Fiat Ducato 2.3l 2014 77k - P0089 - Blows white smoke

[frank451]

Hi All

 

i have had a problem with my Ducato 2014 2.3l motorhome (luton lowloader conversion) for approx 18months.

 

Symptons are as follows.

 

Blows white smoke (hint of blue sometimes) particulary when changing down gears when coming off the motorway and when pulling away in 1st and 2nd gear on the round about. The issue is intermittent and seems to suffer more when diesel tank is quarter of tank or below. It will sometimes go into limp mode with error code P0089-78 - Fuel Pressure Regulator.

 

When this fault happens the engine will cough/splutter (like a frog in your throat, maybe a flap sticking, EGR dont know??) once and then clear. Sometimes i get what i can only describe as unburnt disel fumes coming through the cab air vents. Sometimes it will drop power for a split second.

 

I have had a full service and changed the diesel filter and other air filters. There was also a lot of pressure build up in the fuel tank and i have changed the fuel cap which seems to have helped the pressure build up. I always use Shell/BP diesel and put the odd tank of Vpower in etc on every 3rd/4th tank.

 

The vehcile pulls like a train and can run fine for miles then once it starts doing the above it could carry on during gear changes just letting off the throttle and accelerating can recreate the issue.

 

Hope some one can shed some light on this for me. I am looking at taking it in to Diesel Bob (Preston), but looking on the ducato forum there are only a few people suffering this issue and they are yet to respond to see if they rectified it. I pretty sure its something and nothing but could be wrong.

 

Thanks Folks

 

Frank

 

 

 

[euroserv]

Hello Frank,

 

The symptoms that you describe are a perfect match for injector problems. A leaking injector will cause the pressure in the fuel rail to be too low when starting until the engine has cranked over a few times and this will flag a fuel pressure fault.

Once you have started the engine, the fuel that has leaked out of the injector while it was standing will be in the combustion chamber and will be ejected unburned into the exhaust during the first turns of the engine. This is why you can smell it.

The initial fault causes a misfire and while this may take between 5 seconds and a minute of idling to clear; there is the unburned fuel and soot to clear from the exhaust. It is common for the throttle pedal to be unresponsive during this period. This will eventually lead to clogging of the diesel particulate filter.

Injectors can suffer from several faults including excessive leak back, leaking and sticking open or closed. The chances are that you have one or more injector with a combination of leak through and excessive leak back. It is very common.

What you need to do first is to get the vehicle to a diesel specialist and get a 'leak off test' carried out. It is quite easy and quick to do without removing the injectors and gives a good indication as to the health of the units. If you see that one or two are really bad and maybe two are fine in this test it does not mean for certain that the ones that pass the test are without fault but it is a reasonable way to decide whether you need a full set of injectors or not. It can get expensive and it is most definitely not a DIY job to remove screws and replace injectors.

Most of all you need to ask questions of the workshop that you use and feel confident in their abilities. I doubt they will be able to give you a price for the job of replacing injectors and 'worst case scenario' figures will be alarming.

There have been cases where despite our best efforts all four retaining screws have broken and we have wished that we had replaced the engine completely.

Nick

[seaside-bill]

Frank

A bit of a long shot, but are you losing any brake fluid from the reservoir?

If so, worth checking the brake servo as a seal fault can allow brake fluid to be sucked into the combustion chambers and it burns white. Whatever, white smoke isn’t good and you should get it checked out before localised overheating burns out an engine component.