142,000 mile 2.0TDCi, all the classic signs of injector angst: white smoke, diesel smell and rough idle from cold start, 30 seconds later it seems fine. Slightly clattery at 1750rpm under load (DMF knacked too, or injectors?)

I've heard this could be a £1,000 job. Do I need to get this sorted ASAP, or can I safely leave it for a bit? We're probably going to do about 1700 miles in the next month. What will happen if I don't get it looked at?

Runs fine as soon as it's warm, except for the slight clatter.

Thanks for any help!

Just been through something similar at 42000miles.

Hunting at cold then after an incident on the motorway started getting difficult to start, had to crank a bit. Next day it died, wouldn't start – RAC started by squirting Carb cleaner into air intake & dropped at garage.

Engine management eng told me 2 injectors gone (saw video of them splurging tonnes out their back-ends) & got them replaced. Hunting was still there & was told that was DMF probably. Car went OK but had habid of cutting out completely occassionally so took it back. Eng had more looks & realised that what looked like 2 good injectors was in fact 2 bad ones beside two effing awful ones – had to change second set.

Upside is that the DMF wasn't in fact knackered, it was the fuel pressure dropping due to the loss from back flow of the injectors so don't need to change that.

Injectors were £200 + VAT each + fitting so you're looking at ~£1300.

Avoid the towing charges etc. etc. that I ended up with (cranking by myself, RAC & first garage knackered wiring loom part so £110 for that plus £50 for tow to engine management specialist!).

This was of course just 1 week before wedding & other major costs and only 1 month out of Fords warranty. I was pleased to have bought a Ford to replace my Laguna (first gear bearing gone at ~70000miles).

Buy Japanese from now on, it's a no brainer with the shite the rest sell us these days.

Sounds like if you get the injectors sorted (get them ALL changed at once, it's not worth just changing one or two) them your DMF will probably be fine. If not then you're probably looking at another £600-700 on top. DMF will cause heavy vibrations that will change when you release the clutch & won't be affected by the engine warming up.

My old TDCi focus did that a bit when really cold from about 90k miles. Was still going fine at 125k when I sold it though.

If you're near Edinburgh I can give you details of the very nice, efficient & best of all, good value man who can do the work for you.

J

Hmmm. Nowhere near edinburgh, unfortunately. Sounds like I should either get it sorted immediately, or leave it for 25,000 miles. ****

Trade it in, making sure you take it to the dealers when fully warm.

Get something boring like a Honda Estate (the Accord only has a boot which is useless) or (sorry for this) a Toyota Avensis (you'll need a rug for the back seat & a flat cap of course, get them as part of the deal).

I reckon if it is the injectors then you'll end up with a dead car long before 25000 as the engine management computer will just stop you using the car completely if it finds low pressure at the injectors.

There is an issue that could be effecting your TDCI where the ECU looses the injector tolerances over time. The "fix" is to recode the injectors to the ECU should be a hours labour plus diagnostic time at most… hmmm £150.

it's a well known issue where the ECU injector cycles counter goes over a certain number (say 1 million – it is more than this) and the code inside starts loosing the injector coding, this coding sets up the injector specs to the ECU
(without getting technical say in a 1/1000th of a second the injector should spray .1grms diesel into the cylinder but when testing this one does .12grms, the code tells the ecu that is will need to adjust the cycle as this injector is spraying .12grms) so looking that coding information causes the ECU to over fuel. Worrying though you say you have white smoke this "can" indicate water in the engine.. or the engine isn't hot enough to burn the fuel (most likely give your rough idle and ok when warm description).

personally i would look to get your injectors recoded before replacing them. could you tell me the year and engine code i could 100% check on this being the issue. People shell out for new injectors and the new injectors are "recoded" to the ECU which fixes the problem, BUT reality is this, if you recoded the injectors already in the car that would fix the problem.

Cheers fozzy, I'll dig out the engine no. if/when we get back from Devon on Monday! (I've just joined the AA.) So many different ideas on what this problem is caused by. The most common one is that the white smoke is caused by warn injector/injector seals leaking small amounts of deisel into the engine overnight. Waht do you make of that?

And I'm not sure about trading it in, it's only a month old. 🙁 Never got the chance to drive it from cold before I bought it. Maybe it's the best time to do it!

🙁 again. Hey ho, you live and learn. Hopefully.

IT's all possible, black smoke means over fuelling (mine black smokes under load) white normally (note normally) means water in the cylinders BUT can also mean excess fuel and the engine not being hot enough to burn the fuel throws it out as white smoke. (depending on the amount this can cause issues with diesel particulate filters – VERY expensive to replace) i'll guess at an 02 mondeo? year ?

53 plate, 04 reg.

Interesting about the recoding issue. Mine was definately the injectors as I saw what they were doing personally, quite interesting if it hadn't been costing me so much money. I actually think the first thing the eng did was a re-code to bring everything up to date before he started anythign else – good practice I guess.

What made me happier about all this was the number of Mercs & BMWs he was also working on, they are all just as bad. Apparently only Honda make their own injectors & the rest rely on Bosch, Delphi etc. (not sure I got the names correct).

I think the technology in cars has far outstripped their ability to make the stuff reliable….think I'm going back to an 'A' series engine next.

Sorry to hear you got stiffed 1 month after purchase, sounds like the previous owner saw it coming.

See if you can find a friendly Garage who will recode the injectors back tot he ECU before replacing them. It's such a common issue and people are paying out the nose for it buying new injectors when a re-code would fix it (obviously with new injectors you HAVE to recode them 😉 )

jimmyB i can't tell you how many times this lost ECU info is. but it's common thats all i can say. replacing injectors will help make a cleaner car obviously as there is no wear in the injector. Not doubting the injectors weren't replaced but as you HAVE to recode when you replace injectors the fault obviously goes away, making the issue. the ECU has lost it's info on one or two injectors the recoding when replacing the injectors re calibrates the ECU for the injector and away you go.. You have some correct names and i may work for one of those companies 🙂
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Fozzybear,

Got back from Devon without a problem, did another few hundered miles last weekend, no real probelms, same white smoke and lumpy from cold for the first 5 seconds.

BUT, starting it up yesterday night, it was much lumpier, made lots more interesting knocking noises, and took about 40 seconds to settle down.

I think it's garage time!

Before I book it in, though you said you could check some information on the ECU/ injectors? My girlfriend has called me with the engine number from the V5, which is 3M52022. Is this right? I was expecting it to be longer.

Thanks very much for any help, it's very much appreciated.

Ah, the old Ford Mondeo TDCI problems, eh?