Hi Folks

I'm new here and own a 1.9TDi Octavia on an 03 plate. The car has been in my local garage for 3 weeks with a mystery problem.

Symptoms

MPG has gradually declined from 50+ to its current level of 20ish

The car is refusing to start when cold without easy start - and only then barely. If the car is sat for as little as half an hour it struggles to start

Power is down, acceleration is lumpy and the revs will not hold steady

The car belches out white smoke when I start it

So far we have changed the air mass meter - which was faulty, Several fuel pipes One of which was leaking

Over the last few days the audible warning signal beeps 6 times on starting

Any advice PLEASE?

Audiable warning 6 beebs on startup is just the seatbelt reminder, haven't a glue on your other problems tho. Assume you have checked the glow plugs.

Has somebody put petrol in by mistake?

Was the car sat for a long period of time?

If so, it is rare, but you could have got organic growth in the fuel tank. It would certainly be worth changing the fuel filter and possibly having the fuel tank drained and cleaned, then putting in some new fuel.

To me it sounds like an air leak that is making the starting hard, so check that the pipes going onto the fuel filter are sealed correctly.

If you are not sure that the glow plugs are ok, try having them fire two or three times then turning the engine over to see if this helps.

I would say there is a good chance the white smoke is some water. Are you loosing coolant at all, or is there oil in it?

If none of these work then I would have the compression checked on the cylinders.

Another thing to check is the state of the battery, as I am guessing that low current would make starting hard, but might also cause the ECU etc to go a bit nuts causing all sort of other problems.

Sorry for being a bit general, but I hope it helps

Welcome to briskoda.

Now ,my last vehicle was the Mitsubishi Delica and they were famous for this set of symptoms......................fuel pump seals worn/hardened.........rather expensive job on them too.

Sounds as if the pump would be a good place to look,check for sump oil in the fuel filter.

Has somebody put petrol in by mistake?

Petrol will just make it noisy..............it's diesel in a petrol engine that makes the smoke..........what a mess that is.

If your changing the fuel filter then remember that the Octy does not prime the filter like some other cars do (like my old 306 HDi). Therefore you have to crank the engine for **ages** before it starts. I would recommend pouring a bit of new diesel into the filter before connecting the pipework up - it makes for a much easier nice.

Also when I changed mine, and did the above I still got a white cloud when it started for the first time, so don't worry that it might not have cured your problems.

Thanks for the info

We put a one way valve into the pipe just before the fuel pump this weekend. That seems to have cured most of the starting issues and made the car run slightly smoother. The white smoke is still there though. It is definitely not a case of putting petrol in as the first symptom was the gradually declining mpg over a period of 2 months. At first I put this down to the on set of winter until the car started losing power.

The car was used every day for distances of 50 miles per day

Cheers

Did you use a genuine bosch or a third party MAF, some of the cheap ones are of a dubious quality IMHO.

What MAFs do u expect from a dealer. Will my local dealer have supplied me with a crappy one?

As they take the old one away, I assume they get reconned and therefore don't come back as good as a bosch one?

These symptoms are almost contradictory - difficult starting looks like a glowplug issue, but the poor mpg suggests that the engine believes it's not warming up properly.

Is the temperature guage reading normally?

Yep after reading all the symptons, sounds very very like a faulty temp sensor

The engine is now cutting out fairly regularly - It seems to happen when the engine is warming up, though I could be wrong. The accelerator feels quite soft compared to normal.

Today;

Picked the car up from the garage with the intension of running it until something stops because the garage can't find the problem. No fault codes showing.

Started the car from cold - with some difficulty - lots of white smoke.

Drove for 20 minutes - Power down very little torque, revs lumpy

Stopped for 5 minutes - started the car a little easier, no white smoke

drove for 5 minutes stopped for 30 minutes

Car started with difficulty - 50 yards down the road car cuts out and will not start. Starter motor is working fine engine will not fire. Had to use easy start up the snout to get it to start - cuts out immediately - Engine fires again but stalls almost immediately. This repeats 5 - 6 times. Cutting out less frequent as engine warms up.

The car constantly smells like a 30 year old bus!

Can I add that the garage I use is owned by a v good friend of mine who has only charged me for parts so far. He is doing his utmost to try and solve the problem without throwing big money at it. His opinion is its either the main fuel pump or the one in the fuel tank.

Please help - A gallon of petrol and a match is looking the favourite remedy at the moment!

What MAFs do u expect from a dealer. Will my local dealer have supplied me with a crappy one?

As they take the old one away, I assume they get reconned and therefore don't come back as good as a bosch one?

Dealer-supplied genuine parts come with a 12-month warranty from date of installation or sale.

Dealer-supplied genuine parts come with a 12-month warranty from date of installation or sale.

Yeah i was referring to the unbranded made in china ones that are sometimes just fine and sometimes not. These are not the dealer supplied items but cheap ones purchased elsewhere.

My old Peugeot had a similar starting and stalling issue. The problem was the fuel pressure regulator.