Why the smoke?

[ruane]

The car's fine, power's good, everything does what it should.
So why does it smoke... i know all these diesels smoke under a bit of pressure, but why.. is it mechanical like a short stroke engine or the rings not sealing right. Or purely the result of burning a lot of diesel, it being a heavy oil and all. Can anything be done to reduce or eliminate the smoke, injector cleaners or the like?
Just wondering like, sometimes get a bit consious of seeing my smoke in the mirror, lit by the headlights of the car behind at night.

 

[Hertfordshire Merx]

Basically, keep the car serviced on time, use a good quality oil and most importantly make sure its the correct oil for your engine. If its fitted with a Diesel Particulate Filter exhaust system you will have smoke from time to time as the engine control unit cleans the DPF by heating it to eradicate it of soot etc and regenerate things to keep it efficient.

Phillip.

 

[LYNALL]

You shouldnt really get much smoke if you look at other diesels as you follow them you will get the idea.

Some seem to gob out a black cloud every now and then, but certainly not all the time.

My last car td5 disco smoked as you are saying yours does and only because it was chipped, with chip there was no smoke ever.



Lynall

 

[Jack_igm]

What model of Mercedes do you have?

Pre-CDI Mercedes Diesels fitted in their cars and light vans (can't remember Engine code, not worked for Merc for 5+ years) are common for the head gasket going between the oil port and the cylinder. This causes excessive smoke which is clearly visible in your mirror.

If your car has a pre-CDI engine fitted and your smoke is blue then I would be pretty confident that the head gasket is your problem.

Alex

 

[wireman]

Is your air filter in good order?, on a diesel this makes much more difference than many would think.

 

[simon_wall69]

It always looks much worse when illuminated by other cars' headlamps; in the day time it probably doesn't look anywhere near as bad.

 

[ruane]

It's a E270CDI '03 model. It's not bad, it does push out a smokescreen bond would be proud of once in a blue moon, but generally it's fine. I just notice everything, and would like to know that i wasn't leaving a cloud of soot behind me if i choose to accelerate quickly from a slow speed.
Not like one of those X5's.. they seem to be always smoking under acceleration. Maybe it the drivers' mentality that is the biggest influence..

 

[Cole@MBS]

Also, a good flat out drive down the motorway never hurts, these engines do need to be driven hard once in a while, we have a 450000 E,class in every now and then for heavy smoking! it gets driven on tick over all the time! i "good" run, and its clear for a another month!!

 

[jberks]

yours sounds normal enough to me. I know what you mean though. Sped away at night on the odd occasion and looked back with embarrassment when I've seen the lights behind appearing through the cloud.
As has been said, the build up is worse if you spend your time pottering. Mine does it less when its spent an hour or two on the motorway. Still does it though.