Diesel car engines

[casstony]

We learned a bit about diesel engines the hard way recently. My sister's Ford Territory cracked an injector - price of the part only from Ford was $1500. A few weeks later at 100,000km an EGR valve broke - price of the part only from Ford was nearly $1600.

I talked to a couple of independent mechanics and the jobs can be done much cheaper but they also recommended running a cleaner through the injectors and then another cleaner to remove carbon build-up from the EGR valve and cylinders. I had that done on my Territory today and they showed me a video of enormous plume of smoke exiting the exhaust.

I've got a clean engine now but I think there are too many pollution issues associated with diesel for it to be used as a car fuel. There should be a ban on the sale of new cars with diesel engines.

[CeratodusDuck]

Nulon Diesel Turbo Cleaner (pro-strength) - ONLY one that works PROPERLY. Ford wanted close to $2500 to fix my Mk4 Mondeo that had a slight "buck" under load or rapid acceleration. ONE bottle of the stuff mentioned and 200km driving later, and not only did it cause DPF regen , but cleaned off all the carbon crudding the system. It now goes perfectly again, and the fuel economy is back to what it previously was.

Cleans the turbo, EGR, lambda sensors, DPF and injectors. Cost is $26 a can, vs $2500 for Ford to MAYBE fix the issue.

[casstony]

That's interesting George; was the car smoky while the cleaner was in the system?

[CeratodusDuck]

Not that I noticed whatsoever. The car has done 180,000 km as of yesterday, and 900km since the additive.

I am going to put another bottle in at 185000.

[muletopia]

We have three one ton Isuzu utes


1)1983 model unregistered for farm 680,000 K, had to replace the radiator
this one has had a hard life

2)2003 model registered as farm ute for fire fighter 380,000 Kno problems

3)2018 model only had it for a year no problems, it is our use for everything vehicle,
we don't have a car. It is a snap for carrying a 21 ft long double kayak

We also had a 1981 diesel Gemini with 500,000 k on the clock, it was good until it was stolen and destroyed.


So the reliability of small diesels seems to be OK


Chris

[casstony]

I expect older diesels were less likely to have problems due to the lack of pollution control devices.

[Gary47]

I am a retired diesel mechanic. You will find good and bad in any product and diesels are no exception. Most of the problems with diesel engines in small vehicles come down to the manufacturers trying to make them perform like a petrol engine, pull like a tractor, run on the smell of an oily rag and meet pollution requirements all at the same time. They reduce the capacity and boost intake pressure to levels that would have seemed insane not too long ago to increase performance and improve fuel economy and add EGR and CAT Converters to reduce pollution. Common Rail Injection is a recent innovation that addresses all of the above requirements and all of these innovations are potential sources of problems. They all inter-react and a small problem can quickly turn into an avalanche.
Add to the previous the drive to reduce the weight of every component and I think you will begin to appreciate that diesel engines in cars are not the almost bullet proof units that earned diesel engines a reputation for reliability.

[GrahamL]

Do you think the above additives are helpfull Gary ?

[Gary47]

I have never used them. Only used manufacturer approved products. But I was working with much larger units where mistakes cost real money.
A lot of products are promoted by people with a vested interest. A lot of the perceived benefits are wishful thinking. If your engine produces a cloud of smoke after you add a product to the fuel is that pollution being cleared out of the motor or just what you added being burned? What is it doing to your expensive Cat Converter? Does the supplier give a cast iron guarantee that he will make good any damage caused?
To dislodge any buildup in the motor the additive would have to contain volatile aromatics to dissolve the build up or increase combustion or exhaust system and EGR system temperature. What is that going to do to your motor if there is any residue in the fuel when you are driving?
I think the question you really need to ask is "Why does the engine need this product" Using additives is just like putting a band aid on a broken leg. The band aid won't last long and you still have a broken leg.
Most injector problems are caused by fuel contamination. Do you always use reputable fuel or do you fill up at the servo that is always cheapest.
Do you use genuine fuel filters or after market?

[GrahamL]

That is something I often wonder , catch cans come to mind been round forever they are cheap if these do what you read why dont the makers fit them , warrenty claims would drop surely and the carmaker makes more dough ?


I have one of the last KUN26 running in my hilux 2wd

I'm around 140k now toyota says replacing the injectors would be prudent some services back I havnt done them yet but will soon I guess .
At probably around 2k i get how many of us get a little reflux at the thought and look for a temp fix.



