Turbo diesels

bugsrabbit

Thought i'd let you know about a problem i,m currently having with my toyota rav4 diesel. Over the last 6 months the car has suddenly gone into 'limp' mode whilst under acceleration. The local garage suggested we take it to Toyota to have the fault codes looked at which we did on Tuesday, only to be told we needed a new turbo at a cost of three grand! We were shocked to say the least. The mechanic explained the turbo fitted to our car and nearly every modern day diesel engine is a 'variable geometry' turbo. I won,t bore you with the workings of a turbo (i know them inside out now! ) but the vanes inside the exhaust side of the unit pivot depending on the speed of the car cancelling turbo lag. Here comes the problem, if the car is used for short journeys or run solely on supermarket fuel the movable vanes soot up and stop moving causing high boost pressure thus causing a fault. A quick google reveals this is a problem on a lot of cars. At present our best option is either a recon turbo at a cost of £1500 or i believe there are cleaning products on the market. I suppose it goes to show just because my wife drives like miss daisy it,s not always the best way.

bompington

Drive like a maniac, you know it makes sense

ilm_zero7

yep! a known problem - after our fist and only turbo replacement (£1000) @ VW for a recon unit - we have always avoided short runs and always idle the car for 30 seconds before turning it off. As yet unproven if this is a cure, time will tell.
We also now only use one of the shell or BP 'high performance' diesel fuels on the premise this may lengthen the period to the next failure - may be 3-4p per litre more, but there is a lot of 3-4p's in £1000 !

verylonglegs

One of the reasons, along with an imminent dual mass flywheel failure, why I sold my TCDi recently and went back to a petrol car. You also lose a lot of the fuel economy from a diesel if you are doing short journeys as they take so long to warm-up.

Dunkindiver

I was looking at Fiat 500's last week and the salesman advised against the diesel unless I could give it 20 minutes at 60mph once a fortnight to clear the diesel particulate filters!

meanredspider

Dunkindiver wrote:

I was looking at Fiat 500's last week and the salesman advised against the diesel unless I could give it 20 minutes at 60mph once a fortnight to clear the diesel particulate filters!

If you are going for a small FIAT it has to be a Multiair petrol engine - fantastic engines. Personally I also don't think diesels make much sense on small cars as all that torque goes to waste.

Like all cars, they benefit from an "Italian Tune-up" once a week - a damn good blast to clear everything through.

peter101cycle

If you have a diesel, drive it once a week like an arse with high revs, to blow all the crap out of the top of the engine........keeps everything ticking over.

Just make sure a cyclist is not behind you when you give it some welly.

My Golf GTiD is a little bad for the amount that comes out the backend.....

dvh798

i'd try to find a turbo specialsit to have alook, you should have high boost presure under acceleration. It could be a pressure relief valve fault.
mines a ford TDCi C max that spends most of its time trundling around town.
On the ford the EGR valve ( exhaust gas recirculation valve) creates the same symptoms.
a good high engine speed thrash blow's a lot of soot out then runs clear

I always run non supermarket fuel, runs best on BP, never drops below 47mpg round town

Gav888

Dual Mass Flywheel and DPF issues are the main reasons putting me off a diesel, but then the stacks of torque and £800 a year fuel savings over my existing car and def plus points.

From research ive done on the subject short trips are diesels killers due to the soot build up, ive known a few people with diesels who only used them for town driving and shot drives <10 miles, and they had loads of problems. You need to put the mileage in to get it warmed up properly to burn off the soot.

Motorway driving and giving a boot full every week will help no end....

holmeboy

Yeah I've went back to Petrol as well, having had our Izuzu Trooper suffer oil failure after Turbo failure, then total engine failure. Naively thought Diesels were indestructable, bah! cost me an ffing fortune.

markos1963

I drive my diesel every day at just above idle using crap fuel and it gets very little servicing. What is it? A Cummins 20L flat 6 and I get no problems

desweller

markos1963 wrote:

I drive my diesel every day at just above idle using crap fuel and it gets very little servicing. What is it? A Cummins 20L flat 6 and I get no problems

What's the economy like on that?

