Glowing Exhaust

[Guest walkman]

1.9tdi , 69.000 ish miles, driven home last night, 20 mile journey. experienced loss of power, 70mph seemed the max. Final local miles driven, black smoke out of exhaust (following car with headlights on), burning smell in car. On stopping at home, switched off, but engine still running (fast). Neighbour stalled the car to the stop engine, looking unneath, the exhaust was glowing red hot. The car has been started subsequently, successfully but with black smoke. All info third hand as I was not present at the time.

Any ideas? I fear a large repair bill and wouldn't want to be lead astray by a garage with pound notes in their eyes.

[Ivor_E_Tower]

Sounds worrying; diesel exhausts are much colder than petrol so the exhaust should never run red-hot. Black smoke os almost certainly unburnt diesel so it looks as though your engine is using too much fuel - metering fault?
Don't know much about the injection system - is it electronic or manual?
Anyone else got any ideas?

[Guest Barrye]

Check your oil level- this sounds worryingly like the oil seals have gone on the inlet side of the turbo and the engine has been running on engine oil!. This would explain why it wouldn't stop.


The oil may well have been burning in the exhaust side of the turbo as well - hence it glowing red hot.

It sounds like you have been very lucky, the last one I heard of that failed like this (a Vectra) the engine only stopped when it put a conrod through the side of the block ( = new engine)

At the very least it sounds like you will need a new turbo and Cat ( the oil will probably have trashed the Cat)

Do not run the engine at all until the fault has been diagnosed

Good Luck
Barry

[Guest walkman]

The diagnosis was as suggested. Oil seals on the turbo failed, engine running on fueled by the engine oil. Awaiting the change of the turbo, then its fingers crossed there is no additional damage to the engine. Thanks for the replies.

Walkman.