Excessive smoke when cold, Touran 1.9 diesel

[tjwatts]

Hi,

I have a 2005 1.9 diesel Touran (old model for that year).

Under certain conditions it can produce excessive amounts of smoke from the passenger side. Smoke is vapourised diesel by smell.

Conditions are:

Cold, say 3C or less.
Starting the car then using the accelerator pedal, either to rev or actually drive.

If I allow the car to idle for 5-10 mins on the drive, I don't get any smoke, beyond the usual water vapour in the exhaust gases.

No problems at all once it's warm.

This can be a real problem if I have to start driving immediately, then pause at the lights - the smoke is terrible - enough to get into the car and choke pedestrians!


I know this is to do with the preheater. I had this problem last year, whilst the car was under warrenty, so took it in. They replaced a pipe somewhere down near the preheater assembly. Seemed better.

But this year, it's back.

Is this an issue that one has to work around (ie common) or does it sound like a proper fault? If the latter, I might be able to beat them up for a free or discounted repair as it is an issue they were supposed to have corrected under warrenty.

Cheers

Tim

[kite]

This might help

http://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4137&highlight=pre-heater

[tjwatts]

This might help

http://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4137&highlight=pre-heater

That's very interesting. Doesn't seem to reach an absolute conclusion aprt from adding a faulty glow plug to the equation (which I don;t think I have as the smoke appears to be coming from the preheater unit, not the tail pipe and the engine starts without issue and doesn't t run lumpy.

I saw something somewhere about a software tweak. Unfortunately, the mechanics at my local VW are a bit dopey. It took 4-5 returns for them to fix teh cruise control under warrenty - they can't cope with intermittent faults - you have to wait for it to permanently die before they can manage. Speculative replacement of parts isn't a concept they've come across...

Anyone here got access to an upto date VAGCOM database of known faults? Pointing the dealers to a specific reference might get me some success.

Cheers

Tim

[graham53]

This seems to be allmost the same fault i have .Mine has a pipe near the exhaust halfway down the car the smell of diesel comes from that

[tjwatts]

This seems to be allmost the same fault i have .Mine has a pipe near the exhaust halfway down the car the smell of diesel comes from that

Out of interest - what year is your car (mine is a 2006 before the model change).

Is your smoking bad, really bad or just occasional?

Mine hasn't been happening recently - perhaps because I give it a couple of minutes at idle after starting to settle down.

[graham53]

It is 2006 model same as yours. i would say maybe twice a day it smokes.Can you see it smoke from the pipe i can see

[tjwatts]

It is 2006 model same as yours. i would say maybe twice a day it smokes.Can you see it smoke from the pipe i can see

No - I just see clouds from the nearside middle side billowing out, followed by evryone choking as it gets into the ventilation air intake!

However, I've probably had it happen 1/2 dozen times in 4 years. Once it's had its hissy fit for the day, it won't do it again (I assume because it's warmed up).

[tjwatts]

I think I see a pattern.

*If* I wait for the glowplug light to go out, then start, it is much better - very little. Based on a very limited sample set so far, but it makes sense as it is probably igniting more reliably and cleanly from the get go.

Sometimes I'm impatient and jump in, key and drive - I think that's what it objects to. The Touran diesels are such good starters that one forgets what glowplugs are for sometimes.

Just a theory - make any sense?

[sixgixx]

I have a 2004 2.0 TDI Sport and have the exact same problem. It used to happen quite a lot, then all but disappeared. However, with the recent spell of cold weather, its back. As well as getting the exhaust fumes out the tail pipe, i get them chugging out from underneath, they usually emerge from the front wheel area. it is pretty disgusting and if sitting in traffic, does enter the car through the ventilation. I did read somewhere about this problem and the solution, however i forgot what and where. Still havent checked the link posted above by "Kite".
I'm kinda optimistic that VW will recognise this as a design fault and hopefully recall the Tourans in, saving us the expense.

[tjwatts]

I'm kinda optimistic that VW will recognise this as a design fault and hopefully recall the Tourans in, saving us the expense.

I think you'll be lucky - unless the fault is deemed to be a danger (eg braking/steering).

Have you tried my theory about waiting diligently for the glowplug light to go out? I'm curious to see if that holds any water or not :)

Re your smoke - if I get it, then it is exactly as you describe - lots coming from near front nearside wheel...

[sixgixx]

I think you'll be lucky - unless the fault is deemed to be a danger (eg braking/steering).

Have you tried my theory about waiting diligently for the glowplug light to go out? I'm curious to see if that holds any water or not :)

Re your smoke - if I get it, then it is exactly as you describe - lots coming from near front nearside wheel...


