Sooty exhaust ...

[POI Admin]

I have owned my Auto Trail Dakota for going on two years. Its chassis is a 2007 Ducato 3.0 litre 160bhp Multijet.

Until recently the lower body moulding (skirt) used to soot badly aft of the exhaust. It needed regular cleaning.

Not long after I arrived in Spain recently I had a fault develop which thanks to help from ADAC turned out to be caused by the electrical connection to injector number two coming adrift.

Since that problem was rectified I no longer have the problem with soot. The fuel consumption is no different now.

I would value opinions on my theory - would a poor connection to an injector cause excess fuel to be injected into one cylinder thereby causing incomplete combustion and sooting? Given that the fuel consumption is unaltered, and if my theory is correct, the excess would have to have been pretty small.

Two MOT tests have been passed without any issues reported.

[The laird]

If the electrical connection is making/breaking there's going to be unburnt fuel dropping into that cylinder causing black smoke.surprised that you never felt misfire taking place at idle or lumpy cold start.
When doung mot they purge and hold at steady revs and its possible the bad connection was not happening .

[Wooie1958]

I used to get the same with a 2006 Peugeot Boxer 2.8 HDi.

It also always passed the MOT no problem but was very unsightly so i used to polish it off.

I now periodically use Normfest CT60 Normfest CT60 Diesel Additive 300ml and all trace of the sooty deposits have now gone.

[The laird]

I used to get the same with a 2006 Peugeot Boxer 2.8 HDi.

It also always passed the MOT no problem but was very unsightly so i used to polish it off.

I now periodically use Normfest CT60 Normfest CT60 Diesel Additive 300ml and all trace of the sooty deposits have now gone.

When I worked with pug we used forte treatments ,really good product ,

[oldish hippy]

well igot a smoky pug as well but it has been through pug and mot not a problem

[GWAYGWAY]

The injectors fire about five times each per injection phase and it is heard as a ticking noise as you accelerate, if there is a bad connection it is possible that the injector fires only once and too big to burn correctly, that makes smoke. The high pressure system is very delicate in the timing and pulses. Not like the older mechanical squirt it in system, That is where the power and economy comes from.

[jagmanx]

So a clean Sweep !

But seriously.... do you keep the emissions test "little printouts" ?
The next one might show a change for the better.

[POI Admin]

Good idea!

Thanks ...

[IanH]

The injectors fire about five times each per injection phase and it is heard as a ticking noise as you accelerate, if there is a bad connection it is possible that the injector fires only once and too big to burn correctly, that makes smoke. The high pressure system is very delicate in the timing and pulses. Not like the older mechanical squirt it in system, That is where the power and economy comes from.

An excellent, and, probably, correct response. If the injector hadn't fired at all, then the symptoms would have been much worse and highly noticeable, and prob 50% power less as well. The fact that one, I suspect, the first, of the 5 injections happened means that the power loss from that cylinder is marginal, but the exhaust would have been less than perfect. Nice one!