What did the Diesel engine and the 5 year old kid that you just seen at the local shopping centre have in common?
A: They both had a meltdown in public.
But the poor diesel engine had a legitimate reason. " hahahah "
So the old trusty diesel engine originally designed for trucks, tractor's and any other hard working long hauling vehicle where low down power and torque are required is a magic bit of gear, trusty, reliable and hard working. Sounds like every Aussie's dream ?
Now-days we have refined these engines so so far that they are near a clean"-ish " running , fuel efficient automotive family car engine, With thankyou to the great people at companies like Toyota, VW, fomoco and many more.
Here in Australia we like to push our limits and play with our diesel's wanting " MORE MORE MORE ! "
Below are a few comical cliché scenarios that most people in the trade or that know their Aussie diesel vehicles will maybe get a laugh out of.
The Nissan TD42 "add a T to it ." after the Big T is added to the good old silver top.
Kids want to wind up the Boost And add big Diesel pumps for big power out the old tractor engines. On a beer budget its a recipe for the above piston failure unless done right.
The Toyota turbo diesel Towing types want to Pull their 20 hundred Foot caravan around Australia loaded with everything but the " um well including the kitchen sink " for as little fuel as possible and want better fuel economy than something produced by Mr E Musk himself. well unless an upgraded fuel system from the prince of Saudi is imported installed and tuned can also find themselves reading articles like these.
For the Average 2.5 kid family the TV and social media said that LDV, GWM, Haval was the best diesel in my budget. The sales person showed us all the luxury features and on the first test drive nothing fell apart. ( yes woo-hoo, winning at life. Brand New Diesel vehicle. )
( The sales person did not mention the country of origin either. )
Social media and tv don't tell anyone that they will need a better budget to fix it when the time comes.
When faced with the above blog situation these parts are even harder to locate.
Then We have the work hard tradies utes like the rangers we all so much love , at first its all power and fuel economy and banter on the job site, " I just got a i-drive or chip in my 3.2 it pulls harder than yours. " Then ya got " yeah yeah I just got mine tuned and my tuner tunes harder than yours. " then ya got yeah and my mate next door blanked off my EGR for a carton of piss and a bottle of bundy he even sealed it up properly. "
A year or two later they are reading articles like this, or better still without touching them they are still reading articles like this one. Due to failure as pictured above.
So without the comical references and stereo typical jokes : what causes most diesels in Australia to have a melt down ?
ANSWER: There is no one reason but can be many small contributing factors.
Poor Fuel Quality ( usually water in the diesel system. ) new electronic diesel systems hate this can cause internal rust, can cause false readings for ecu to understand and false compensation in boost or injection.
Dirty or faulty injectors. Causing injector nozzle to stay stuck open.
faulty diesel pump. pushing through un monitored amounts of diesel.
Faulty Turbo not enough air to match the fuel ratio.
Poor aftermarket tuning product ( chips , drives etc keep in mind most can be good but sometimes they have the ability to fail. )
The last but most common these days is a dirty or carboned up egr and intake manifold. the EGR is designed to recirculate dirty exhaust fumes back into your engine to be re burned as part of the combustion cycle, but along with the fumes comes exhaust exhaust soot & un-bunred diesel. creating a like coal affect on the walls of your intake manifold and without cleaning this then restricts the air intake walls and admits more fuel than air to your engine.
This Blog post has been written to show people what diesel melt down can look like in general .
This does not apply to every diesel vehicle on the Aussie market nor to all of the mentioned vehicles. it is just a little light hearted humour to look at a more serious situation.
I hope you have enjoyed and learned something from this post.