Eater Sundae Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 My car (with Fiat 1.3 multijet diesel engine) has done approx 33,000 miles, much of it being easy motorway miles, with no problems. A couple of days ago, when cruising on the motorway, I suddenly saw a load of blackish smoke in my rear view mirror. It immediately cleared and has not returned. I was not using full throttle or anything like that. My driving style was no different from normal. It was as if my car had done some sort of spare fuel dump, or a clean out, lasting just a second or two and then gone back to normal. When I saw the smoke, it had just happened - there wasn't any smoke further back in my mirror. The car was fine afterwards, and when I tried different things (such as full throttle looading of the motor), I couldn't get a repeat of the smoking. Do cars do anything of their own accord, which can cause this (very) short term smoking? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike84 Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 It's called a diesel engine. nothing to worry about unless it starts happening constantly. If you had pressed the accelerator (even slightly at motorway speed) this will have caused it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eater Sundae Posted September 24, 2011 Author Share Posted September 24, 2011 It's called a diesel engine. nothing to worry about unless it starts happening constantly. If you had pressed the accelerator (even slightly at motorway speed) this will have caused it. I've had older, higher mileage, diesel engined cars in the past which could be made to smoke at will. I could not get anywhere close to repeating what I observed here, despite trying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stimpy Posted September 25, 2011 Share Posted September 25, 2011 Possible air leak? check rubber pipes etc for a possible crack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wysiwyg Posted September 25, 2011 Share Posted September 25, 2011 Does the car have a diesel particulate filter? If so then the smoke may be due to it going through the cleaning cycle which is usually activated during motorway driving (high constant speed). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carosio Posted September 25, 2011 Share Posted September 25, 2011 A few years ago I was driving my old 1.6 diesel Astra van along the mosboro bypass and as I approached the Parkway I glanced in the rear view mirror and to my horror the road behind was blanketed in thick white smoke, following traffic had to fall back as they couldn't see! Thinking I had blown a piston, I pulled in but the engine was still on tick over. I revved the engine, thick smoke and showers of sparks still coming out of the exhaust, then it suddenly cleared, never to be repeated. I can only assume that neat sump oil was finding its way into the cylinders, perhaps the sump had become pressurised due to some valve being blocked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old tup Posted September 25, 2011 Share Posted September 25, 2011 Eater Sundae-Try Millers Diesel Additive it will clean out the injectors and improve your performance also more MPG and it stops a lot of the smoke problems especially if used just before the cars MOT.I use it on all my cars I,ve been running diesels since 1987 up to now!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.