Black Smoke Under Little Load

[dacard]

Hi everyone can anyone help, I recently bought a 2 yr old 2.0L TDCI galaxy with 57,000 miles and am concerned about what I think is excessive black smoke, most noticable in trafic, where I constantly see it drift past my window, and when reversing up my driveway. Took to ford as it is still just about in warranty but they say they cant replicate, the strange thing is it doesnt seem to do it all the time and does seem worse whe the engine is warm 'any ideas'

[mintalkin]

it could be one of many things, first i would try giving the car an 'italian' tune up get it on an open road and give the engine a good workout, this should clear any soot out of the system,if its still smoking it could be the egr valve starting to clog up,these can be removed and cleaned its a messy job but well worth it.also it could be the intercooler pipe that has a split in it,this is the large rubber pipe that goes from the bottom of the egr valve.

[dacard]

thanks for your reply, I keep hearing about this egr valve can it stick so id doesn't always smoke, and how much smoke would you class as normal....maybe im worrying about nothing

[mintalkin]

in the daytime you would only see smoke if you drove the car flatout,its more noticable at night when there are headlights behind you.egr valve can stick open if really gunged up but this usually leads to starting problems.here is a guide to a egr cleanout, its for the mondeo but will give you an idea on whats involved.

http://fordwiki.co.uk/index.php/EGR_Valve_and_Inlet_Manifold_Clearout_TDCi

[jmurray01]

Personally, I wouldn't care! :P

But I think an Italian service would do it some good B)