It wore the rockers to hell - one fell sideways.
We replaced rockers and lifters - head gasket too as we broke a glowplug and had to get it out.
Then it pi**ed oil from the crankshaft seal.
We fitted a new seal and after 100km is pi**ed from the vacuum pump end. New seals there and after a few hundred km it seems good.
We spoke to our neighbour - a French lad and a mechanic for the last 10 years. You can imagine that as most cars in France are either Renault , Citroen or Peugeot - that he has a lot of experience with the 1.4hdi.
He says that many many of the 1.4hdi engines pi**ed oil even from new. It stops after about 5000km.
At his garage they smother them in silicone sealant when doing head-gaskets etc.
We now have another problem.
When we first got this car and fitted a replacement engine we were amazed how lively it was for a xsara estate with only a 1.4hdi.
However after 6 months we noticed the tailgate getting black - a warning of engine wear - we were PRETENDING that we didn't see the smoke in the rearview mirror under acceleration



Now with the new rockers its very clean.
Since replacing the rockers , head gasket, and hydraulic tappets it has an amazing flat spot between 1800 and 2300 rpm.
We are right is saying that you do not have to set a valve clearance on this engine ?????
We did a few km with the oil filler cap removed to test if it was excessive pressure in the engine - but this made no difference.
We disconnected the MAF from the air inlet pipes and were not sure if it made any difference - it might have been marginally better but not great.
Shortly after removing this we got the ANTI-POLLUTION message. We replaced the connection and the error disappeared after about 30km.
Its obviously worse in 4th and 5th gear as its more difficult to pick up speed to hit that magic number where the turbo cuts in.
When the turbo kicks-in the car is great again.
We suspect its an injector, though its a pig to do a leak-off test as the injectors are at the back under lots of gubbins - not easily accessible.
OK - big guilt here - we opened and closed an injector when we had the head off - we kept it as clean as humanely possible but maybe the spray pattern is screwed ?
Any ideas ???