From what I read most all common rails are fussy beasts Chris

the older engines just kept on rolling I had a friend with an old troopy he sold it at 400 and believe it was still plugging along at plus 600 .

[casstony]

You answered that question earlier Gary. It seems all modern diesels are likely to have problems at relatively low km's, due to the anti-pollution devices.

I had noticed that my Territory's average fuel consumption had risen from about 8.2 to 8.8 over the last 5 years - curious to see if that drops back down.

Apparently chemical carbon cleaning has been done on trucks for many years?

[Gary47]

I think it's getting much harder to make a case for small diesels in cars. Price of diesel and much improved fuel economy in petrol engines and higher servicing costs mean there really is no substantial difference in running costs.
The one thing that diesels excel at is working under load. If you needed to tow a load a diesel was the best choice but the modern small diesels are made so light with a high Aluminium content that they frequently cannot tolerate the higher thermal output generated by towing. I used to deal with an engine machine shop in Melbourne. Last time I was in his shop he had a stack of Toyota KD engines a horse could not jump over, all waiting to be rebuilt, all failed due to overheating.
So if they are no cheaper and don't tolerate heavy loads what is the point?
Perhaps you like the smell of diesel on your hands after you fill up?

[glend]

The problem with modern diesel engine design is that they are built like petrol engines today, meaning they are built light, they are built to the generally Euro regs for environmental impact, and they are controlled to make as little noise as possible (meaning pilot injections are used to create slow flame fronts and soften the ignition). They also are usually wrapped in noise suppression covers and under engine shrouds, which retain heat at the expense of lower NVH figures.
In seeking to build them light, modern diesel heads maybe one piece assemblies which are bonded together and cannot ever be rebuilt. Mercedes diesels are a good example of engines which are throw away if anything goes wrong; they have epoxy bonded heads, very thin cylinder walls which cannot be resleeved, and they run hot.
I have driven my old CRD, for 13 years, with no issues at all. It is built by VM Motori in Italy and designed to be a 500,000km engine, with rebuild in mine and all parts still available to repair heads, new liners, etc and it is easy to work on. Over heating is never an issue as it has an engine mgt system that manages shutdown of functions to reduce heat, and I drive to minimise exhaust temps.
Sadly, most people that buy diesels have absolutely no idea how they should be driven, and fang around way above the torque band, over fuelling and generaring heat that destroys the engine. Modern diesel cars don't come with Exhaust Gas Temperature gauge, which is the most important instrument you can have.
I have travelled extensively through the outback, and constantly see people do stupid things to diesels. If you don't know how to drive a diesel, don't buy one and then spend years complaining or seeking remedies from the manufacturer for your stupidity.

[leon]

Glen, I have read all of this thread with great interest, and also drive a diesel 2.8 turbo Colorado which is now 5 years old and has done some 90,000 k's.

Its main job is to pull a caravan around Australia most of the time, which it dose quite well and fingers crossed I have had no major issues with it.

It is always serviced at the recommended intervals at the Holden dealer ship that sold it, however I did the last 90k service myself and found they could not be trusted to do the job. :sadeyes:

They were very incompetent in their approach to the work that was suppose to have been carried out and missed a lot of important stuff and I have absolute proof of this, at least i know the filters and other jobs were carried out according to the service manual when I did it myself. :sadeyes: I know this is a bit off track and has nothing to do with the initial post, but i thought i would just throw that in.

Glen I read your last post on the the way people drive there diesel vehicles and you see stupid things from some drivers, what do you mean by that please.

I never flog my rig when towing or otherwise and drive at about 90ks in a gear not making the engine work to hard with good rev's.
It seems to manage very well then and the temp is sitting quite low.

Of coarse there are times when it has to work a bit harder when climbing some steep hills for example and gets a bit hotter, but soon settles again once on flatter black stuff.

So Glen what is a stupid way of driving a diesel, :shrug: this is not meant to be a trick question or be offensive, but i am truly inquisitive and interested to know. :)

Thanks for that in advance.

