Smoke & Squeal!

[chrisash32]

Hi Everyone!
Now fastly approaching 60k my Altea would seem to be starting to show signs of its age. Despite it looking a little rough at the moment after someone scraping the rear corner its starting to give me more and more mechanical issues.

As you all know a month or so ago I had to replace the inlet manifold thing that is known for going.. Now I am faced with another problem which started over the bank holiday weekend.

Firstly, whenever I turn the car over, especially after not being on for most of the day, I can engulf most of the surround area of the car in a thick white / blue tint smoke... I also notice at the same time the car doesn't seem to be very "smooth" - eg, take a single spark plug lead out of an old petrol and give it a rev. Similar sort of reaction.

After 30sec or so this clears up and the car becomes "smooth" again, with the smoke reduced to a small flow from the exhaust with clears up when warm.

A couple of days after that started I am now faced with a VERY loud high pitched squeal from the engine which I have a feeling is the fan belt....

If your are looking at the engine from the front, it is coming from down the left hand side where the alternator is...

If it is the fan belt.. I guess it would just need tightening up? or at 60k should I be looking to replace it? If so how easy is this job to do? I have a weekend to myself and allot of tools!!



Cheers

Chris

 

[CrispDust]

Could be fan belt, could be cam belt. Both rev dependent noise. To check fan belt either remove or slacken off tensioner, if noise goes its you fan belt, if it doesn't most likely cambelt/tensioner/idler. At 60k you're pushing lifespan of cambelt. 1st easy ish, second not so!
Smoke? Turbo coked up - the VNT problem?
Disappointing after 60k though - especially in a car that has been looked after.

 

[chrisash32]

Could be fan belt, could be cam belt. Both rev dependent noise. To check fan belt either remove or slacken off tensioner, if noise goes its you fan belt, if it doesn't most likely cambelt/tensioner/idler. At 60k you're pushing lifespan of cambelt. 1st easy ish, second not so!
Smoke? Turbo coked up - the VNT problem?
Disappointing after 60k though - especially in a car that has been looked after.

Cheers for the reply.
I will check it out this evening... I do have a video on my phone but i cant work out for the life of me how i edit it and put it on-line.

I might shoot another one this evening.....

But to give you an insight, when i first turn it over, it will squeal for about 2min or until i give it some on the accelerator. It will squeal when i am approaching / sat at traffic lights and if i accelerate at 60+ on the motorway in 6th..

Does anyone know of a guide that i can reference to when messing with / changing this belt?

Cheers
Chris

 

[chrisash32]

See Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbdUs1VNg6U

 

[Toxic]

sounds like one of the tensioners. have you had the timing belt done yet? should be done at 6k or every 4 years. when this is is being done it is recommended to do the Water pump as well.

 

[chrisash32]

sounds like one of the tensioners. have you had the timing belt done yet? should be done at 6k or every 4 years. when this is is being done it is recommended to do the Water pump as well.

Thanks for the reply!
Not had the timing belt done yet, but it is due any time now. Car is 4 years old next months and will probably be at 60k by then too.

What sort of price should I be looking at for this including the water pump? as I had one quote from a place near my work and they wanted near £500....

Also will that include the alternator belt?

 

[Toxic]

think david at seremotors

Hi Andy thanks for the enquiry
belt kit rrp £160, from me £100
water pump rrp £35, from me £22 (bear in mind I need the old unit returned as its exchange)
allow approx £8 post

that's from here: http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=175005&page=2

as to what you would be charged for fitting well best to get an independent to do it unless you have the money for a stealer to do it.

 

[Toxic]

As to the smoke, could be a number of things, more likely to be a fueling / timing issue, though you mension Blue smoke, this is usually Oil burning but as you say once the engine is warm then it could oil deposits in the intercooler on startup.

maybe worth using a Oil Catch Can. this will stop oil from the oil breather pipe getting into the intercooler/egr/inlet manifold?

when was the last time you changed the oil. old oil is prone to break down and engines can be noisey and idle bad until the engine is warm.

first of all if you ahev not done so already i'd give it an oil and filter change and change the fuel filter at the same time. since yours is near 60k its worth doing. Also get the car running on Millers Diesel Sport 4 (available from David@sere). this can give the fuel system a good clean out and I find the engine runs a lot smother with this.

is the engine performing ok under load? the MAF sensors are also prone to give issues and can affect fueling/idling. you have an ST3 yes? have you plugged it in a checked any fault codes?

 

[chrisash32]

As to the smoke, could be a number of things, more likely to be a fueling / timing issue, though you mension Blue smoke, this is usually Oil burning but as you say once the engine is warm then it could oil deposits in the intercooler on startup.

maybe worth using a Oil Catch Can. this will stop oil from the oil breather pipe getting into the intercooler/egr/inlet manifold?

when was the last time you changed the oil. old oil is prone to break down and engines can be noisey and idle bad until the engine is warm.

first of all if you ahev not done so already i'd give it an oil and filter change and change the fuel filter at the same time. since yours is near 60k its worth doing. Also get the car running on Millers Diesel Sport 4 (available from David@sere). this can give the fuel system a good clean out and I find the engine runs a lot smother with this.

is the engine performing ok under load? the MAF sensors are also prone to give issues and can affect fueling/idling. you have an ST3 yes? have you plugged it in a checked any fault codes?

