Smoking Pipes!
What causes smoke from exhaust pipes? Many commercial vehicles spew black smoke especially when taking off from traffic lights. This is not unique to diesel vehicles, although they are the most common problems. Petrol engine cars can also emit blue or white smoke from their exhaust.
It should be a concern for all vehicle owners as they are a tell-tale sign that all is not well.
Blue smoke is primarily a result of engine oil seeping past piston rings or valve oil seals. It indicates that the engine is consuming engine oil due to wear. You will first need to have your engine compression checked to determine if the cause is worn piston rings. Most workshops have a device to check the status of your engine’s compression.
If it is proven that your engine’s compression is normal, then it is likely that the valve seals are worn. Replacing these seals requires the removal of the cylinder head.
If, on the other hand, the diagnostics show a weak compression, which you should already feel in the car’s markedly reduced performance, it means an overhaul is required. An overhaul will not be cheap as it entails removing the engine, stripping it to replace the worn rings or even the worn piston, and other parts that cannot be reused, such as gaskets.
Whilst there is no quick fix for this issue, a short term solution could be to use an engine oil of higher viscosity eg a 50 or even 60 weighted oil. It should be noted that certain German models are known consumers of engine oil so much so that it is even specified in the car manual that it is ‘normal’ to experience oil consumption of 0.5L to 1.0L of oil for every 2,000 – 3,000km. For these models, a higher viscosity and better quality base oil lubricants such as the X-REV 15W-50 and 10W-60 engine oils are recommended.
Black smoke indicates excessive fuel being burnt. Whether diesel or petrol engine, the cause is a fault in the fuel-injection system that could arise from a faulty pump at the worst, or as is commonly the problem, a defective mass-flow sensor, choked air-filter or oxygen sensor.
In the case of the more modern common rail turbo diesel engines, such as the euro 5 & 6 engines, the diesel particle filter (DPF) which is supposed to trap all the soot could be faulty and causes the engine to develop black smoke and eventually shut down. This is a common problem when vehicles with such engines are not driven for sufficiently long distances and at higher speeds to generate adequate heat in the DPF to burn off the accumulated soot. The engine may activate a secondary cleaning mode which involves pumping diesel fuel into the DPF and ignite the fuel to burn off the soot. However, when this happens too often, the excess diesel fuel will eventually go into the engine and mix with the engine oil, thus diluting and even damaging the lubricating properties of the oil. Overtime, if not spotted early enough, this will cause elevated wear and tear in the engine’s moving parts and eventually break down leading to an engine overhaul. So if you happen to be driving a euro 5 or 6 diesel vehicle, make sure that you take your vehicle on regular long hard drives to burn off the soot accumulating in the DPF.
White smoke is something you should also be concerned about. Cylinder head gasket failure can lead to water mixing with oil, which gets into the combustion chamber and burns as white smoke. This must be checked urgently as prolonged running will result in piston and cylinder wear, eventually requiring the same procedure as cars with blue smoke – overhaul.
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