I was behind a 2008 model Focus tdci yesterday coming off a roundabout and suddenly there was a smoke screen so big and dense I could not see anything at all! It was pretty scary and I braked and so did the other cars behind me. It took a fair while for the smoke to clear and when it did the Focus was still moving but very slowly with its hazard lights on and then it stopped. I have never seen so much smoke from a car and the inside of my car smelt of smokey diesel.Any idea what could have caused it as I am not a diesel owner?

 

turbo seals probably failed and was running of it's own oil. Either that or a piston had failed.

 

my money is on the turbo letting go - happened to me and there is a lot of smoke and scary when the engine runs on itself with no key in the ignition at max revs

 

Probably got an 1.6L tdci, they are common to get turbo breaks

 

Shity Peugeot engines. Ive heard there is a small piece of gauze in the turbo feed pipe that gets blocked which causes oil starvation to the turbo.

 

What ever it was it looked terminal!!

 

That is true, they got a filter in the banjo coupling, on the feed pipe. It use to be blocked. I have got 3 of this engines in at work, were the compressor wheel nut, are falling of and is in the airfilter hose. The oil pump strainer, are often blocked aswell

 

poor maintenance not getting proper oil changes will be to blame no doubt

 

20k+ service intervals you get on some modern cars is probably to blame too.