Leon:thumbsup:

[Gary47]

The two common problems small modern diesels commonly suffer from are as Glen pointed out, high exhaust temperature and also insufficient cooling capacity. If you have a pyrometer fitted and watch it as you start to climb a hill carrying any sort of load it is scary how fast the exhaust temp goes past the safe limit into turbo destroying territory. A turbo will only take so many over temp cycles before it starts to shed or erode blades. When climbing a hill with a load the normal tendency is to keep full throttle and downshift as required when speed drops. That technique will have your exhaust valves cherry red and the turbo screaming for mercy. Reducing the throttle is the only thing that will keep the temperature down. That means that you have to use a much lower gear.
The second problem, inadequate cooling is caused by manufacturers trying to make the engine as small and light (and cheap ) as possible while still putting out high horsepower. To achieve that the cylinder heads are made as compact as possible but the inlet and exhaust ports are as large as possible resulting in reduced coolant passage size within the head, add in the extra restrictions caused by having 4 valves per cylinder and you find that many cylinder heads have "dead spots" where there is restricted flow and so you get local hot spots where the coolant can boil and cavitation occurs leading to cracking and erosion problems.
Of course neither of these problems is obvious to the driver, the coolant temperature gauge sensor is far enough away from the problem areas that it does not register an overheat condition and none of the small diesels that I have seen monitor exhaust gas temperature as part of their engine management system.

[Peter Ward]

So, let me get this straight.

Because you have had mechanical problems with your Ford and put a cleaning additive into your tank, that caused sooty emissions you think diesel powered vehicles should be banned?

Not all diesel vehicles are created equal.

My diesel car has both a particulate filter and a Diesel Emissions Fluid (DEF) tank (commonly labeled as AdBlue). Its basically a second tank filled with urea and distilled water, which is injected into the catalytic converter. By doing so the emissions are reduced by the ammonia into water and nitrogen. Both of which are harmless.

Being a lean burn cycle, diesels also emit less CO2 than petrol engines.

The DEF tank is good for about 6000km of driving before it needs topping up again, at a cost of about $20

If fact a recent University of Montreal study concluded the emissions from MODERN diesel engines are far less of a concern than petrol driven engines.....hence the notion of banning diesels based on, what I can only conclude is opinion, rather than fact, I have to seriously question.

[casstony]

I'll entertain the possibility that I'm wrong Peter, even though it's never happened before :)

I was under the impression that diesel couldn't match petrol emissions even with the latest anti-pollution gadgets - that's what the whole VW engine scandal was about. Add to that the lower reliability of modern diesel car engines and petrol seems like a no-brainer?

[Peter Ward]

Maybe you need to look at a different class of car.

My previous E-class Benz was an oil burner, pulled like a train and never had a single mechanical issue or puff of black smoke from it in 6 years I owned it. My current oil burner is a Range Rover, only had it a year, but unsurprisingly has not missed a beat.....and comes in well under the latest Euro emissions standards.

[DarkArts]

That was two engine generations ago. Your information is outdated and patchy. VW tried to meet emissions and economy targets (while achieving advertised power) purely through tuning, and couldn't. Later engines (EU6 and EU6plus) have Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) - AdBlue as it is commonly known - to reduce NOx emissions and can therefore use more reliable tuning without the need to "cheat".

The last AdBlue fill up cost me 90c per litre and 10L lasts about 8000km.

Modern petrol engines consume more fuel, emit greater CO2 per km and have higer particulate emissions. The latest emissions standard in Europe calls for Petrol Particulate Filters (PPF) to bring particulates down to the same level as modern diesels.


I'd love to see where this comes from. Where is the evidence?

My TDI is EU6 compliant. It's the best car I've ever driven. The engine management system constantly monitors exhaust gas temperature (amongst hundreds of other parameters) and limits fuel injection when temperature thresholds are reached (i.e. de-torques the engine) but I've never noticed a loss of power like that. The car achieves 20% less fuel use over the modern petrol it replaced (which was no slouch) yet is 30% heavier (it's a larger car).

DPF re-generation occurs every 250-300km in my car. There is a correlation between the "quality" of regen and fuel economy. After a high-speed highway drive, during which a regen occurred, I noticed an immediate improvement in fuel economy (about 7-8% compared to the long-term average). Regens around town are OK but not quite as effective. Still, that meets my needs well and I'm very happy.

[leon]

Ok Gary I read your post, so what happens now, seeing that i am one of millions of diesel drivers that do know how to look after their vehicles.
Do I just wait till it falls apart or is there a magic trick available to help this not happen.

Leon

[casstony]

The evidence for lower reliability was word of mouth from my mechanic - he's kept busy with injector and EGR repairs and says there are issues with supply of spare parts for some current diesels.

I wasn't aware that adblue is in the latest cars - that's a positive step - but my next vehicle will likely have a hybrid petrol motor (or full electric).

[leon]

Hi Glen this is the statement that i was referring to, I sort of don't know what you mean here :shrug:

I have travelled extensively through the outback, and constantly see people do stupid things to diesels. If you don't know how to drive a diesel, don't buy one and then spend years complaining or seeking remedies from the manufacturer for your stupidity.

