Vaneo Diesel 1.7 CDi Excessive Smoke

[Tony Russell]

OK, before you start the slagging me, I am a Vaneo owner.

I have an 02 Vaneo diesel 1.7CDi. 85K miles. We've had it since new.

Recently I've been getting excessive blue / grey smoke.
The exhaust pipe is sooty, rather than oily.

Smoke is prevalent when pulling off cold, increasingly smokes diring the journey and seems to be greater if it's been idling / stopped and then pulling off.

No particular increase in oil consumption.

I have noticed, though perhaps psychosematically, a wheeze on accelleration from the offside (right) side of the engine.
For all I know it might have always been there.

One unofficial Merc expert said "Oooh, Injectors and turbo. £1500 straight off. Plus whatever else it takes for me to put stuff in and see what happens".

Another gave a very sensible discussion and prognosis that it might be a pipe with a leak causing some fuel / air / exhaust mismatch.
I liked him best ! He's in Glasgow and has, I am told, a very good name - but not available for a week or so.


I've added Coma and Redex with no improvement.
Performance is fine. Speed, accelleration and pull are spot on. Hence the reason I tend to go with #2 diagnosis.


This is the first diesel I have ever owned, so I don't even know how they work. If it were petrol, I'd be a lot more confident.

BTW - it had a full oil / filter service about 6 months ago.


Thanks in advance for your help,

Tony

 

[lynall]

Sounds like turbo boost leak, ie either the pipe from the turbo to the intercooler or the intercooler to the inlet manifold.

You WILL not be able to hear the leak just by revving the engine at a standstill it has to be under load, so just follow the pipe run and check every clip also squeeze any rubber connecting pipework to feel for splits or hard spots, if nothing found have a good look at the intercooler and the turbo mainly gaskets.

Good luck let us know how you get on, got any pics of the engine as i havent seen one?



Lynall

 

[Mr Jadefox]

Our C270 was just being looked at by Steve (The Merc mechanic) as it was smoking a lot more than usual.
He was changing the Air Filter to try that, but then noticed the Intercooler was split - so that seems to be the issue there!

 

[Tony Russell]

Lynall,
Sure I'll send a pic. Though, to be honest, it just looks like a shoebox sitting next to a washer tank.

Mr Jadefox, is that a split intercooler, or a split intercooler hose ?

Thanks,
Tony

 

[Mr Jadefox]

Well the Indi says it's a split in the intercooler, he showed the wife the front of it and she said it looked dented. He reckons it was done on a speed bump or kerb.

 

[Tony Russell]

So the intercooler is somewhere low down and could be cracked by driving into a kerb front on ?

Nice design

Thanks - I'll have a look.

No idea what an intercooler looks like as I've been a petrol owner all my days, but here we go. Baptism by fire .....

 

[lynall]

Intercooler is just and air to air radiator and looks just like a std radiator, except the hoses are fatter.

Position can be in front of std rad, or either side, under the rad, below the headlights over the engine just about anywhere.

Here for intercooler size
http://www.aaronradiator.co.uk/catalog/Mercedes_Vaneo_Intercooler-1441-1.html and to give you an idea what to look for.

Very few mechanical pics of vaneo on internet so worth taking a few pics for other people.


Lynall

 

[BlackC55]

They are the same as A-classes really.

I would put my money on a split boost pipe.

 

[Tony Russell]

Intercooler is just and air to air radiator and looks just like a std radiator, except the hoses are fatter.


Very few mechanical pics of vaneo on internet so worth taking a few pics for other people.


Lynall

Ha ha ! Thanks very much

I was actually looking at it last night and thinking "why the f*@& has this stupid thing got two radiators ?"


I'll take pics at the weekend and post them up somewhere.

thanks again

 

[BlackC55]

It has 3 if it has AC.

 

[Tony Russell]

Not that posh.
My Air Conditioning is the big, slidey, see through panel variety.

 

[Mr Jadefox]

They are the same as A-classes really.

I would put my money on a split boost pipe.

Well, we had the pipe split when we first got the car - compared top this, that smoke was FAR more black - it was leaving a black soot mark on the floor when you revved it from whilst standing!!

 

[blondebier]

got any pics of the engine as i havent seen one?

Here's a couple of shots of our A160 cdi engine bay. I'm guessing your Vaneo looks pretty similar Tony?

Close up :

 

[Tony Russell]

Hi Blondebier,
That's pretty damned close. Except yours is a lot cleaner.

I had the front end off and was scratching about for leaks at the weekend, but then the midges came out and I beat a hasty retreat. Back at it this weekend I reckon.

Pics coming up in the next post.

