evening folks,

just returned from a weekend away – not biking..

anyway, 10 miles from home, noticed that there was quite a lot of smoke coming out of the exhaust when i tried to accelerate, and also that it was down on power – no ‘go’ when i tried to accelerate. I got it home, but it it smelled/smelt (?) very hot. I have looked under the bonnet – i was expecting see a messy explosion, but couldn’t see anything un-to-ward

its a 52 plate 1.9 Dci laguna.

has the turbo failed?

is it driveable? i need to get the kids to school in morning and then ‘limp’ to nearest garage…

sounds more like a cracked head to me. What colour is the smoke? White, blue or black?

a bit white and a bit black… sorry for being rubbish..

at first i thought it was just chucking the crap out like it does when you have been trundling round and then accelate hard, but then i realised there was no ‘oomph’

Look for foaming in the oil or oil in the expansion chamber – that may indicate a blown head gasket / cracked head. My Mondeo’s turbo went a month or so ago, and cost the best part of £1k to fix 🙁

fek, its sounding worse than i thought..

when you say ‘expansion chamber’ do you mean off the cooling system or somewhere else?

Smoke colour? Really is critical to the diagnosis. If its a HG failure you’d notice it was down on power all the time, you’d have mayo in the water and/or oil generally. If the lack of power is only when the turbo would normally kick it is more likely to be turbo related, but if its black smoke it’s likely to be a burst boost hose, if its white its going to be oil leaking due to turbo oil seal (possibly and shaft) failure, black and white would suggest tubby oil seal/shaft failure as it’ll be fuelling for more air (black smoke, unburnt fuel) and throwing oil out (white smoke if it isnt passing through the engine – exhaust side seals). Without being able to diagnose it properly I wouldnt drive it. Depending on which it is you could do far far more damage by keep driving it. Even if its only a failed turbo you can cause terminal run-on (when the engine uses the engine oil being sucked through the turbo seals instead of diesel) and engine failure. You could use all the oil and run out on the way to the garage, you could ingest turbine blades as they rattle around in the compressor housing. If its a cracked head/blown gasket you may cause warping if you keep driving it. Currently its only likely to be a replacement part, dont risk making it worse.

a bit white and a bit black… sorry for being rubbish..

aye. if it’s white that’s often a sign that water is getting into the cylinder. Check the water level in the cooling system, is it going down? If water is getting in, then at the very least it’s a blown gasket, at worst it’s a cracked or warped head. They’re all expensive to replace.

My advice is, until a qualified mechanic (rather than someone on the internet – and I’m not qualified to comment professionally in any way) looks at it, do NOT drive it. If it is one of the above then the more you drive it the worse it will get. You could easily warp your head badly and repairing that will cost quite a bit more than just a new gasket.

Samuri is right in that white can mean water, its a different sort of white to oil smoke – if the white vanishes quickly it’ll be water, if it lingers it’s oil. Also steam tends to look a bit more grey and see-thru than the whitey smoke of oil – think of the red arrows, thats oil smoke.
And see my above points that I edited.

However there is the chance that it is simpler – I’ve heard of cam/crank sensors failing in a fashion that just knocked the injection timing out which produces a very similar smokey, powerless problem.

They key is take it to someone who can diagnose it properly.

After the trouble i had with renault being utterly useless getting the right parts in for my 1.9Dci megane when i had a multipple belt failure just before christmas i would advise you to tow it somewhere quiet and set fire to it.

I had similar probs with the van – it turned out to be a disconnected air hose to the turbo. £0 to fix.

ok, cheers folks.

i have just got a lift to school sorted for the kids, and i’ll ring a garage to get somebody to come and look at it.

My megane does that as well, it’s pretty obvious when that happens, and you don’t look like your trying to escape the bismark whenever you pull away 😉

My turbo (mentioned above) went with a pronounced ‘thunk’, but it was the worst turbo failure the garage had dealt with (actually cracked the housing!) Down on power immediately, thought I could limp it the couple of miles home, soon discovered I couldn’t, and when I turned it off, the smoke took more than two minutes to clear the valley! It was white, but as mentioned above, oil-related as it lingered. Sorry 🙁

The only reason I know about the blown gasket thing is because my old astra did it right in the middle of the birkenhead tunnel. No way was I going to stop and pay the 50 quid recovery fee so floored it to the other side. Which completely filled the tunnel with thick white smoke. 🙂

Then once the AA had collected me, the guy explained to me in great detail on the way home about blown gaskets and the like.

I wouldn’t drive it if i was you just incase it is the turbo seals ( a know problem on the earlier dci’s) as they can lead to self detination of the engine where it will run on its own oil at high speed (as the oil is a bit like giving a kid sugar) and then seize completly as it runs out of oil.
Out of intreast what is the millage on yours?

Not an expert, but a mate of mine had an 03 laguna 1.9DCI and he had problems with it blowing turbo’s. Think it had 4 in 12 months. Luckily he only had to pay once. The garage who fitted it said it was a problem with some lagunas at this age. He mended it and got rid!

Good Luck

The only reason I know about the blown gasket thing is because my old astra did it right in the middle of the birkenhead tunnel. No way was I going to stop and pay the 50 quid recovery fee so floored it to the other side. Which completely filled the tunnel with thick white smoke

So it was you!

You’d hope that by turbo 3 they’d have identified the cause, soops!

Not an expert, but a mate of mine had an 03 laguna 1.9DCI and he had problems with it blowing turbo’s. Think it had 4 in 12 months. Luckily he only had to pay once. The garage who fitted it said it was a problem with some lagunas at this age. He mended it and got rid!

When the turbos go in them a lot of garages don’t replace the oil pipe or clean the intercooler or egr valve which normally leads to the turbo going again.
Renault relased a modified oil pipe in 2003 which is why you here of a lot less of the newer ones going bang.
I also think that a lot of people when they first got in to the diesel cars of 2001-2003 just drove them like a petrol (as most were bought for company car tax reasons) and didnt let the them idle for 30 sseconds or so on start up or stopping.

“I wouldn’t drive it if i was you just incase it is the turbo seals ( a know problem on the earlier dci’s) as they can lead to self detination of the engine where it will run on its own oil at high speed (as the oil is a bit like giving a kid sugar) and then seize completly as it runs out of oil.”

a mates vectra did that when we were on motorway going to a triathlon. 70mph ….BANG a whole load of steam behind us and lots of smoke coming out of the engine. Turbo had gone and the engine had seized solid … did have approx 400 000 k on the clock , ex taxi

Injection timing being out would mean it’d be quite hard to start from cold……