Weejie54

I have a Renault Kangoo - non-turbo. I do around 2400 miles per year (cycling negates using it too often). It is not good on consumption in the winter due to short runs but it runs on a 50/50 mix of diesel and cooking oil. No need to "blast it" at high speeds - I have had it for 7 years and have not needed to, anyway. I don't think diesel engines do take that much longer to warm up than petrol engines, despite them being heavier, but it is more important to have them at optimal running temperature for efficiency and fuel economy. I would never go back to petrol - last petrol vehicle was back in 1989.

fossyant

Most cars don't like short runs. My car now sits on the drive all week, so we ensure it get's used at weekends and gets a good Italian tune up from me - red line it getting onto the motorway. It's petrol though !

Turbo failure on diesels is a big issue.

northernneil

I drive a kia

got it last year

my warranty doesnt run out till 2017 .........

snailracer

holmeboy wrote:

Yeah I've went back to Petrol as well, having had our Izuzu Trooper suffer oil failure after Turbo failure, then total engine failure. Naively thought Diesels were indestructable, bah! cost me an ffing fortune.

That was only "true" for the old non-turbo diesels.

rake

they pushed diesel with the greener more fuel efficient argument, now theyre popular they crap on us and put diesel more expensive than petrol, which doesnt surprise me. i dont think there are any savings with diesel anymore. car more expensive, very expensive- dual flywheel, exhaust gas recirculation, particulate filters, turbos and silly high fuel pressure system that is very sensitive to any kind of damp, dirt wrong fuel in any quantity and at 1800bar (thats 26000psi) i cant see it being very durable.if there were ever a leak it could cut your finger off. the cummins 20L probably has unit injection which seems far better.

Stewie Griffin

peter101cycle wrote:

If you have a diesel, drive it once a week like an ars* with high revs, to blow all the crap out of the top of the engine........keeps everything ticking over.

Just make sure a cyclist is not behind you when you give it some welly.

My Golf GTiD is a little bad for the amount that comes out the backend.....

Which is why I never understand a cyclist that wants a diesel car. I remember using the internationally recognised hand gesture that suggests that someone might enjoy pleasuring himself after he pulled out in front of me. He saw this in his mirror and returned with another well known gesture which I believe originated in America and only involves the middle finger. Then, he put the icing on the cake when he decked his accelerator and left me unable to see or breath for the next 50 meters. How that was passing an MOT year after year I will never know.

snailracer

Gav888 wrote:

...
From research ive done on the subject short trips are diesels killers due to the soot build up, ive known a few people with diesels who only used them for town driving and shot drives <10 miles, and they had loads of problems. You need to put the mileage in to get it warmed up properly to burn off the soot.

Motorway driving and giving a boot full every week will help no end....

Unfortunately, soot filters are unreliable. Even if they don't break, they often just dump out the nasty, carcinogenic soot out in a big cloud, which does not count as filtering. I find it more than a bit disappointing that even shiny, new cars generate these soot clouds. This suggests the technology simply doesn't work, rather than it being a maintenance issue with a minority of cars.

From the AA website:
"When the soot loading in the filter reaches a set limit (about 45%) the ECU can make small adjustments to the fuel injection timing to increase the exhaust temperature and initiate regeneration. If the journey's a bit stop/start the regeneration may not complete and the warning light will illuminate to show that the DPF is partially blocked.

It should be possible to start a complete regeneration and clear the warning light simply by driving for 10 minutes or so at speeds greater than 40mph.

If you ignore the light and keep driving in a relatively slow, stop/start pattern soot loading will continue to build up until around 75% when you can expect to see other dashboard warning lights illuminate too. At this point driving at speed alone will not be sufficient and the car will have to go to a dealer for regeneration."

jellybellywmb

peter101cycle wrote:

If you have a diesel, drive it once a week like an ars* with high revs, to blow all the crap out of the top of the engine........keeps everything ticking over.

