Sooty exhaust tips.

[baptistsan]

Anyone else have this problem? My exhaust tips are constantly covered in a black deposit, assume it is carbon. Clean them up, go for a drive and it is back.

Any suggestions as to what I can do about this? The constant pipe shining is getting a little tiresome!

[skomaz]

Ignore it?

[CWARD]

Use something like ACF50 to put a protective coating on it. Will make it easier to clean but won't prevent it. Excessive smoke get the car serviced or looked at.

[baptistsan]

No excessive smoke, in fact very little at all.

Would ignore it but my eye just keeps getting drawn to it.

Will look into the ACF50 stuff.

Cheers.

[rob_e]

Paint them black?

[meaty101]

Can't see it from the driver's seat!! Enjoy the performance. No car I've had doesn't burn fuel.....

[wilson323f]

A mate of mine uses wd40 on his before going to shows he has a remapped golf that smokes under load and they stay clean for a good while.

[Maffoo]

Have always used Autosol on mine metal polish but that wd40 idea sounds like a good tip to me

[silver1011]

Something is amiss if the tailpipes are going from polished to black after only a single journey.

 

Even a diesel vRS with its DPF removed won't soot up the tail pipes that quickly.

 

You really need to be behind the car when it is being driven to know for sure if it is smoking or not.

 

Is is petrol or diesel?

[baptistsan]

Car is petrol.

 

It's the inside of the pipes that are going black.

 

Car was serviced a week ago and given a clean bill of health.

[mikey vrs]

Mine are sooty & black & mine is a petrol,ive only ever cleaned them up once in the 5 years/55,000 miles ive had the car for (when i had the bumper off to fit parking sensors) & they were very shiny for a while but now back to sooty black......my friends Audi A3 Tdi has a cleaner set of tail pipes than my petrol.....much to her amusement.  

[Paulbrown]

Yep mines the same but sooty after a while :-/

[silver1011]

Car is petrol.

 

It's the inside of the pipes that are going black.

 

Car was serviced a week ago and given a clean bill of health.

 

Ah, so it's only the inside of the tailpipes?

 

Sounds normal to me, it is a combustion engine after all!

[vRSrod]

My vrs petrol is the same too. I must have read somewhere it's due to the car running rich in fuel. I always thought a remap would sort.

[baptistsan]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

Just going to ignore it as suggested in the first reply!!! People must have thought I was mad as I walked around the supermarket carpark checking out people's exhausts

 

Never had a car that's done it this badly before.

 

So why are these engines running rich and does a remap sort it? Seems such a waste of V-Power Optimax Nitro+++ or whatever Shell's newest super duper fuel is labelled these days!!!

[Metblackrat]

They don't run rich. The exhaust has O2 sensors and the stochiometric reading at the MOT is usually around the 14.7:1 mark.

Soot is a by-product of burning carbon based fuels. You can't prevent it.

[baptistsan]

Just figured this amount of soot was due to incomplete combustion. So too little oxygen/too much fuel.