Peugeot 306 HDi X Reg - Loss of power and white smoke from exhaust

Honest John Back Room » Technical matters
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Sun 15 May 2011 19:46
Peugeot 306 HDi X Reg - Loss of power and white smoke from exhaust - pug fan

Peugeout 306 HDI...well serviced by me and with good history ... 8 months trouble free fun... then last night after driving fine for an hour, up to 70mph on a cool evening, along a dual carriageway the car starts to lose power.

Accelerator is on the floor, no revs above 2000, after a few miles the car behind flashes me off the road due to white smoke. I hadn't seen it, so not too much.

Lights on the dash were fine, nothing on to indicated any problems - Engine light remained off, temp was fine, and oil light all working as they usually do.

I checked the levels ( I feared a blown head gasket), all looked clean as a whistle on the oil stick and in the water header tank .AA checked too and air intake but found nothing.

AA suggested I try again and they would follow. The result straight away was ever decreasing power, no speed over 40mph... then 20mph - lots of white smoke from exhaust.

AA towed me to services, although when car was ticking over there wasn't no sign of any problem. No smoke, sounded sweet, nothing on the dash to indicate a problem at all. AA recovered it and they managed to drive it fine on an off the trailer, but they did note some white smoke.

I will take it to the garage in the morning, but get that sinking feeling I could get ripped off as I don't know exactly what is wrong with it.

Any ideas? I am not a mecahnic... but I know what a spanner is and I can google images to help me look for things to check.

Thank you for any one who has shared these Pug driving events!

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Mon 30 May 2011 11:45
Peugeot 306 HDi X Reg - Loss of power and white smoke from exhaust - pug fan

Just in case it helps someone else. The problem was my exaust was away from the engin and my Catalytic converter was blocked. New one and labour and bits was just £250. At least it wasn't a thrashed Turbo.

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Mon 30 May 2011 13:29
Peugeot 306 HDi X Reg - Loss of power and white smoke from exhaust - Peter.N.

White smoke under those circumstances seems strange, that is normally due to unburnt fuel and happens when the engine is cold, if it was black I would say lack of air but unless for some reason the compression is drastically dropping I would think that something in the electronics is upsetting the injection timing.

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Mon 30 May 2011 13:33
Peugeot 306 HDi X Reg - Loss of power and white smoke from exhaust - unthrottled

I thought that too! But I suppose a seriously blocked cat would set the pressure differential accross the turbo to pretty much zero-and cause a lot of unintentional EGR. Just haven't heard of a diesel cat becoming blocked before.

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