Oh what a fun year it's been.....

Anyway, the latest fun I'm having is that every time I start the car from cold I get a very lumpy idle (sounds like it's going to stall) and loads of white smoke from the driver's side exhaust. The lumpy idle starts after a few seconds. Once revved the car is fine and the smoke dies down too. There's no smoke when driving along and once the car is warm it's absolutely fine.

My suspicion is the EGR valve. The car had a new one on the passenger side a few years ago but they left the driver's side one as it was (previous owner - tut tut). Looking at the live values from the IIDTool this morning the commanded EGR valve value was ~8% - Bank2 EGR was exactly at this value but on Bank1 it was varying wildly between 1 and 40%, so something's not right!

I had a P1335 fault code logged yesterday but nothing this morning after I cleared it. There were no other engine-related codes.

Am I thinking along the right lines?

Hi Mavester,

The symptoms you describe sound very much like a faulty glow plug.


Cheers





Clive

I'm getting exactly the same thing with mine. Did you ever find the cause of this?

I'm afraid not. I haven't had the time to book it in and get it sorted out.

I don't know about yours but I find that mine is better after a long run, even the day after when I start it from cold. It will be a little lumpy but nothing like how it is when it's stone cold after a short run. My neighbours are going to start complaining about the smokescreen soon

Yeah I definitely find it's much better after a long run even the next day. I also found that it runs better on supermarket fuel...

It runs and starts perfect when it's still warm or within a couple of hours of been turned off. It's only from a cold start up the next day where it shakes the whole car when idling but a slight rev and it goes completely smooth then returning to a lumpy idle when you let off the accelerator. There is also a puff of light blueish/white smoke on start up and a strong smell of diesel fumes for the first couple of minutes.

Worth noting that it's had 2 brand new turbos about 3,000 miles ago and it did this before I had them and continues to do it now but I've never really thought of it as much of an issue until I saw this post.

Same here on the smell of diesel.

As destructimo said further up, the symptoms are exactly what you'd expect for a faulty glow plug. I was relieved when I saw this because they are £10 each as opposed to £180 for an EGR valve. And then I read the workshop manual which says (if I'm reading it right) that you have to take the EGR valve off to get the glow plugs out, which is not a small job.

I'm booking it in this week so I'll let you know how I get on.

Do you know if it's possible to blank the EGR valve off if that's the problem rather than replacing. I have heard of people mapping them out which could be worth considering if you're in it for £180 anyway plus labour for a new EGR it might be around the same money to remap it.

I'd be very interested to hear how you get on.

I don't think blanking the EGR is an easy option on the TDV8. I've seen a company offering a software blanking solution (i.e. permanently shutting them) but I don't know how effective this is.

Sadly I haven't been able to get to the garage this week because my wife's car is back in again for a repair to the previous repair. We are therefore down to only the FF for this week :S Of course, the first day of us being in this situation it wouldn't start and I had to call the AA out (for the 6th time this year.....)

Right then, it seems to be sorted out.

It actually started to get really bad so I had to take it to the local garage to sort it out. They have replaced the offside EGR valve (it threw a P0405 engine fault code) and it all now seems to be fine. I picked it up earlier so the acid test will be the first start tomorrow morning but it already feels much better than it did before - less noisy, smoother and definitely more punchy. The garage told me that they also cleaned up a lot of other crap in the plumbing "very coked up" was the verdict.

Anyway, I hope you get yours sorted and if this recurs then I'll pop a note onto this thread to let you know.

Has it started alright the last few mornings? Out of interest how much did it cost to get sorted?

Yes, it's been absolutely fine. No white smoke, no lumpiness, no juddering at idle. It's definitely running a lot better now

It cost £390 in the end.