Poor starting, lots of smoke - 12 months no resolution!

[Bnav95]

Hi, I am new here but hope someone could offer some guidance. I have a 2011 Nissan Navara.

For approx 12 months it has had very poor starting (worse when cold) and massive amounts of smoke. Once its been running it works and starts fine.

Nissan had the vehicle but this was a horrific experience and they couldn’t diagnose it.

It didn’t used to show EML on the dash but more recently I have got EML on and diagnostics advise P0380

I have had the following replaced; Injectors, Glow Plugs, Glow Plug Relay, Battery. Auto Electrician done a diagnosis and didn’t flag issues with the wiring.

Garage tried to RE GEN but apparently the vehicle doesn’t support it. Spent £3500 in parts and labour so far and no resolution.

I use my vehicle for search and rescue (searching for high risk missing people), voluntary and fund all my own vehicle, kit and costs so its becoming exceptionally costly

Any help please?

Ben

 

[Old.Tony]

So we're looking at a 2011 turbo diesel. It'll have vacuum control of the variable vane turbocharger, a MAFS in the intake pipe just out of the air filter box. It may have a snorkel (this is important, see later).

If the smoke is white you're looking at a possible injector issue or the car thinks it needs to clean the DPF (that's what a regen is for). First step: look for the DPF. Two signs: under the front left floor (crawl under the car) there's an object in the exhaust pipe, this object has a heat shield, two electrical connections and two small (6mm or so) metal tubes coming off it. If you can see this, you have a DPF and it's possible that it's just trying to regen. If you can't see this (and you have lots of white/light grey smoke) your injectors are not performing well when cold, try a bottle of injector cleaner. If you have a DPF you might need either a proper regen (Nissan can command the car to do this or the car might do it after driving 200-300km) or the sensors in the DPF are faulty - these can be replaced with new, or you can write to @auggie on this forum and ask about replacements that clear the error completely (they worked for me). Check this thread out.

If the smoke is black you're more likely looking at things like an EGR valve fault or a MAFS fault. I doubt it's an air path blockage, these don't normally fix themselves when the engine warms up. It won't be a turbo failure because you're not boosting when starting.

EGR fault: block the EGR to test this. It's simple: take out the gasket on the intake manifold side of the EGR pipe and duplicate it minus the big hole in the middle. Use 1mm stainless, 2mm mild steel or 3mm aluminium.

MAFS fault: it might just be dirty. Remove it from the air pipe and spray electrical contact cleaner (same thing as MAFS cleaner) into the little hole in the end. Black muck will come out. Spray until it stops coming out black. Never, ever stick anything solid in the little hole.

Of course, it might be a gremlin. Try removing, cleaning and reinstalling the battery terminal clamps. There's an earth point over near the ECU which sometime causes grief - clean this too.

That's a start, anyway.

 

[Bnav95]

So we're looking at a 2011 turbo diesel. It'll have vacuum control of the variable vane turbocharger, a MAFS in the intake pipe just out of the air filter box. It may have a snorkel (this is important, see later).

If the smoke is white you're looking at a possible injector issue or the car thinks it needs to clean the DPF (that's what a regen is for). First step: look for the DPF. Two signs: under the front left floor (crawl under the car) there's an object in the exhaust pipe, this object has a heat shield, two electrical connections and two small (6mm or so) metal tubes coming off it. If you can see this, you have a DPF and it's possible that it's just trying to regen. If you can't see this (and you have lots of white/light grey smoke) your injectors are not performing well when cold, try a bottle of injector cleaner. If you have a DPF you might need either a proper regen (Nissan can command the car to do this or the car might do it after driving 200-300km) or the sensors in the DPF are faulty - these can be replaced with new, or you can write to @auggie on this forum and ask about replacements that clear the error completely (they worked for me). Check this thread out.

If the smoke is black you're more likely looking at things like an EGR valve fault or a MAFS fault. I doubt it's an air path blockage, these don't normally fix themselves when the engine warms up. It won't be a turbo failure because you're not boosting when starting.

EGR fault: block the EGR to test this. It's simple: take out the gasket on the intake manifold side of the EGR pipe and duplicate it minus the big hole in the middle. Use 1mm stainless, 2mm mild steel or 3mm aluminium.

MAFS fault: it might just be dirty. Remove it from the air pipe and spray electrical contact cleaner (same thing as MAFS cleaner) into the little hole in the end. Black muck will come out. Spray until it stops coming out black. Never, ever stick anything solid in the little hole.

Of course, it might be a gremlin. Try removing, cleaning and reinstalling the battery terminal clamps. There's an earth point over near the ECU which sometime causes grief - clean this too.

That's a start, anyway.

This is an example of the smoke.