Leon:thumbsup:

[raymo]

It will all be academic before too long, as to hark back to an earlier thread, I believe that EV take up will be much faster than most people here seem to think; witness this year's luxury car of the year being all electric. Not trying
to highjack this thread, just a comment.
raymo

[RyanJones]

20 years as a mechanic :

The OP is really right on the money here “ pardon the pun “. The money to maintain current diesels is pretty extreme. The technology that has gone into creating the modern diesel to make it not only marketable with NVH levels and drivability but also emission friendly is amazing having watched a lot of it come through the system. This has come at a price though. Yes there are plenty of mechanics in a can you can buy to help keep the system clean but the problem with these are they cause the engine to burn and exhaust the grime that has built up negating the whole “ clean “ engine premise. Short of that, all modern diesels have their problems ( and I mean ALL ). The price to repair the car after 10 years or so becomes non financially viable and so generally the car ends up being scrapped. That doesn’t sound like an overly environmentally friendly solution either. The same will happen down the track with EVs too.... time will prove that. The fact is you can’t make vehicles “ clean “. All you can do is offset who creates the mess and where it ends up. The time and energy needs to go into needing vehicles less.

That last little bit was a Segway, sorry

Ryan

[dannat]

problem is the crap oil companies call diesel, if they used vegetable oil with bit of ethanol it would run much cleaner

[CeratodusDuck]

This begs the question: is there ANY truth in the nugget about good diesel vs poor?

Ford recommends BP and I "think" Mobil diesel. Several mechanics have told me this over the years too, and to avoid Woolworths-Caltex/Coles-Shell/Costco/United (and very definitely Tesco in the UK :) )...

Is there even a tiny bit of truth in that? My Ford runs beautifully on BP Premium diesel, but put even a 1/4 of a tank of Caltex top up, and it runs like poop. Within as little as 20km! So, I run the car almost exclusively BP (as per Fords advice). My fuel economy on the highway is 2.3L/100 and about 6L/100 city/town on BP, and almost DOUBLE that if using Caltex (Shell is a little better than Caltex)

Are formulations per company drastically different now that all diesel is a concoction of 51 herbs and spices instead of actual diesel? Last time I changed the diesel filter (after using Caltex for most of a year) it was putrid black and water coagulent present. Recent filter change after nearly exclusively BP and I reckon I could have put that old filter right back in, and the filter bowl was clear.

[Peter Ward]

I don't accept Ryan's prognosis over the future of diesel cars, or the environmental penalty of EV's.

Before I purchased our Tesla Model 3 I did a lot of research on what the car would require after the battery warranty expired. Quoting Tesla:

"The closed-loop battery recycling process at Gigafactory 1 presents a compelling solution to move energy supply away from the fossil-fuel based practice of take, make and burn, to a more circular model of recycling end-of-life batteries for reuse over and over again. From an economic perspective, we expect to recognize significant savings over the long term, as the costs associated with large-scale battery material recovery and recycling will be far lower than purchasing and transporting new materials"

In short, rather than a single-use burn of fossil fuel, the battery cells are slotted to be recycled hence reused over and over.

Tesla have also indicated that after 1500 charge cycles or about 640,000km a new battery pack will cost about $A5000.00. I suspect the figure will be significantly lower, as the cost of lithium cells looks to be following Moore's Law.

We do about 15,000km per year on average, hence the 640k figure is unlikely to be tested by yours truly in 42 years from now....
The cycle limit will likely come up first, give we charge the car once every 4 days or so, and will arrive in about 16 years from now. But this is all moot.

The longest I have kept a car is 7 years (an E250 Diesel Merc...now 13 years old, and BTW I bumped into the new owner recently and pleased to hear he was delighted with the car and has not spent a cent on it other than regular services/tyres/pads....hardly "scrap" ).


As for me I'd expect to be pottering about in a "Tesla model 7" long before the Model 3 actually needs retiring.

[CeratodusDuck]

Only real EV issue I have read about is the fact VERY few retrieval companies can or will collect the molten debris after a lithium burn after one of these crashes. An Austrian chap had to fight insurance for a year to find a scrap recoverer who was able to and willing to deal with the remnants of his Tesla (he had crashed it into a tree and had instantaneous ignition of the lithium after the cells ruptured in the crash - he was lucky to get out)

[casstony]

I hope you're correct. Popularity will depend on affordability. I guess my next car will be a 2 or 3 year old hybrid with 4 years of manufacturers warranty left. Most people can't afford a new electric car.