 

[Tony Russell]

Hello,
I had a few goes at taking the car apart and finally got the appropriate panels off and identified the right hoses and stuff last night.

Viewing from the front of the car, it looks like the turbo is on the left hand side and is almost directly connected to the exhaust output department.
from there, a flex hose drops down to the intercooler, a small radiator on front of the cooling radiator.
It passes through that, out to another hose on the right, up through an interconnect with some electrical bit on it, and then into the top on the engine case where there looks to be some kind of valve / sensor doo dah.


So, I went round all the hose clips and wiggled up / tightened them.
I started tyhe car up and it looked to be less smoky at rest. Result ?

Took it for a run up a hill and it was as smoky as ever.

So I opened up the top right hand hose and observed that the input side on the top of the engine had a very strong sook, indicating the direction of airflow.

The hose that feeds that had oil in it, presumably the source of the smoke material.
I cleaned that out, but obviously there would be a load of residual oil in the intercooler and pipes then.
Problem still exists.

So, I'm thinking now that there is probably no air leak in the system, but that there is an oil leak into it. It is using a bit of oil - maybe a litre a month or so.

Also, from underneath, there is some oil around on some hoses, indicating that there is some oil leak going on somewhere.

So, I'm at a loss for now, short of taking the engine apart - which I'd rather leave to a proper mechanic.

 

[blondebier]

Hi Tony,

Other than the smoke does it drive ok? Is it sounding rough when you drive it?

There must be some good independents in Glasgow. Hopefully someone will be along shortly to recommend someone.

Good luck - I hope it's an easy fix.

Cheers,
Blondebier

 

[Tony Russell]

Hi,
Don't think it's that rough - I think it's fairly standard dieselly clatterry. The drive is fine.

I can't help wondering though how engine oil has got into the turbo part of the system.
I'm thinking it could be the gasket around the injectors as this post describes:
http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/engine/73423-intercooler-rubber-gasket-where-get-them.html

I've heard TJ O'Neill in Glasgow is highly recommended.

 

[lynall]

Tony you wont be able to get the leak to happen at a standstill as the turbo will spin fast but wont produce any boost.

Every small turbo diesel engine i have ever looked at has had oil inside the hoses so long as its not swimming in it its fine, the oil comes from the engine breather being piped into the inlet trunking.

I still reckon that wheeze is a split somewhere, the oil stain tells me the problem is in that area, ie the air from the pipe/intercooler is escaping and some of that oil from inside the pipe is also coming out leaving the stain.

Sure there was a recent post ref same prob on an a class and that was split cooler.



Lynall

 

[Tony Russell]

Hello,
And thanks very, very much for the replies so far.

This is kind of becoming fun, because I went from a history over the past 20 odd years of driving dead simple petrol cars with no elecronics and loads of space under the bonnet.
By the time I donated my Audi 80 to the local college at 200,000 miles, I was a guru on it.

So, this problem is not a showstopper at the moment, and I've spent a few hours most nights working my way around the shoebox that is the engine and actually working out what everything does. I need to get it sorted in the interests of saving the dolphins and the MOT though. Whichever comes first.

What you say about the oil was confirmed by the local garage yesterday when I was discussing it on the phone - so that's a bit of a relief.

And having cleaned the oil up with gunk, I'm now of the opinion that it might be some that was spilled when topping up in the past because:
a/ There's not a pool of it in the plastic floorpan thing:
b/ There's none on the hoses.

What I might do though is tape toilet paper to the pipes though and see if they get dirty or blown after a journey. That would at least rule out the hoses and limit it to the intercooler or something else.

Garage Man almost immediately said it was the EGR - which someone suggested further up. But he didn't know where the EGR is located on this and I finally came to the conclusion that what I thought was the EGR is actually the vaccuum source (black plastic circular thing on the right hand side top of the engine where the air hose enters from the intercooler - to the right of the Z in Benz in blondebier's photo below). Indeed, when I blew air in the small hose and traced it, it led to the brake servo - so I'm fairly sure that's what it does.

So, next job is to find out what an EGR look like and where to find it.
I found this doc EGR 4th Gen LT1 F-body which was a general education, but not specific to mine.

I've ordered a Russek manual in the meantime.

 

[Tony Russell]

Ha ha !
Hade a brainwave and called the dealer and asked for the part #, price and a diagram, which he kindly faxed me.


PN 6680900454
£89 + VAT

#47 in the diagram, which I will post tonight when I get in.

It's the metal bit beneath the plastic cap on the right of the engine.

The bit with Mercedez Benz on it is the Intake manifold.
So the bit between the Z and the hoseclip is the EGR.

Woo Hoo !

I'll clean that tonight and report back tomorrow.