Had a look at the air filter this morning.  Installed in July, it honestly looked brand new.  No dirt on it or in its housing area.

9 minutes ago, JamieH86 said:

Had a look at the air filter this morning.  Installed in July, it honestly looked brand new.  No dirt on it or in its housing area.

So was almost certainly replaced during last service, good.

4 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

So was almost certainly replaced during last service, good.

On the one hand it's good... on the other a nice manky filter would have made things possibly simpler!

Hi all, update is... stuck and dirty EGR valve.   Will Forté again tomorrow and retest.

16 hours ago, JamieH86 said:

Hi all, update is... stuck and dirty EGR valve.   Will Forté again tomorrow and retest.

I had problems with my EGR. kept coming up with insufficient air flown error codes. I cleaned it as it was pretty bad and checked valve and replaced. Still kept going into limp. On my 1.9tdi pd engine I found there is an EGR cooler at the rear of engine with another valve attached. 

This was sticking and I assume affecting the EGR circulation. Not the easiest to replace but cheaper than a new EGR cooler I picked one up off Amazon for about £25-00

Alasdair

For euro 4 is 1.5, for euro 4 with DPF is 0.8

Maybe someone removed it yet..

The good news - with the EGR fix and clean there is a definite improvement in performance.  Things I must have got used to before, and only noticed today by their absence, are gone.  Such as, slight hesitation/judder pulling away in first such as on entering a roundabout.

 

Bad news - still averaging 1.3 after six revs on the retest.  Very little movement and that is after another Forté, the above work and a run beforehand.

 

The terrible news - my son accidentally slipped whilst painting, fell out of his window, as a gust of wind opened the passenger door and the sharp end of his pallette knife has taken out the plate on the passenger door beam with the 0.8 plate value now lost.  The boy is fine.

 

 

So, new MOT booked at my usual place on Wednesday.   The place I had it done last week was on a recommendation but they are the only garage I have ever been to where they "don't do emissions", not so much as a fuel cleaner and a speedy run, and my mechanic said not to go back.  Seeing as they want a new booking now anyway, I will go to my usual place.

 

Either they'll properly apply a value of 3.0 or do a fastpass (the place last week does not do them) and they tend to apply 1.5 to that so if it starts at 1.3, job done.

 

Will of course update.

8 hours ago, JamieH86 said:

The good news - with the EGR fix and clean there is a definite improvement in performance.  Things I must have got used to before, and only noticed today by their absence, are gone.  Such as, slight hesitation/judder pulling away in first such as on entering a roundabout.

 

Bad news - still averaging 1.3 after six revs on the retest.  Very little movement and that is after another Forté, the above work and a run beforehand.

 

The terrible news - my son accidentally slipped whilst painting, fell out of his window, as a gust of wind opened the passenger door and the sharp end of his pallette knife has taken out the plate on the passenger door beam with the 0.8 plate value now lost.  The boy is fine.

 

 

So, new MOT booked at my usual place on Wednesday.   The place I had it done last week was on a recommendation but they are the only garage I have ever been to where they "don't do emissions", not so much as a fuel cleaner and a speedy run, and my mechanic said not to go back.  Seeing as they want a new booking now anyway, I will go to my usual place.

 

Either they'll properly apply a value of 3.0 or do a fastpass (the place last week does not do them) and they tend to apply 1.5 to that so if it starts at 1.3, job done.

 

Will of course update.

Crumbs, who'd have believed it? Glad the boy wasn't hurt.

Good news - we have a pass.  Haven't seen the emissions result yet but it was noted on the online MOT history that sadly, the plate value was unreadable.

Well done.

But don't stop looking to see why it was a bit smoky, improvement in that is likely to improve economy and power.

 

I won't no, though it is nice to be able to drive again!  I'll post later what the test result was.  I mean if it was 0.3 or something I would say case closed.   But if it was 2.8 then I will look further.  Though it is just 300 miles shy of 250,000.

Maybe turbo seals starting to fail if its done 250000. Had one that used a small amount of oil and was a bit smoky if idling for too long. Few oil spots on rear but nothing serious. One day filled the entire car park at tescos when they went completely. You definitley know when they fail. Got a second hand turbo cheap from the local scrapyard. Glad you got it through eventually.

Alasdair

23 minutes ago, Alasdair1 said:

Maybe turbo seals starting to fail if its done 250000. Had one that used a small amount of oil and was a bit smoky if idling for too long. Few oil spots on rear but nothing serious. One day filled the entire car park at tescos when they went completely. You definitley know when they fail. Got a second hand turbo cheap from the local scrapyard. Glad you got it through eventually.

Alasdair

Nice.  Fortunately I have no smoke or oil loss.

Smoke is what it was failing on.

6 hours ago, Breezy_Pete said:

Smoke is what it was failing on.

True.

 

Well the test limit applied was - and I've never seen this before - 1.8.   Not 1.5 or 3.0.

