For months I've had poor starting / excessive engine cranking when starting my vRS to the point it broke down outside a dealers.  They fitted a new battery and gear sector mechanism during the 7 weeks they subsequently had it.  Everything was fine until the past few weeks, as it is now worse than before and is now belching white smoke out when it starts!!  :'(   

 

Anyone had a similar issue?  Got video evidence to send to dealer when it goes in this coming Saturday but at this rate it might be going there on a recovery truck....... 

Edited 10 July, 20169 yr by back1980

Think you need to get skoda uk involved if the dealers haven't managed to sort it. The white smoke is unburnt diesel, which isn't doing the cat/dpf any good what so ever. Hope you get it sorted asap

Think you need to get skoda uk involved if the dealers haven't managed to sort it. The white smoke is unburnt diesel, which isn't doing the cat/dpf any good what so ever. Hope you get it sorted asap

Skoda UK are already involved as I'm what you could call a long standing complaint customer and I've even been featured in Auto Express.  I have to take my car to another county to get looked at and it's also a 120 mile round trip but they're the best I've come across.  

Edited 10 July, 20169 yr by back1980

Think you need to get skoda uk involved if the dealers haven't managed to sort it. The white smoke is unburnt diesel, which isn't doing the cat/dpf any good what so ever. Hope you get it sorted asap

I was always under the impression that white 'smoke' is water getting into the combustion process somewhere? Never a good sign.

Had a bit of white smoke from my vrs tdi and it was the injector which broke and was allowing too much fuel in. It wrecked my dpf within a week and resulted in it having to be replaced at considerable cost...but I chose to have it removed and a remap done when the new injector went in

You should also ask your dealer about the software/calibration update that was released a few months ago for the TDI to correct problems with extended cranking.

As far as I know from the post, there was a service bulletin recommended the update for people who complained about this.

I'll try to find the thread with this in. There have been several threads with complaints about extended starting times on the TDI.

 

Any kind of smoke from the back of a car with a DPF is a bad sign. (unless it is condensation - you can tell the difference because moisture doesn't hang in the air like smoke will.)

Once the dealer finds the cause of your problem I would be asking them to visually inspect your CAT/DPF for damage/ fuel oïl contamination.

As above, combustable contamination can quickly cause a DPF to crack.

I had a diesel astra that kicked out white smoke when it started for years, was always told it was condensation that was burning off. It seemed worse in cold weather