They were contacted this time as well, and received a lot of useful information and fairly easy-to-implement practical advice.
The biggest surprise is that the engine, which was trouble-free yesterday, suddenly refuses to "come to life" at the very moment when you are rushing to work in the morning. If this happens for the first time, and is accompanied by white exhaust, then you can say with almost complete certainty that the glow plugs are to blame. By the way, the indicator on the instrument panel may well be wrong, claiming that everything is OK with the plugs. To check, one end of the wire is connected to the "plus" of the battery, and the other supplies voltage directly to the plugs. If a good spark jumps through (it is easy to distinguish from the bright flash of a short circuit), the wire starts to heat up, and after that the engine starts, then the spark plugs have nothing to do with it. The fault should be looked for in the electrical circuits that supply voltage to them. In this way, you can also check the fuel supply valve.
And finally, blame only yourself if you tried to start the car on the move before. The timing belt could easily slip through several teeth. The engine will not start and you may need to prepare for a complicated and expensive engine repair.
Experience shows that another situation is also very common: the engine is idling, and when you try to increase the speed, it immediately stalls or stops after a short period of operation. Most likely, air has entered the fuel system. Again, it is worth paying attention to the exhaust. In this case, it is usually white with a characteristic smell of diesel fuel. A vacuum in the fuel flow can occur due to a blockage, say, of the fuel intake or fuel filter. Most often, it is the fuel filter that gets clogged, and such troubles occur mostly in winter.
Technodiesel specialists advise everyone to follow a rule that has no exceptions: never repair fuel filters. Various "flushings", "blowings", and other supposedly restorative procedures, at best, will simply not produce an effect, and at worst, will make the situation even worse. Fuel, passing through such a "restored" filter, not only does not receive the required cleaning, but also washes away all the dirt that has previously accumulated in the filter. This can quickly disable the precision mechanism of the high-pressure fuel pump.
Another pseudo-help for the engine that "knowledgeable" mechanics like to provide is installing several fuel filters. From the point of view of achieving unprecedented purity of the diesel fuel entering the engine, there is no point in this multi-stage filtration. Manufacturers of diesel cars carry out precise calculations of the filter performance, which are confirmed by entire series of tests, so they are worth trusting. Additional filters are not just useless, but harmful. They create excessive resistance, due to which the high-pressure fuel pump works with overload and fails faster. Increased resistance in the pipeline can also cause air suction.
You should not follow another fairly common misconception that additional filters help separate water from fuel. In fact, filters do not retain water; there are special separators for this purpose. The presence of such a separator is indicated by a small plug under the filter. The accumulated moisture should be drained approximately every 3,000 km. The liquid should be drained until almost clean diesel fuel flows.
Water in the fuel also causes white clouds of exhaust gases. Some modern diesel cars have an indicator on the dashboard that will tell you that there is water in the fuel. If the indicator lights up, it is better to stop immediately, turn off the engine and drain the liquid from the separator. If necessary, you can repeat the procedure. If the indicator still does not want to go out, then the problem is probably in the electrical circuits of the water-in-fuel indicator system. You should not try to fix anything in a hurry; it is better to go to a car service center.
Article published on the website www.opelbook.ru
It also happens that a steadily humming engine suddenly goes silent for no apparent reason. The most trivial piece of advice, which, oddly enough, helps in many "difficult" cases, is to make sure that there is still diesel fuel in the tank. If the situation is worse, and something really happened, it is worth remembering whether there was any sharp sound before the engine went silent. Such a sound is accompanied by a timing belt break. If so, it is better not to try to crank the engine - the consequences can be devastating.
Another reason for the sudden engine stop may be the same air in the fuel system. You can try to directly connect the fuel pump to any container with diesel fuel. If the engine starts working, then the cause has been found. For any problems with the fuel pump, it is best to contact specialists, not trusting the repair to dubious mechanics.
When the high-pressure fuel pump is excluded from the probable culprits of the troubles, you can try to loosen the nipples on the injectors. If during attempts to start the engine diesel fuel starts to flow out from under them in a pulsating stream, this means that faulty injectors do not provide a normal supply of fuel to the combustion chambers. Perhaps you will notice that black smoke has poured out of the exhaust - this is one of the signs of a stuck needle in the injector. Fuel begins to flow uncontrollably into the cylinder, and the black exhaust is due to its incomplete combustion.
And one more thing – don't drive recklessly through deep puddles. Mechanics often see diesel engines damaged after such a swim. Water from the puddle gets into the combustion chamber, and the strongest hydrodynamic impact bends even the strongest connecting rods!
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