all of a sudden - blue smoke in exhaust after idling

davehughes · Post by **davehughes** » 21 Jan 2006, 07:45

This happened to a friend of mine years ago in one of those old rover 216's with the honda engine. He had bought a gallon of 'value oil' for six quid! from a service station and then wondered why he had the symptoms you have. If it happened only after the oil change I'd change the oil (and filter, as it will hold some of the old oil) without delay.

Let us know how you get on

Cheers

Dave

jeremy · Post by **jeremy** » 21 Jan 2006, 08:49

Thinking about this the chances are that if your rings were damaged the car would be difficult or at least different to start. The reason is that even with glowplugs diesels need plenty of compression at startup, and for example if one cylinder is low on compression the engine will probably start on 3 with the 4th cutting in (with loads of smoke) when its all a bit warmer.

XUD engines have slotted scraper rings (cross section [ shaped) and as they wear the 2 sharpish edges wear first. Eventually they wear away leaving the backing bit as it were - so that instead of there being 2 edges there is just a thick metal ring. This does mean that at the end the consumption will rise rapidly as the last bits of the scraper dissappear. Having said that this does not seem to be a common problem judging from posts on here and these engines seem to have a virtually unlimited lifespan which must be a tribute to the quality of manufacture and the materials used.