Club 80-90 Forums

Apologies for a non-T25 post, but advice would be appreciated.
My 08 Fabia 1.9 PD failed on the smoke test with readings starting at 2.5 and dropping only to 1.5, with the pass mark being 0.9.

It’s driven about 18000miles a year, mostly motorway and main roads, but 20% town driving too. I drive pretty gently and get a measured average of 60+mpg.

Last oil change was late (no excuse) at 18000 instead of 10000.

Test may have been done not quite up to temp.

Garage sold me some diesel conditioner (not sure of the brand) and suggested I cross my fingers.

Plan it to use that tankful and represent with a hot engine.

Any other advice? Italian tune up maybe?

Cheers, in hope...

RogerT wrote:Apologies for a non-T25 post, but advice would be appreciated.
My 08 Fabia 1.9 PD failed on the smoke test with readings starting at 2.5 and dropping only to 1.5, with the pass mark being 0.9.

It’s driven about 18000miles a year, mostly motorway and main roads, but 20% town driving too. I drive pretty gently and get a measured average of 60+mpg.

Last oil change was late (no excuse) at 18000 instead of 10000.

Test may have been done not quite up to temp.

Garage sold me some diesel conditioner (not sure of the brand) and suggested I cross my fingers.

Plan it to use that tankful and represent with a hot engine.

Any other advice? Italian tune up maybe?

Cheers, in hope...

The driven gently rings alarm bells. Diesels need to be under sufficient load to stop them coking up, so they need pushing. Take it out for a good thrash

Lead boots at the ready!
So perhaps maximising fuel economy is a false economy in some circumstances? This smoke failure is certainly giving me some grief, I really can’t afford to ditch the car as an MOT fail, it’d be worth feck all, and I e only had it a year! Replacement would blow my van fund!

I’ll give it a good bootfull at every opportunity over the next week, and maybe even try to get some excess miles in to get the conditioner all through.

Any other suggestions gratefully received...

when was the air filter last changed? is it a decent brand? worth doing if not changed recently, good luck

Probably due as well,I’ll have a look. Thanks

Sorry to hear that Roger

Fill up with some Shell vPower. Yep, it's ~10p / litre more, but it does burn cleaner, much better additive pack than supermarket fuels too.

Decent run at good temps using the full rev range will help. On petrol I know Forte works well, not sure about diesel, but it is at least a recommendation

Confirms the advice already given

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/3 ... i-pd-2009/

Good link, thanks!

Your diesel is now tested according to the figure in the bottom right hand corner of the black transfer vin plate,it will have a figure of something like1.2 in a square box.if it has been damaged or painted over when repairing damage then the test will revert to 2.5 for a diesel and 3.0 for a turbo diesel.a new exhaust made 0.5 improvement on my t4 1.9 td.if the smoke test is a long way out on an electronic diesel them there may well another problem there

I’ll let you all know how I get on. Waiting for a split cv boot to be delivered before a retest. Considering a visit to a dealer to get the electronics checked, as there’s also a very intermittent engine management light/limp mode that is resolved by restarting the engine.

You need cheap generic code reader then - look for a model D900 on ebay, I've had one for about 10 years, pulls all the engine codes, but forget about ABS / immobiliser stuff. Probably less than £15 delivered.

If you want to get into that then look at VAGCOM / VCDS. You will need a laptop and OBD connector as well. Allows access to all the control modules including diagnostic tests, emission control, ABS, climate control.

I have other water cooled VW's

A bit of extra info,variable geometry turbo may be sticking,hence limp home mode,lack of air,equals smoke

That's another reason why he needs a code reader

Dropping at the dealer this morning. Code reader may be a longer term solution but time is short at present - MOT runs out today. Thanks for your ideas.

Timburrows wrote:Your diesel is now tested according to the figure in the bottom right hand corner of the black transfer vin plate,it will have a figure of something like1.2 in a square box.if it has been damaged or painted over when repairing damage then the test will revert to 2.5 for a diesel and 3.0 for a turbo diesel.

Just incase anyone else is reading the above - as far as I can tell it only became compulsory to have this on the vin plate from 2008, before that it appears to be hit or miss depending on manufacturer. A quick look on my late 2007 Peugeot 307sw suggests its not there so under the rules mine only needs to be under 3.0.