My glowplug light goes out after about half a second...if that! its just like starting a petrol car, there is virtually no wait at all.

[tourantog]

I think you'll be lucky - unless the fault is deemed to be a danger (eg braking/steering).

Have you tried my theory about waiting diligently for the glow plug light to go out? I'm curious to see if that holds any water or not :)

Re your smoke - if I get it, then it is exactly as you describe - lots coming from near front nearside wheel...

if you look under the car there is a second small exhaust from the fuel burning heater is the smoke coming from that, there was a mod to extend the pipe further down towards the rear end of the car.
if you suspect the glow plugs measure the resistance 1.9 to 3 are usual glow plug values, i have read 750 ohms on one of my bad ones, as long as the values are similar I would say they are fine.

[graham53]

Yes this is where the smoke came from. How dose this fuel burner work. The glow plugs are they in the head? Do you know where i can buy a manual for the touran ?

[tourantog]

The glow plugs are in the head at the front of the engine, lift the plastic cover up and there is a rubber feed loom with a few clips for wires etc on it. worth spraying a release agent on the plug joint for a couple of hours before you try to take one out. the plugs are a very thin material and only need a light nip, if you have one use a torque wrench to take the plug out, from memory the shear value is 25-30nM - it is on the BERU website, just to make sure they are going to come out and nod snap leaving just the heater in the head.
You do not need to take them ouit to test the resistance. :D

[graham53]

Do you know what the motor is behind the front bumper on the o/s as it is runs on for maybe 15 seconds after you have locked the car not sure if i can smell diesel

[tjwatts]

Do you know where i can buy a manual for the touran ?

ebay usually - comes on CD-ROMs and you need to install it on a Windows PC (it's huge and power hungry). Needs to be license hacked - so make sure that's included by the seller.

Probably a breach of copyright low, but seeing as VW don;t actually sell the manual (or if they do, not for a sensible price) what can you do. I'd never be without a workshop manual. Solved an ignition problem on my old Daewoo Lanos by tracing the wiring diagram and making an educated guess that the crank sensor was failing due to heat. That fault had completely stumped Vauxhall...

[tjwatts]

if you look under the car there is a second small exhaust from the fuel burning heater .

What does this do exactly? Is it a preheater for the liquid diesel fuel line or is it supposed to burn off some sort of vented diesel coming from somewhere else? Or are we talking about a device that burns off diesel vapour that is in the exhaust line due to a faulty glowplug?

Mine's kicking up again (1.5C today). I'm waiting to catch it bad and photograph it. The main dealer was supposed to have fixed this issue under warranty last year, so I plan to go back and have stern words with the Service Manager and see if they will look at it again for free (out of warranty now) seeing as it eveidently wasn't fixed...

But before I do that, I will wop a multimeter on my plugs. Might as well rule out any obvious issues - though I'm sure I'd notice a cylinder that was totally failing to fire for 5 minutes of driving - wouldn't I??... (The smoke issue hangs around for typically 5-10 minutes until everything's nearly upto normal temperatures...

[tjwatts]

http://www.carsurvey.org/reviews/volkswagen/touran/r57302/comments/

That is very interesting - it mentions a Technical Service Bulletin. As soon as I can grab a photo of rediculous amounts of smoke, I'm off to VW, prob tomorrow...

[graham53]

I have taken off a unit that is fitted behind the bumper on the o/s/f .I am having it tested out.It is to preheat the coolant water it has a burner to heat the water.I hope they will find the problem with it

[tjwatts]

I have taken off a unit that is fitted behind the bumper on the o/s/f .I am having it tested out.It is to preheat the coolant water it has a burner to heat the water.I hope they will find the problem with it

OK - I'm with you. Now this makes sense of a lot of other threads. So it burns diesel (I'm guessing catalytically???) to pre-heat the water before it gets to the heater matrix so the windscreen clears?...

I think a front heated screen would have been less fussing, though this does benefit the engine I suppose - assuming it has enough guts to warm the block a bit...

I *think* I might have seen a correlation with setting the fan control to "economy" mode (I thought that just knocked out the AC, but I'm wondering...).

If I'm right, there might at least be a simple way to disable it...

[graham53]

Can i disconect the aux heater. I have been told that mine is faulty and very expensive. Or where can i have it repaired or buy a used one

[graham53]

I had my pre heater checked .Found it faulty was costing £550 fitted .Had it refitted but disconnected the electrics.All it is for is to heat up the cooling system when very cold to keep the emmisions clean.Iwas told that about every other galaxy are disconnected

[graham53]

anyone else tryed to disconnect aux heater