lot of power.

There was a thread recently where the intake throttle valve (used for engine stop) was almost clogged solid with black gunge. IIRC, he had a power loss issue with black smoke. Have a look there first.

https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/462686-egr-injector-maf-3.html

All indicating a clogging up of the inlet manifold, EGR and open valve between EGR and manifold. Like in my repair that's on going...

this has been going on for a year

think we need a recap of what the original poster has checked or replaced


some free and easy things like soapy water on the hose and checking the actuator is free to move should have been checked by now. Although they might need rechecking.

koalar said:

this has been going on for a year

think we need a recap of what the original poster has checked or replaced


some free and easy things like soapy water on the hose and checking the actuator is free to move should have been checked by now. Although they might need rechecking.

Click to expand...

I'll admit to being too untalented to look at too much under the bonnet, so I've just had the yellow peril up to the main dealer for checks. I used to use an independent Fiat / Alfa Specialist garage, but after the fiasco with my timing chain shortly followed brake failure, I couldn't take him back there as trust was totally gone. I'm kind of scuppered as I don't know of anywhere else to bring the car other than the main dealer and I always get the feeling that they don't exactly want to look at it either with the age and mileage on the car... I get that look when I bring him in for a service. He gets serviced every 10K miles without fail. I also add additives to the diesel regularly to keep things clean. And there's definitely no problem with under-use or not getting up to operating temperature. I've got two small monsters and between work and carting them about I'm doing around 14K miles a year. Poor car never gets a rest!

Anyway, that aside, I'm going to re-visit the screw-hole under the wipers once more. Last week I struggled on two days to get him up the steep hill out of work having to drop to second gear. It was torrential rain on those two days, so this might have been part of the problem.

The Fiat Panda is a simple car. Any good independent can service them.

Main dealers only want to sell and service new cars. They are not interested in working on anything which has older car problems. They probably don't have much experience of them either.

You could solve the duck bill water dribble issues with some blank grommets and rubber hose. Cut a hole in the grommet to take the hose and fit it into the duck bill holes. No fancy tools needed just a suitable knife and some scrabbling about in a hard to reach area. You will need to blast the hoses through with a water hose every few months but that will drain water away from anything sensitive.

Reading the ECU codes with mutiECUscan will show you if the turbo pressure is low. It wont show if the bearings are failing (burning sump oil) but that usually smells of burning engine oil. The software costs £50 and needs a connection plug and a windows computer. There is also a free version that might do all you need.