Smelly Emissions on L405 4.4 SDV8?

Hi Guys,

Has anyone experienced smelly emissions, in the past I have had smelling exhaust fumes and this has been rectified by AdBlue being topped up, but this time, AdBlue was not empty and is now full.

I have a circa 40k miles vehicle and I drive it very little tbh, mostly short town runs. I di wonder if it was due to not getting up to temp often enough, but two weekends ago, I did back to back longer drives (2 x 1hr and 2 x 2hr trips). So I am not sure if that would have cured any issues of not getting up to temp.

Dashboard has zero faults and it was serviced & MOT'd at the meain dealership in december, where it must have passed emissions.

With this cold snap recently, I started car on the driveway to warm it up and these smelly emissions totally entered the tiny air gap under the garage door and stank the house out. It was pretty bad.
If I am getting the dogs in round back, I hold my breath, it is pretty nasty smelling and cannot be good for health.

I would appreciate any ideas if anyone has experienced this before?

Regards
swampie

For the moment park it nose in so it poisons the peasants passing by
If it has passed an emissions test it could well smell like that anyway and you've never noticed

Swampie said:

Hi Guys,

Has anyone experienced smelly emissions, in the past I have had smelling exhaust fumes and this has been rectified by AdBlue being topped up, but this time, AdBlue was not empty and is now full.

I have a circa 40k miles vehicle and I drive it very little tbh, mostly short town runs. I di wonder if it was due to not getting up to temp often enough, but two weekends ago, I did back to back longer drives (2 x 1hr and 2 x 2hr trips). So I am not sure if that would have cured any issues of not getting up to temp.

Dashboard has zero faults and it was serviced & MOT'd at the meain dealership in december, where it must have passed emissions.

With this cold snap recently, I started car on the driveway to warm it up and these smelly emissions totally entered the tiny air gap under the garage door and stank the house out. It was pretty bad.
If I am getting the dogs in round back, I hold my breath, it is pretty nasty smelling and cannot be good for health.

I would appreciate any ideas if anyone has experienced this before?

Regards
swampie

Click to expand...

I suffer from smelly emissions after a good curry A lot of Stelantis vehicles are subject to a recall over problems with ADDBlue, I wonder if some JLR vehicles may have the same problem?

It sounds very much like the DPF & SC are getting full, at this time of year they will fill up quite quickly with the resultant noxious aroma due to short journeys, low ambient temperature and the fact that DPF & SCR systems are bolt on bodges to keep the EU happy (applies to all manufacturers, not just JLR).
To be honest, if you habitually do short journeys, you might want to consider changing to a petrol engined version - I did, the fuel cost is similar but I'm not killing the engine by choking it with soot - which is what happens with short, low temperature drives in (any) EU5 or 6 diesel. When I had my diesel L405, I had to do a 'regen drive' every 3-4 weeks to prevent, or lessen engine oil dilution, this can be an engine-killer if it occurs too frequently. The other thing to consider is that SCR systems are not active until the vehicle has been driven for ~20 minutes, so potentially the selective catalyst will be getting choked also. At this time of year, I'd suggest a >30 minute moderate but continuous drive in the 35-50mph range to 'clear out' the exhaust anf get some good amount of heat into the engine to try & burn off some of the carbon deposits.

ETA - lots of heat in the DPF absolutely helps clear the SC, we regularly use a forced DPF regen routine to 'reset' SCR values that are consistently out of range. Also watch out for 'service required' messages, this indicates measured or calculated oil dilution - don't ignore the need for an oil & filter change.

Graculus said:

It sounds very much like the DPF & SC are getting full, at this time of year they will fill up quite quickly with the resultant noxious aroma due to short journeys, low ambient temperature and the fact that DPF & SCR systems are bolt on bodges to keep the EU happy (applies to all manufacturers, not just JLR).
To be honest, if you habitually do short journeys, you might want to consider changing to a petrol engined version - I did, the fuel cost is similar but I'm not killing the engine by choking it with soot - which is what happens with short, low temperature drives in (any) EU5 or 6 diesel. When I had my diesel L405, I had to do a 'regen drive' every 3-4 weeks to prevent, or lessen engine oil dilution, this can be an engine-killer if it occurs too frequently. The other thing to consider is that SCR systems are not active until the vehicle has been driven for ~20 minutes, so potentially the selective catalyst will be getting choked also. At this time of year, I'd suggest a >30 minute moderate but continuous drive in the 35-50mph range to 'clear out' the exhaust anf get some good amount of heat into the engine to try & burn off some of the carbon deposits.