The garage attempted a regen but it wasn’t supported, they thought it hadn’t got a DPF. I tried a manual regen too.

Nissan think they have changed the injectors - problem was still there. I don’t think the injectors were replaced like they said, looking at the tops of them they looked old.

 

[Old.Tony]

This is an example of the smoke.

The garage attempted a regen but it wasn’t supported, they thought it hadn’t got a DPF. I tried a manual regen too.

Nissan think they have changed the injectors - problem was still there. I don’t think the injectors were replaced like they said, looking at the tops of them they looked old.

I can see why they tried a regen. That's exactly how my car looked when its DPF went stupid and I had to replace the sensors (which was quite some time ago now, and no problems at all since).

Have you tried a drastic clean like Liqui Moly Diesel Purge?

 

[tweak'e]

that sounds like some really incompetent mechanics.
a glow system is not hard to trace. they should not be replacing parts like that. its also not hard to see if a ute has a dpf.
unfortunately i do not have the manual for that year to see what the ecu is flagging as an error or which system it has. if its old school relay type its a simple matter of checking voltage and current draw. the ecu will typically only check the line from ecu to the relay.
with more modern pwm system its a bit tricker eg the d23 had a glow control unit instead of a relay.

the other thing i would check is the water temp sensor as water temp controls the glow plugs. sensor drift or poor connection can mean it thinks its warm when its actually cold.

also things like engine earths which can impact how well glow plugs run.
plus anything like extra battery install, seen the odd case of them screwing up engine ground voltage which causes havoc with sensors.

 

[hotshot 5691]

So we're looking at a 2011 turbo diesel. It'll have vacuum control of the variable vane turbocharger, a MAFS in the intake pipe just out of the air filter box. It may have a snorkel (this is important, see later).

If the smoke is white you're looking at a possible injector issue or the car thinks it needs to clean the DPF (that's what a regen is for). First step: look for the DPF. Two signs: under the front left floor (crawl under the car) there's an object in the exhaust pipe, this object has a heat shield, two electrical connections and two small (6mm or so) metal tubes coming off it. If you can see this, you have a DPF and it's possible that it's just trying to regen. If you can't see this (and you have lots of white/light grey smoke) your injectors are not performing well when cold, try a bottle of injector cleaner. If you have a DPF you might need either a proper regen (Nissan can command the car to do this or the car might do it after driving 200-300km) or the sensors in the DPF are faulty - these can be replaced with new, or you can write to @auggie on this forum and ask about replacements that clear the error completely (they worked for me). Check this thread out.

If the smoke is black you're more likely looking at things like an EGR valve fault or a MAFS fault. I doubt it's an air path blockage, these don't normally fix themselves when the engine warms up. It won't be a turbo failure because you're not boosting when starting.

EGR fault: block the EGR to test this. It's simple: take out the gasket on the intake manifold side of the EGR pipe and duplicate it minus the big hole in the middle. Use 1mm stainless, 2mm mild steel or 3mm aluminium.

MAFS fault: it might just be dirty. Remove it from the air pipe and spray electrical contact cleaner (same thing as MAFS cleaner) into the little hole in the end. Black muck will come out. Spray until it stops coming out black. Never, ever stick anything solid in the little hole.

Of course, it might be a gremlin. Try removing, cleaning and reinstalling the battery terminal clamps. There's an earth point over near the ECU which sometime causes grief - clean this too.

That's a start, anyway.

Hi, I am new here but hope someone could offer some guidance. I have a 2011 Nissan Navara.

For approx 12 months it has had very poor starting (worse when cold) and massive amounts of smoke. Once its been running it works and starts fine.

Nissan had the vehicle but this was a horrific experience and they couldn’t diagnose it.

It didn’t used to show EML on the dash but more recently I have got EML on and diagnostics advise P0380

I have had the following replaced; Injectors, Glow Plugs, Glow Plug Relay, Battery. Auto Electrician done a diagnosis and didn’t flag issues with the wiring.

Garage tried to RE GEN but apparently the vehicle doesn’t support it. Spent £3500 in parts and labour so far and no resolution.

I use my vehicle for search and rescue (searching for high risk missing people), voluntary and fund all my own vehicle, kit and costs so its becoming exceptionally costly

Any help please?

Ben

Hi from Oamaru New Zealand.
When running take a whiff at rear of exhaust emission. If normal diesel combustion then it's fine. If it's a Putrid white hazey smoke which U cannot bare to be there long it could be a leak of coolant into combustion chamber which says head gasket is possibly knackered.
To confirm further just remove pipe coming from e.g.r valve and check if there's any moisture with that horrid Putrid coolant Oder?. I'm doing head gasket replacement now at 160.000 k.m
Another way to confirm is remove turbo then fine a hard rubbery coat of baked on coolant inside manifold