Just make sure a cyclist is not behind you when you give it some welly.

My Golf GTiD is a little bad for the amount that comes out the backend.....

Mines a diesel Audi so I obviously drive like an arse everyday (according to some!!)

nwallace

rake wrote:

they pushed diesel with the greener more fuel efficient argument, now theyre popular they crap on us and put diesel more expensive than petrol, which doesnt surprise me.

If you get even 1mpg more from a diesel engine than a petrol then diesel is cheaper to run on the fueling stakes.

One of the main changes in diesels in cars that went with them becoming more popular is the stretching of the maintenance periods so that they cost the same as petrol cars for servicing.

That 20L Cummings diesel probably gets a lot more care than your average well looked after car diesel engine.

markos1963

DesWeller wrote:

markos1963 wrote:

I drive my diesel every day at just above idle using crap fuel and it gets very little servicing. What is it? A Cummins 20L flat 6 and I get no problems

What's the economy like on that?

About 20L an hour or 5mpg I believe!(but then again I can carry nearly 150 passengers on it)

rake

are you a train driver?

ChrisSA

Stewie Griffin wrote:

Then, he put the icing on the cake when he decked his accelerator and left me unable to see or breath for the next 50 meters. How that was passing an MOT year after year I will never know.

My Mondeo does this. I find it useful to smoke out the other car idiots who sit on my rear in 30mph zones. It has passed all MOTs so far.

rake

excess diesel causes black smoke, it doesnt burn fully and turns black.

markos1963

rake wrote:

are you a train driver?

Collect your prize at the exit

Stoo48

Ah, the 19L rail pack, I know it well, effectively the standard 19L layed on it's side....... depending on the calibration and who's trains you drive, either 700 or 750HP.

You may not think it gets much maintenance but rest assured it does.....

markos1963

Stoo48 wrote:

Ah, the 19L rail pack, I know it well, effectively the standard 19L layed on it's side....... depending on the calibration and who's trains you drive, either 700 or 750HP.

You may not think it gets much maintenance but rest assured it does.....

700-750hp!!!!! maybe if I join 3 of them up together, a Cummins puts out 285hp per engine on a good day or if our Depot haven't got their grbby mitts on them.

rake

nwallace wrote:

rake wrote:

they pushed diesel with the greener more fuel efficient argument, now theyre popular they crap on us and put diesel more expensive than petrol, which doesnt surprise me.

If you get even 1mpg more from a diesel engine than a petrol then diesel is cheaper to run on the fueling stakes.

One of the main changes in diesels in cars that went with them becoming more popular is the stretching of the maintenance periods so that they cost the same as petrol cars for servicing.

That 20L Cummings diesel probably gets a lot more care than your average well looked after car diesel engine.

http://www.parkers.co.uk/News/Motoring- ... alculator/
that assumes nothing breaks down with a massive repair bill.
take this axample and add £1500 pound for the recon turbo on the cheap, it about doubles the excess cost and roughly doubles all of those break even mileages. not good for light useage savings.

Bobbinogs

I had the DMFW fail on my car a few weeks after Xmas, little choice but to shell out £1k on getting it fixed (ummed and arhhed a lot about the relative merits of writing the car off and buying another but figured in the end I would just lose more on that). Misery heaped upon misery. Still, Xmas was good and I managed to buy my new RS80s at the end of last year before the money ran out.

bugsrabbit

Bobbinogs wrote:

I had the DMFW fail on my car a few weeks after Xmas, little choice but to shell out £1k on getting it fixed (ummed and arhhed a lot about the relative merits of writing the car off and buying another but figured in the end I would just lose more on that). Misery heaped upon misery. Still, Xmas was good and I managed to buy my new RS80s at the end of last year before the money ran out.

Ye, i muat admit thats my main concern! I,m supposed to be ordering a pair of 'fulcrum racing zero' wheels any time. Just don,t tell the wife that my bike takes priority over her car (again)