[duke_nomis]

Has anyone had a problem with black smoke from the exhaust when setting off from rest? I'm sure I've read a previous thread about this but can't readily find it. I had noticed it in the mirrors, but the wife followed me at the weekend and complained just how bad it was.

There is no sign under normal driving but under harder acceleration (particularly from a standstill) it is very noticeable, and now I know just a little embarassing!

This only really started after failure of the oil/water heat exchanger replaced under warranty earlier this year (which I posted about at the time). Within a fortnight of this being fixed I put in a litre of oil (which I attributed to the stealers skimping on when topping up following the failure), but then last week a further litre was needed. Since I've only done about 4k since the first top-up it seems excessive. I enquired at the local dealer (from where I bought the oil) and he said it was not unusual since the engine takes 60k to run in.

The car is due a service in 1500mls (first service so around 17k miles) - should I ask the dealer to take a look?

Vehicle is a 2006 2.5. Any advice is appreciated.

Cheers

Simon

 

[CovRob]

Isn't this a trait of many diesels under hard acceleration? I think the Euro 4 compliant models don't do this and is why DPF's were added to the 2.5 spec - to minimise this.

 

[pilgrim]

I should not worry to much as the diesels do emit smoke if accelerating hard, the real trick is to get it to do a smoke ring....and encircle the vehicle behind. More seriously when checking the oil make sure you remove the the dip stick for several minutes so as to get an accurate check, the reservoir at the bottom appears to operate on a capillary action so it is easy to under estimate the oil level and overfill which will also give the impression of burning oil and do damage.

 

[Guest]

yep to some extent normal under harder accleration more nocticable at night in the headlamps of the car behind and correctly stated by a previously added post diesel particulate filters have been brought in to help reduce this but be warned these have to regenerate at some point and it is possible to get some soot from time to time 8)

 

[nap]

my 2.5 did this prior to the re-map (you could floor it out of a junction and the car behind would literally disappear in a cloud of smoke), there was a previous thread it is unfortunately normal for the 2.5 it also used to be worse on Supermarket fuel, had a re-map done and mine hardly emits anything now a faint grey whiff under a heavy provocation is all i get now

The newer and 3.0 TDI's now have a DPF so they are clean from smoke.

complained about it and a value somewhere got changed which made a slight improvement, my wifes Seat with a TDI engine doesn't use any oil until it gets close to service time then it can go through a litre in 2000 or so miles, i always put this down to the oil starting to break down / becoming too saturated with soot etc so it no longer .. also agree with pilgrim very difficult to get an accurate oil level reading one VW assist bloke told me to put the dipstick in and out 3 times before then taking a reading and to as pilgrim says take it out for at least a minute before putting back in to get the true reading you iwll find a big difference fork the first to last reading, my 23K 05 model so far hasn't used a drop of oil....(longest oil has been in is 10K though)