Hi guys,

First need to appologise if this has been asked before, been searching for the last couple of hours and cant see that it has..

Bought my disco off ebay a couple of months back tis a L reg (1993??) 200TDi done 165K. Now i believe she runs well, seems noisy, lots of clunking and bit of whistling (excuse the technical terms ) but shes a old girl and was told to expect that but she always starts first time.

The only thing that worries me is the large amount of white smoke being chucked out (is definaly white, no black or blue that i can see). There is a little bit on starting but then it stops then there is another huge cloud that appears about 30 seconds down the road only lasts a few seconds then stops again, then does the same about 30 secs to a minute later, may repeat this another couple of times but then thats it and shes fine. Doesn't happen if i've only stopped for a bit then set off again, only if started cold. May be my imagination but the quantity of smoke seems to be going up but seems better some days than others. Does not appear to be loosing water, doesn't overheat and does not affect power either, would not notice if i couldn't see it through rear mirror. HG has been done last october by previous owner along with a lot of other things. Not sure if it was doing it when i got it without me noticing or if its a new thing.

Now as you may have guessed i know sod all about cars will admit to being a useless female when it comes to this sort of thing (not something i admit to often!) So not really going to be able to answer any technical questions though will do my best. Other half is just as useless unfortunatly but do have a mate who i could ask to look at specific things if its a quick job. So really just need to know if i should be worried and should i get it looked at or if its normal and harmless, if abeit slightly ing when sitting at traffic lights gassing out passers by!!

Any help appreciated
Amy

its normal to smoke a bit, specially under accelaration.... but not white smoke

Mine is a K reg (93) and has 211K miles... so yours still have lots of life in it

you say you bought yours off ebay.... did you check all the usual places for rust?

Yep is practically rust free, all the usual places been sorted did think the smoke was too excessive to be normal!

Thats what mine is doing at the moment, r reg with 165k on the clock.
At the monment the guy looking at mine is certain its the head but wont know until it is stripped, take the oil cap off and see if any steam is coming out as that is what i get.
Saying that though the steam has stopped coming out of my exhaust for the time being, but the inital problem of no heat coming out of the blowers has reappeared, obvious link as it only started steaming when i fixed the heaters.

Thanks for replying..

Friend has checked the head and said it looked ok?? is this something you can see just by looking?? sorry dont even know what it looks like

Dont get seem to get any steam from anywhere though

check under your oil cap for white gunk (the yellow cap), also try starting the engine and look at where you put in water/coolant and watch for air bubbles. if any of these are present then its more than likely head gasket. you can have it checked properly at a garage, i did mine last week for £10 only takes them 2 minutes. mines doing the same.

Funny enough I bought my 300Tdi off ebay 18 months ago and it had very similar problems. Mine turned out to be a timing belt issue. The previous owner told me he had had the timing belt replaced 5000 miles prior to me buying it. What he didn't tell me was that he had it replaced by some cowboy. As a result the belt had slipped and had offset the timing altogether. This made the engine produce copious amounts of white smoke, especially on start up from cold and also on decelleration. It was that bad I couldn't see out of my rear view window.

I was lucky and caught this before it caused serious damage. So if your not dead sure when the timing belt was last replaced then I would recommend that you get it replaced, and just maybe it might sort your smoke problem out as well.

sambodisco said:

check under your oil cap for white gunk (the yellow cap), also try starting the engine and look at where you put in water/coolant and watch for air bubbles. if any of these are present then its more than likely head gasket.

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Now this is my sort of language - thanks! Will look in the morning when its light again!

Will check on the timing belt too (whatever that is! )

Thanks

mayzie said:

Now this is my sort of language - thanks! Will look in the morning when its light again!

Will check on the timing belt too (whatever that is! )

Thanks

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no problem let me know how you get on.

If you are getting white smoke with a COLD engine it's not steam. It will be unburnt diesel (smells of diesel). Two likely causes are glo-plugs not working (you do know about glo-plugs "useless female"?) or as someone said misalligned timing. This could be the belt, but on my 200TDi it was (technical bit here) a worn key on the crankshaft pulley, which was allowing the pulley to move slightly and affect the timing. Cured rather brutally by welding the pulley on...

White smoke (steam - smells of hot anti-freeze) with a HOT engine is usually a cracked cylinder head. A garage can (usually) tell by doing a pressure test. Not too major a job on a TDi as you should be able to source a second-hand one, but as I said above, it's prob. not that. Good luck!