Click to expand...

What is the SCR please?

Tonights journey was only short (again), I put it in sport mode so as to use higher revving gears, kept the engine at 2,000 rpm ish despite the slow short journey and also at traffic lights, I managed nearly 20 mins at 2,000rpm and "perhaps" it helped, it's too early to be sure.
I will try to get another similer run in. The last long journeys I mentioned, I had my partner with me and she like a tranquil drive. Therefor, I don't think I really revved the engine a couple of weeks ago despite the journey length.

You seem to be suffering from gentle driving syndrome. The second turbo on the 4.4 doesn't really kick in until circa 3000RPM. Tickling about and driving gently is not the best way to drive diesels, especially the 4.4.
Your Range Rover needs an Italian tune up. My friend who works on these modern Range Rovers has a large heavy plant trailer. He hitches this to his customers' Rangies and gives them a boot full up a very long hill in my area, and sometimes more than one time. This gets the engine, tranny and most importantly the turbos and exhaust system HOT, to burn off any rubbish on the insides. The problem with the modern diesels is that the gearing is very tall and the engines rarely get to high RPM.

SCR - Selective Catalyst Reductant - the bit that traps Nitrous Oxide on (synthetic) Urea particles. You don't need to be 'nailing it', just keeping the engine under load to get the exhaust temperatures up so that a passive or active regen of the DPF will take place, it's these exhaust temperatures that will burn off the trapped NOx - as mentioned above, the SCR system is not active for the first 20 minutes of any journey, so whilst you may be increasing the DPF temperature, there will be no reductant (DEF / AdBlue) sprayed into the selective catalyst to concentrate the NOx (mostly the smelly stuff mixed with excess soot from the DPF) into 'clumps' and later heated, producing water & Nitrogen

Thanks for the replies guys, I haven't had chance to put the engine "under load" as such, but what I did do was put it in sport and do a 20-30 minute drive at circa 2-3,000 rpm. It didn't help.
I have nothing to tow, so best chance I can get revs up is to use sport mode to enable manual gearing. So should I perhaps do a junction down the motorway at over 3,000rpm perhaps 4 or 5,000rpm?

Would that do sufficient load?

No, that will do nothing - the DPF regeneration will cancel itself due to exhaust or turbo over-temperature protection, just drive it normally, but for an extended period of time. Also note, as I mentioned previously that SCR doesn't become active until the vehicle has been driven for >20 minutes.
Take it for a run on a dual carriageway - excessive acceleration &speed will cancel the regen, just try to keep it in the 30-50mph range for about an hour. Don't worry if you have to stop at junctions, slow in traffic etc. Thrashing it for an extended period will do nothing other than cost you fuel, the protections will abort the regen and SCR activity, so-called 'italian tune-ups' do not help EU6 / EU6+ diesels.

Graculus said:

No, that will do nothing - the DPF regeneration will cancel itself due to exhaust or turbo over-temperature protection, just drive it normally, but for an extended period of time. Also note, as I mentioned previously that SCR doesn't become active until the vehicle has been driven for >20 minutes.
Take it for a run on a dual carriageway - excessive acceleration &speed will cancel the regen, just try to keep it in the 30-50mph range for about an hour. Don't worry if you have to stop at junctions, slow in traffic etc. Thrashing it for an extended period will do nothing other than cost you fuel, the protections will abort the regen and SCR activity, so-called 'italian tune-ups' do not help EU6 / EU6+ diesels.

Click to expand...

How measures to reduce pollution can end up increasing it due to the extra driving needed

The biggest problem is average owner won't know this... All the cars I see come through with dpf issues and additive problems due to short journeys. Everyone agrees that a petrol engine would be better for short journeys ....but I'm not sure about oil burning petrol engines either...
Low pressure oil pumps, petrol or diesel...
Regulated oil pumps, petrol or diesel...
Low pressure piston rings, seriously??
Diesel is done with unfortunately, over heated over complicated..
I'll get me coat...