Thanks for the reply!
The only fault codes i am getting on the ST3 are for the EGR (because its blocked by a plate) and for the Cruise Control sometimes not working.

Is there any info on here for installing an oil catch can? Sounds like a good idea!

The fuel and Oil filter were changed about 10k miles ago (or Jan this year to put it in date terms) so I didnt think they would need doing again...

I am off to halfords in a bit to have a scan through a MK5 Golf Haynes manual to see if there is anything that might be useful to me realted to the 2.0TDi in there.
Might also pop to euro car parts and get a new fuel filter... I was going to get an oil filter too but its due a 60k service in less than 1000 miles... so they will be doing that then...

The engine seems to preform ok under load... although ever since i have had the car it has its quick and slow days... It towed our caravan over the weekend without any issues..

Not sure if I should be driving it at the moment or not...

 

[Toxic]

if its only at start-up then I doubt the engine has a serious problem. I would keep an eye on Oil levels though on a daily basis just to make sure she is not loosing oil somewhere.

 

[chrisash32]

ok, think i have found what the problem is.. Looks like its the alternator..
I will explain my findings later but i am just off to my local car supermarket to see if i can find a 2.0PD to compare with mine.

I have a feeling its a baring that's gone and the wheel that the fan belt goes round is grinding against the outer case of the alternator.

When i tap the accelerator the wheel moves away from the case of the alternator and the squealing noise stops.

 

[Toxic]

ahh... nice find. though where is the blue smoke coming from?

 

[CrispDust]

i'd still be getting both belts and tensioners done asap though.....

 

[chrisash32]

both belts are still on the cards! Need to be done before i go to France next month anyway.
I will upload a video in a bit of what is happening with the alternator. Just wish I knew someone round here with another PD140 so we can compare.

Just been to David Cook Seat and one of the lads in the show room was good enough to let me look under the bonnet of a Leon just to see if there was anything visually different but it doesn't look like there is. Didn't get a chance to see it with the engine running as i really didn't want to push my luck! (also it was inside the showroom)

Sat in an Exeo when i was there as well... Tempting....

 

[chrisash32]

for some reason when this was filmed the squeaking calmed down loads!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2DPLvF1r5c

Just after the camera moved you can see the belt moving away from the alternator..

Do they all do this??

 

[chrisash32]

all,
just to update, popped out in the car this evening... Squeaking had stopped... But it did sound a little more "rough" than normal and for some reason it was idling at 1.2k...

The car is now off the road!

When i was driving i started to smell burning in the cabin, soon after i could see smoke coming from under the bonnet. So i stopped, popped the hoot and the alternator was glowing... the fan belt was soft, bits of plastic attached to the alternator had melted as it had literally started to grind itself to bits with the metal pulley wheel.

Just to explain.. you should be able to see from that image where the pulley has grinded into the alternator... Also, not that this time yesterday that black plastic cap was whole and that the hole has been melted into it this eve. Going to have to fix the car myself now though as i wont pay for it to be recovered to a garage...

I guess we all agree that the alternator has been the root cause of all my issues? I also guess if the belt was struggling to spin that would cause the car to up the idle RPM???

Just seems a little early for something like that to go.. its only 60k!!!

Only thing that concerns me now is i didn't get a single error light and nothing showed up on a fault code scan.. i thought if the alternator was faulty / struggling then it might do.

Cheers
Chris

 

[CrispDust]

at least its easy to get to for replacment - you should try an Alfa V6 alternator replacement - the dictionary of swear words isn't extensive enough

 

[Toxic]

glad you found the issue. whats the damage on a alternator for the 2.0 TDI? refurb or brand new?

 

[chrisash32]

glad you found the issue. whats the damage on a alternator for the 2.0 TDI? refurb or brand new?

First quote i had today from a SEAT Dealer was £479 +VAT they must be joking! Although David at Sere has come up with the goods at a fraction of the cost!

Upon taking the car to bits this afternoon though i think i have come across something else... When i took the under tray out it was just soaked in a black oil like substance on both left and right sides (will post pic later)....

Upon further investigation this seems to be coming form the black pipes that go into either side of the intercooler.... Could do with some advice on this one if it is a problem... So i will post some pics up later on.

Cheers

Chris

 

[Toxic]

sounds like your intercooler is full of oil.

I cna only thing of two things here. either the breather pipe from engine cover is is filling up the air intake and thus drains into your intercooler (over a long period) or the turbo could be leaking and runing into the EGR valve and thus draining back inot the intercooler, though I think you said the EGR pipe is blocked off.

the first one has a fix of adding a Oil Catch Can.

with all new cars these days they all have an undertray fitted to the bottom of the engine. this catches any oil leaks, but you dont know you have a problem until its too late!