 

Anyway the first (and only) rev was 1.2.  So down again on the previous tests this year but a bit up on the last couple of years.  I did look through the MOT history and every seven or eight years (2009, 2017, 2024) there seem to be high figures that then drop the next year.

 

First step now is to have it serviced, oil changed, fuel filter etc (and a CV boot, as an MOT advisory) and just keep an eye on efficiency/MPG.

I need to get mine running cleaner, but I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to PD diesels. 

MOTd til September luckily, so I've got time to learn.

4 minutes ago, Breezy_Pete said:

I need to get mine running cleaner, but I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to PD diesels. 

MOTd til September luckily, so I've got time to learn.

I am wondering if a full engine bay clean and engine carbon clean is worth it?  There's a very well reviewed one near me that does it for £180.  

Depends what they do. 

 

Engine bay clean sounds like a nicety that wouldn't affect running at all, if it means just cosmetic cleaning of the outside of things?

 

Carbon clean can mean lots of things. Only one that actually does anything to the best of my knowledge is the rather time-consuming one of removing and manually cleaning the intake manifold (I've done that much, and that takes plenty of time and is an incredibly mucky job!), and while it's off, media blasting the intake ports and valves clean with walnut shell bits. That takes care, time and making sure each valve is fully shut before blasting.

Anything involving chemicals or gases wafted in the general direction of the intake are absolutely futile and ineffective in my opinion. Good money for the vendors though, cos it's not easily proved that it has done nothing, and the placebo effect will make purchasers tend to think it has helped, briefly.

 

I thought I might be able to manually clean up the ports and valves a bit while the mani was off, but forgot that it was an 8-valve engine so the valves are on the centreline of the head, so deep you can barely see them through the ports.  Gave up that idea straight away even though they looked like they could use it.

 

I think a recon turbo is probably on the cards for mine, even though it has only done 110k.

 

My 1.9 Tdi PD had awful trouble passing emmisions i always took it for a normal mot before putting it in for stricter taxi test to spot any problems because it was over 5 yrs old if it failed taxi test it was red rubber stamped  not to be tested again as a private hire /taxi .Anyway it failed on emmisions so did the usual clean up attempt added forte and blasted it round for a while took it to a pals to just test emmisions it failed badly again getting near to taxi test so had the Terraclean treatment again another pal cost me £100 took it for emmision test failed badly ,by this time taxi test was due so i readied myself for a big fail and would have to get a different car ,blow me the tester brought car out from test and said yes everything just fine ,i could hardly believe it had he done me a favour and meddled with things to get a pass reading  ? ,i did wonder wether a partial blockage was the culprit ,i cant remember why but my mechanic took the end of a large bore pipe think it was to do with turbo or recirculating system runs along back of engine near windscreen and it was prob a third blocked with a hard blackish substance 

I cleaned the EGR etc and it was absolutely choked. Also cleaned pipes and intercooler which had some oil in them. Not sure if it helped emisions but car seemed to run a lot better. So far I havent had MOT problems. Did the same on an old Toyota lucida a few years ago plus blocked egr as it was fairly simple and didnt need to plug it in . The amount of gunge that was there I am surprised the engine actually ran. Worst was the intake. Who honestly thought an EGR system was a good idea. 

Alasdair

12 hours ago, Breezy_Pete said:

Depends what they do. 

 

Engine bay clean sounds like a nicety that wouldn't affect running at all, if it means just cosmetic cleaning of the outside of things?

 

Carbon clean can mean lots of things. Only one that actually does anything to the best of my knowledge is the rather time-consuming one of removing and manually cleaning the intake manifold (I've done that much, and that takes plenty of time and is an incredibly mucky job!), and while it's off, media blasting the intake ports and valves clean with walnut shell bits. That takes care, time and making sure each valve is fully shut before blasting.

Anything involving chemicals or gases wafted in the general direction of the intake are absolutely futile and ineffective in my opinion. Good money for the vendors though, cos it's not easily proved that it has done nothing, and the placebo effect will make purchasers tend to think it has helped, briefly.

 

I thought I might be able to manually clean up the ports and valves a bit while the mani was off, but forgot that it was an 8-valve engine so the valves are on the centreline of the head, so deep you can barely see them through the ports.  Gave up that idea straight away even though they looked like they could use it.

 

All true... I am half thinking is this some miracle they perform and the other half is it just snake oil in a fancy uniform.

Really you need to get a VCDS scan and check injector quantities for variation. I bet one has a bad spray pattern or is leaking.

 

Bad thing about PD injectors is that they are hellishly expensive to buy new. Good thing about them is you can buy them cheap 2nd hand. You'd need a diesel specialist to check spray pattern before fitting if this is required.  I did this several years back and it was fine.

@Golf-Fiend thanks for this. Would you have any guidance on which measuring block groups need viewing/logging, and under what conditions, please?

I have VCDS, but no idea what to look for.

Is it just a case of finding one where individual injectors are shown with some number and see how similar those numbers are?