wfs.leeds

Hi fellas

New to the forum, hope I can be of assistance to others as I am a ford escort lover

I needed a cheap and cheerful estate car for running around in, I found this escort finesse tdi estate on ebay. I won it for £320 and I am well made up so far, It drives and it came with 4 months MOT and 5 months road tax.

I collected the car just over a week ago, iv been running around in it daily since and I have noticed it does have a slight intermittent problem. This happens with the engine either cold or warm.

Starts up fine, does not kick much smoke out if any. Most of the time it idles perfectly, but if you give it some throttle, it will sometimes becomes very lumpy once returned to idle kicking out quite a bit of blue 'fuel smelling' smoke. Its very much like a constant multiple mis-fire. If this happens, going for a very short drive cures it and it continues to run fine afterwards with no smoke.

Also what I have noticed which this does tend to happen more frequently than the lumpy idle, after taking my foot off the accelerator whilst moving and allowing the engine to slow the car down, it kicks alot of the same blue smoke out again.

Just to phase out the turbo being the culprit, if I drive the car fast, I get plenty of pulling power, I don't get any smoke and the boost does not have any hesitation.

All I have done so far is.

• Filled the tank with a Redex and Shell High Octane Diesel mix, run the car hard for a good few days. No difference apart from it made it start alot quicker.
• Tried disconnecting the fuel advance solenoid, it just made the lumpy idle worse when it occurred.
• Fit a new air filter and fuel filter.
• Tried disconnecting the water temperature sender, 'I read on another forum if the sensor is faulty it can cause problems with the ECU'. No difference

Now, I know the basic functions of an EGR valve. I know if the EGR becomes clogged or it fails it can cause the engine to run unstable. Could my experiences be caused by the EGR? If so, has anyone removed the intercooler on this engine before?? I can see the EGR is directly underneath it, but I cant seem to get the damn intercooler off to access it! lol.

Any help or advise would be much appreciated

Cheers
Dan

Mark Lees

i had a similiar prob but with out any smoke but it did smell of petrol turned out it was my oxygen/lambda sensor, try that

flight

Hi peoples,

I have had much the same problem with my diesel escort in the past few months. I have had it checked out by five different garages three long term. All to no success yet. The car is lacking in power intermittently, and puffs out blue smoke when this happens. The heater plug 'light' also stops working correctly and doesn't stay on long enough. And the rev clock is also affected. I've done a lot to the car which was expensive. I got all injectors checked, new heater relay, new crankshaft sensor, checked EGR valve, checked the catalitic converter and have replaced various hosing. My local ford garage have reset the ecu three times once after injectors were done and the car goes near perfect for two to three weeks but then its back to the same old problem. I checked the egr valve and catalytic converter myself as the ford garage don't seem to do much. Also I believe the temp sensors are ok because the fan comes on after a strenuous drive.I hope this was a help. I would be grateful if someone could help me out.