My 2004 Fabia has done about 80k miles. It passed its MOT a few weeks back. It has now developed a problem whereby an absolutely massive amount of smoke starts coming out of the exhaust.

 

The smoke is fairly light in colour (i.e. grayish rather than black). It comes and goes, so it is possible to drive the car just fine for several miles with everything looking normal. Then there is a huge cloud of smoke accompanied by reduced power. Then it's fine again. I have seen it happen both at idle and during heavy acceleration. The engine light hasn't come on yet 

 

Could someone please tell me what the likely causes might be? It would be very helpful to know if the smoke is a reliable indication that my trusty old car is not long for this world (since the insurance is due soon). I think I am willing to spend more on a repair than the car is worth but probably not over £800. Many thanks.

By far the most likely cause will be valve guide wear, any manifold vacuum will pull oil down the worn guide(s), to find out which cylinders are affected whip out the spark plugs and take a look at them, it will be really obvious.

Was it serviced at the same time as the MOT was done? If so, have you checked the oil level since?

Could also be a breather issue, crankcase becoming pressurised and forcing oil into the cylinders.

@jeremiah @Wino @sepulchrave - I'd think the pressurisation idea is more likely, unless the smoke only occurs when lifting off suddenly or re-applying power after being on the over-run?

Many thanks for the replies. The car had an oil change shortly after the MOT and the coolant was also replaced. I took it back to the place that did the work earlier today.

 

We found the oil level exceeds the top mark on the dipstick. There are two bits of orange plastic on it that the oil level should be between. It's hard to tell precisely how much oil there is, but the most it could be is just above the top bit of plastic. The least it could be is just below it.

 

They thought that while there was a little too much oil, it was unlikely to be the cause because the level was not exceeded by much and also because the smoke would not be intermittent (and there would not be a huge cloud for a short while, then nothing for miles). Furthermore, the symptoms didn't appear for over a week following the oil change.

 

I guess the issue is that we could not reproduce the problem on either hot or cold-ish engine, in idle or in high revs. Perhaps my best strategy is to wait until it happens again and keep checking the oil level in the meantime in case it drops too much?

 

Would checking for the potential breather issue be expensive? Also, if I find that one of the spark plugs is covered in lots more gunk and/or corroded than the other two, would that be a reliable indication that the problem isn't just that there is too much oil?

More likely the oil is surging when you corner or brake because the level is too high, now that you've burnt a lot of it off then it should stop, however, the garage is BLOODY stupid and should be extremely embarrassed which is probably why they're giving you all that old tosh. The morons.

What kind of engine is this? AWY? 

 

Yes. It's the 40kW/6V version of the 3-cylinder "HTP" petrol engine that was available roughly a decade ago. Its displacement is 1.2l.

Other question; does this engine have an oil level sensor like the 1.9D does? (Goes bong and oil light lights up orange instead of red)

No. No mk1 Fabias do.