hi guys im new to the site and wondered if anyone had any ideas on a problem i have with my vrs oil burner. basically after buying the car (after swapping it with a polo tdi sport) i noticed an amount of black sooty smoke on start up and at certain times when driving, namely when flooring the throttle temporarily in no particular gear. i never had any smoke from my polo tdi which has the same engine basically! hence i decided to investigate and found that 2 glow plugs (1 & 3 from t/belt end) were kaput, after doing a resistance test. i replaced them and found 3 days later they too are now blown and covered in sooty residue again. incidentally i have stripped and cleaned the egr and maf and replaced air filter. the timing belt was replaced a year ago but was wondering that the timing may be out slightly hence the smoke from the exhaust. any ideas would be appreciated guys. thanx

Could be one of several things. Incomplete combustion on the two cylinders that are frying glow plugs, most likely caused by sticking hydraulic lifters and knacked camshaft. Or faulty leaking injectors. I would have a compression test and leakdown test done, and have the injectors tested.

Could be one of several things. Incomplete combustion on the two cylinders that are frying glow plugs, most likely caused by sticking hydraulic lifters and knacked camshaft. Or faulty leaking injectors. I would have a compression test and leakdown test done, and have the injectors tested.

thanks moggytech, i was fearing the worst! fortunately the car came with a decent skoda approved warranty so i'll soon find out if its worth the paper its written on, ha ha. i think i'll take the car to a local diesel specialist first and get some up front knowledge 1st. working on diesels is a little beyond me now. cheers for your reply

Mine use to do this occasionally and it was a broken earth strap on the block to heaterplugs 3 & 4. got it replaced and did all the heater plugs at the same time. Its never done it since!

Mine use to do this occasionally and it was a broken earth strap on the block to heaterplugs 3 & 4. got it replaced and did all the heater plugs at the same time. Its never done it since!

thanks very much for your reply, thats something i can have a look at myself. can you recall whereabouts on the block the earth strap is connected at, is it a large earth cable or just a single wire? not sure if theres any kind of wiring diagram on the net but i'm going to try my luck. cheers for your help

The earth strap goes from one heater plug to the other - its like a ribbon of metal and between plug 2 & 3 it had broken - so plugs 3 & 4 werent earthed correctly!