T6 204ps white smoke and battery? [Resolved]

[Keaney]

Ok weird one… van has been sat on the drive and not getting much use but this morning did a good 20 mile no problem.

Gets back to the vehicle at the local supermarket and it doesn’t want to turn over. Every time I try the clock resets to 00:00. Then got a coolant low warning… checked the tank and nothing in sink top it up with water as that’s all I could get.

Eventually get my noco genius battery to give it a boost and that failed but it did try turn over. Luckily another person was able to give me a start with some jump cables but then loads of smoke coming out of the exhaust. Managed to get it home and few corners from home coolant light comes on.

Check the coolant on the drive and it’s low.

Thinking cyclinder head, silica bag explosion or egr cooler but wondering if anyone else had similar issues.

Weird that the battery couldn’t turn it over.

 

[Spaghetti]

If the coolant has got into the combustion chamber via a head gasket or EGR cooler fault, it could hydrolock and it wouldn’t turn over as water doesn’t compress.

 

[Deaky]

Exactly the same symptoms as when my EGR failed. I thought the battery was flat. Cylinder with water in it. The white smoke you saw was steam

 

[Keaney]

Yeah with 30k miles on I’m hoping it’s not cylinder head. Does start pointing to EGR

Should I have had a ecu light or something on VCDS though?

 

[Pauly]

Not necessarily as the engine wouldnt see a problem until the coolant got low

Would prob get the battery on charge overnight to make sure it’s ok

 

[Keaney]

Yeah got the battery on charge just debating if I drive it the 12 miles to the garage for repairs next week, tow it or get it transported

 

[Keaney]

Now looking at egr blanking plates and egr deletes haha

 

[Keaney]

Ok van is at the specialist… said he strangely has a crafter pretty new mann one in with the same issue. No confirmed root cause yet

 

[Keaney]

@Deaky it’s pointing to EGR like yours at the min. Wondering how we prevent it in the future.

Would a catch tank help, would turning the regen down more. Wonder if you have done anything

 

[Spaghetti]

If it’s a water leak from the jacket cooling the EGR, the actual exhaust flow through wouldn’t be likely to influence the rate of failure.

 

[Deaky]

@Deaky it’s pointing to EGR like yours at the min. Wondering how we prevent it in the future.

Would a catch tank help, would turning the regen down more. Wonder if you have done anything

My replacement has been good for the last 60k maybe it was a dodgy batch

 

[Keaney]

Right! Lol 100% EGR failure here and chucked coolant into cylinder 2. Luckily compression test passed so it’s being rebuilt.

So how do we stop this happening in the future?

I’m thinking and please shoot me down on any of this:

EGR blanking plates, however this can cause issues with DPF. I don’t want to remove the lot as it’s a MOT failure and obv bad for greenpeace.

So thinking carista app and monitor spot dpf levels and if active regen does not kick in make sure a passive one does or via the app or manual regen.

I’d also need to map out the egr low pressure fault.

Thoughts?

 

[Keaney]

Collecting the van tomorrow, carista dongle and blanking plates at the ready

 

[Keaney]

It’s back! New EGR fitted with different bracket, also had the silicone coolant bag removed.

Hopefully never have to go through that EGR issue again!

 

[Lukefx]

Got this issue on mine at the moment but compression is low on 3 cylinders, two are borderline but one is really low, does anyone know what pressure they are meant to be at? So it looks like as well as a new egr and pipe I need the head off and new valves. This isn't going to be cheap! My question is, what with VW knowing about the egr issue and replacing some under warranty if they're under 5 years old, is it worth going back to them for goodwill to pay for the whole problem? My van is 2016 but had only done 37k miles.