General Is this the end?

[Paddynabs]

Pulling out onto a main road from a petrol station this week I had to give the multipla some beans as it was busy. As the rev's hit 4000 loads of black smoke came out at the engine control light came on. It did this in 2nd and 3rd gears. It does it every time I go beyond 4000rpm.

As I was thinking about this issue I reversed into my drive only to hear a large bang and scraping sound. It's not the exhaust falling off so it must be something to do with the rear suspension. As it's dark I can't tell.

Given that filling up with diesel doubles its value and the MoT is due I wonder if it's worth the hassle?

It would be like putting down the family dog thought so it's a hard choice!

 

[widemouthfrog]

Wait for daylight then have another look. The bang could have been a front (or rear?) spring breaking. The fronts are under a lot of load and can make a fair old noise when they let go.

As for the smoke - have you tried unplugging the MAF sensor?

Fingers crossed for you on both fronts......

 

[Paddynabs]

I'm pretty sure it's a rear spring. I just jumped up and down in the boot and the car was moving sideways....

What would unplugging the MAF sensor do?

Cheers!

 

[Paddynabs]

I'm pretty sure it's a rear spring. I just jumped up and down in the boot and the car was moving sideways....

What would unplugging the MAF sensor do?

Cheers!

 

[widemouthfrog]

The MAF monitors the amount of air being sucked in by the engine and the ECU uses this info to work out how much fuel to deliver for a given throttle position/revs. If the sensor in the MAF gets dirt on it, it sends duff signals, so the fuelling goes out of kilter. If the ECU then asks for delivery of too much fuel, you get a lot of black smoke.

Unplugging the MAF forces the ECU to work off a default 'safe' setting. Invariably this will mean a fairly low amount of fuel is delivered. It will not over-fuel the engine. The engine may feel a little down on power, though many folks say their car runs a lot better after they unplug it (which is a sure sign that their MAF is knackered, but that's by-the-bye). So if you unplug the MAF and you don't get the smoke any longer, then it's a fairly safe bet it's the MAF that's at fault.

A broken rear spring is easy to replace; jack the car up, undo the bottom bolt of the damper on the affected side, force the swing arm down and pull the old spring off its mounting locators. A couple of ratchet straps (I find they work better on the rears than conventional spring compressors as they're less bulky and don't damage the springs coating) can be used to compress the new spring enough to get it into place. The spring doesn't need to be compressed much to get it into place.

Don't let it die. Give the poor thing a chance.....