[RyanJones]

I don’t want to distract too much from the original post suffice to say that quoting the statement about the sustainability of the product provided by the person promoting the product isn’t my idea of in depth research. Mars told me that one a day would help me work, rest and play too but the obesity epidemic would suggest otherwise.....:rofl:

[Peter Ward]

As crash tested by the NTSB, the battery cages of Tesla's are proved to be remarkably robust. To actually rupture the cells and ignite them you need to seriously crash /write the car off...and the fact the guy did that and still walked away says volumes.

Sure there have been a handful of Tesla's go up in smoke....but an air-petroleum mix is far more volatile. I'd bet an order of magnitude (or two) more of ICE vehicles have gone up in smoke globally over the same period yet are we really worried over whether they can be recycled ? Seriously?

[Peter Ward]

Suffice to say, the Tesla Spin machine was not my only source.

But the facts are, just as Space-X have reusable launch vehicles, Tesla are putting a recycling system in place for their EV batteries....

But suggesting all modern diesel powered cars have a shelf life of just one decade before the need "scrapping" might be a little fanciful.

[RyanJones]

10 years is probably at the extreme end of the scale I’ll admit but not something I haven’t seen either. Also, please don’t think I’m saying that these cars “ need “ to be scrapped, they don’t. What I’m saying is that a lot of owners of these vehicles are not able/interested in repairing them at such high repair costs. This is not an option, it’s an observation from within the industry. Most of the components that I’m currently diagnosing faults with that have excessive repair prices are fuel delivery systems and/or emission control systems. That is the current nature of the beast.

[Camelopardalis]

To me, this seems more like a sustainability and parts supply issue. We need to ween ourselves off the disposability of everything. Making a vehicle (regardless of power source) that is economically repairable for extended time periods should be a priority - and that means, the car companies not gouging for parts sometime down the line.

Of course, this goes against their interests...they want us to throw away the old one and buy a shiny new one :shrug:

[AstralTraveller]

In that sense Cuba is an (unintentional?) leader in sustainability. The US economic embargo means that they are still driving around the 1950's vintage vehicles that were current at the time of the revolution. There must be a nice little industry in spares. Similarly, I heard fairly recently (last decade or so) that in Sri Lanka you can still buy all the spares for a Morris Minor 1100 - a practical little car that can be repaired in any village workshop.


A friend of mine researched sustainability (in an academic role) and says that there is so much embodied carbon in a car that it is basically always better (in terms of emissions) to keep it running rather than buy a new one, even if it uses significantly more fuel. In that regard I'm pleased to say that my troopie is now 17 years old and I'm hoping for a few more decades yet (basically until I'm too old to use it). My mechanic has a customer with a '98 troopie that has done >900,000km and it hoping for 1,000,000km.

[CeratodusDuck]

Designed Obsolescence

My father still has a 40 year old Kelvinator fridge that works as good as new (new seals courtesy of a bungee strap :) ) We ourselves have had 3 fridges - and no, not cheap Chinese ones - in 15 years marriage.

[CeratodusDuck]

And yet another Tesla glitch today - one was filmed driving without any occupant (no not asleep reclining - NO occupant - car went off by itself).

Could be fun. :)

[RyanJones]

Well said. There are cars like that, they’re called Toyota’s lol. Yes I have one in the shape of a Hilux but we also have a Benz in the stable.

It is a sustainablity issue first and foremost but it needs to be solved with a holistic approach. The fact is that there are emissions targets that MUST be met. The longevity of the parts used to meet those targets is secondary at best. Throughout my years as a mechanic I have watched as cars have become less reliable ( as a complete product ) and less repairable in favor of replaceable. The amount of parts, and as I have referred to before, complete cars that have to be replaced now is far greater than it was in the past but there is no “ headline statistic “ to quantify it.

[casstony]

It's a sad state of affairs when we can't even rely on Toyota.

I like the engine in our Camry hybrid - the smallish petrol motor doesn't hinder general driving because the electric motor provides extra torque when needed - no need to rev the motor.

Kluger hybrids are being released next year. If the Territory can give me another 4 years of relatively trouble free driving a 3yo Kluger hybrid might be a nice car.

[casstony]

I've done several hours of driving since the carbon clean and the car does seem to run smoother and fuel economy seems to be improved. I had noticed a decline in fuel economy over the 5 years I've owned the car.

The car averages 7.5 l/100km on freeway runs now (110km/h zone) and 9.3 around town.