White Smoke - 2006 Freelander Mk1, TD4

Hello folks!

Firstly, I'm sorry that my second topic (after my intro) is straight into a potential issue...

I've never owned a diesel before, and I'm not mechanically minded. There - I have my caveats out the way!!

So basically the other week I picked up a Freelander. 71,000 miles on the clock. Full MOT history but unknown service history. I got it from a small but (seemingly) reputable local 4x4 dealer specialising in Land Rovers. They have been here for over 30 years and I genuinely believe they wouldn't still be here if reputation was negative. That said though I'm not "born and bred" here so don't really know.

Anyway... They performed a service on the car before selling it to me and since owning it I've done over 1,200 miles of mainly long stretches on motorways. Below is a list of what I've observed. Ultimately, due to my lack of knowledge I was wondering if you guys could let me know if this is ok, or whether I should go back to the dealers? The reason I'm checking here first is because I don't want them to fob me off so I don't make use of their warranty...

: car starts fine, first time every time - warm or cold engine.
: quite warm weather at the mo, so can't comment about start-up in colder weather.
: idles very smoothly, revs don't fluctuation.
: engine quite - no rattle, clanks, bangs etc.
: not sure if it's a gimmick but I've been putting premium diesel in it.
: long journeys thus far.
: still working out fuel economy, but I'm getting over 230 miles before it drops below half. That seems fine?

Noticed that a white smoke (doesn't look like steam) is blowing out the exhaust when I'm on the accelerator. It doesn't seem to appear when idling or off the accelerator pedal when moving. Also can't see anything when I'm only lightly on the pedal (such as maintaining speed). Happening regardless of engine temperature.

In addition to this I noticed a momentary lack of power up around 50mph. A good example is whilst maintaining that speed through the average speed cameras on the M1. If the terrain went uphill slightly you could feel it almost starve of power unless I gave it more gas. I've since done a fuel cycle with some of Redex in the tank and it seems to have improved that greatly.

I'm waffling, I know. I guess I'm wondering if it's something to do with the injectors? I wouldn't expect the car to be blowing white smoke, and the fact it felt starved of power seems odd.

Any help would be greatly appreciated - and happy to provide more info if needed.

Many thanks in advance, Nina

Hi Bippo, i dont have a diesel but both of the petrols one 1.8 and a kv6. You didnt write anything about coolant, are you losing any at all, is the level even dropping very very slightly? Did you recently do any work to it which involved the inlet manifold being removed? I guess i'm speaking more of the kv6 which you dont have, but for the KV6, a few folks have found their to have been smoking white excessively all the time, and their coolant holes at the inlet manifold weren't adequately sealed. Some of them also didnt torque the inlet manifold bolts to spec but torqued it whatever they felt was right. One guy re-removed both inlet manifolds and put adequate RTV sealant (the fuel resistant type as well) surrounding the coolant holes, then torqued all bolts to sequence and spec according to the RAVE manual, then his white smoking stopped, and so did the coolant loss. Though it was very very tiny coolant loss, you really had to monitor carefully to pick up that it was losing. Remember this is for a KV6 not a diesel, but just out of interest, did anyone do any work recently which involved removing/refitting the inlet manifold gaskets?