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White smoke on hard acceleration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 11:04 am
by paulrog
Hi,

I have a 2010 4.0d, and last week when accelerating hard onto a motorway I saw a huge amount of white smoke, I immediately stopped accelerating and the smoke disappeared.

No warnings on the dash, nothing, the car drove normal.

Now, I had not driven the car for a few weeks before then as I've been away.

I've checked the coolant and I don't think it's going down.

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks.

Re: White smoke on hard acceleration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 12:44 pm
by Chrispy
Could have been doing a DPF regen?  When I had my glow plug control module replaced (which plays a key role in this process) it had like a white haze on acceleration for a bit immediately after (once it had warmed up) then it stopped and hasn't done it since as far as I can tell.  Just a thought.

Re: White smoke on hard acceleration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:15 pm
by X5Sport
Get the DPF checked as you should not see smoke at all, and it is now an automatic MOT failure on DPF equipped cars.

If it isn’t regenerating every 300 miles or so (and/or you are doing short journeys) it will clog up.

Re: White smoke on hard acceleration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 4:28 pm
by paulrog
I'm not sure it's anything to do with the DPF, I have Carly app and Bluetooth OBD device connected sometimes and I did a DPF Regen the journey before.

The Carly app shows the ash and soot levels are typical of a car which has done 87000 miles.

Plus the smoke was not blue or black, but very white.

Re: White smoke on hard acceleration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 6:31 pm
by marti
White smoke is normally unburnt fuel...bad injector?

Re: White smoke on hard acceleration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:04 pm
by X5Sport
Has it been remapped?  Any sign of power loss?  Any sign of oil level drop.  Not all oil smoke is blue, fuel is more likely though.

Re: White smoke on hard acceleration

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2018 10:03 am
by paulrog
No hasn't had a remap.

The car has full BMW service history, and apart from a replacement air con compressor, just normal services carried out.

Might be a sticking injector??

Re: White smoke on hard acceleration

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 3:18 pm
by marti
Chuck a full bottle of Redex in the tank...says for two tanks but whole bottle works wonders sometimes...