1.6 HDi - Sudden white smoke, smells of urea / Adblue

[thetapeworm]

My wife's 2016 Cactus with the 1.6 HDi engine was clearly having too much of a fault free run (it's been at least a month or too since something has broken) so it threw another spanner in the works an hour or so ago.

We've just done about 700 miles up and down the motorway over the past 48 hours and some pootling around with no issues to report at all.

We popped into the city today, about 5 miles, no issues, set off back home and accelerated down a slip road to get up to speed and then a few minutes later noted what looked like excessive water spray for the amount of rain coming down at the time. I kept going but then realised it was smoke which got worse with revs.

I wasn't far from home and didn't fancy being stuck in the rain so took it steady, conscious of the white cloud behind me and completed the final couple of miles before stopping. On checking the "smoke" it has a really pungent smell of Adblue / Urea and the inside of the exhaust tip has a light white residue on it.

No warning lights (yet).

My garage of choice is booked up for the next couple of weeks so while I try and find somewhere I trust to look at it for me I wondered if anyone had seen similar or had any ideas?

It's definitely way beyond water vapour in the exhaust when the car is cold and to me the smell suggests it's just pouring excessive amounts of Adblue into the exhaust.

Any thoughts?

[bqf]

Sudden white smoke and smell of rotten eggs usually suggests a turbo failure which has damaged the Cat....I assume there is no loss of power?

[thetapeworm]

bqf said:

Sudden white smoke and smell of rotten eggs usually suggests a turbo failure which has damaged the Cat....I assume there is no loss of power?

Thanks for replying.

There's no egg, it's more of a urine stench in the "smoke" (which is presumably steam) and you can see AdBlue dripping from the exhaust when it's cold. The exhaust tip and underside of the rear bumper has white crystals on too.

No loss of power, still no warning lights.

[Monkeylegend]

Bit of a thread resurrection but did you get this sorted?

We are looking to replace our 2011 C3 diesel Picasso with a 2015 / 2016 1.6 HDi but not sure about potential diesel/adblue issues on these later cars.

[ZedLeg]

Not that big on modern diesels, but the smell and white smoke would suggest a knackered adlue injector(?) letting too much of the solution go into the exhaust. White steam/smoke usually means too much water going into somewhere hot.

[thetapeworm]

The white "smoke" issue went away when I next put diesel in, then a few days later the car threw its toys out of the pram and needed £1600 of parts and labour.

I posted up on the Cactus forum and since then a worrying number of others have experienced the same and the thread has attracted other Citroën and Peugeot owners with similar tales of woe.

There's a design flaw with some of the earlier tanks, because its a "sealed" unit with all the sensors and pump attached you have to replace the lot.

Initially Citroën were helping with costs, sometimes covering the lot, now they're not being helpful and because of the number of failures the part is increasingly hard to get.

I'd avoid like the plague based on my experiences and from reading those of so many others or ensure a car bought has already had the tank replaced for the newer one with changes. Get a good extended warranty.

Edited by thetapeworm on Sunday 25th September 09:54

[Monkeylegend]

Thanks for that, it confirms my fears re adblue.

I moved away from Mercedes for that very reason due to NOx sensor issues and adblue pumps which require the whole tank with the pump in situ to be replaced at a cost of over £2k, plus several £00's each for the sensors, if you can get them.

Just need to convince the other half now to go petrol or non adblue diesel.

[thetapeworm]

This was my post on the Cactus site...

https://www.cactusforums.co.uk/threads/adblue-tank...

Petrol for me from now on I reckon.

[stevemcs]

This was a 1.6 hid we had in a few weeks ago, we sent the owner to the main dealer who said there was nothing wrong ……..

[Monkeylegend]

thetapeworm said:

This was my post on the Cactus site...

https://www.cactusforums.co.uk/threads/adblue-tank...

Petrol for me from now on I reckon.

Thanks for that, an interesting read and echo's very much the issues Mercedes have with their adblue system.

I will be going petrol or a pre adblue diesel. The pre adblue we have has been very good with no issues although it did take a forced regeneration to get through the MOT this year after a few attempts to clean with additives failed, none of which the garage we use charged for.

[Monkeylegend]

stevemcs said:

This was a 1.6 hid we had in a few weeks ago, we sent the owner to the main dealer who said there was nothing wrong ……..

Is that leaking and over injection of adblue causing that?

Does not inspire you with a great deal of confidence in a main dealer.

[thetapeworm]

stevemcs said:

This was a 1.6 hid we had in a few weeks ago, we sent the owner to the main dealer who said there was nothing wrong ……..

Mine had a very mild version of that, some sign on the exhaust and a light misting on the underside of the bumper. The dealership couldn't see it or the huge cloud of urine vapour coming out of the back

Edited by thetapeworm on Sunday 25th September 13:26

[Geffg]

In work we have 20 plate Citroen dispatches. Out of 5 of them 2 have had faults the same as above. First one was in the garage for about 3 months whilst it needed some exhaust part aswell as whatever else was faulty. Last month mine started with similar issue, showing engine fault and emissions fault, underneath the van is white where it must be leaking adblue aswell. It was counting down saying adblue needed even though the tank was full. Eventually it wouldn’t start. It was booked into Citroen on the 26th sept a few weeks ago so it’s supposed to be getting looked at tomorrow. RAC came out to it last week and said it’s showing as adblue injector short.

[stevemcs]

I would say the one we swerved was putting too much adblue in, the injector was covered in it and it was pushing it out of the joint between the exhaust and dpf

Anything adblue we just avoid and send them to the main dealer

[C. Grimsley]

Late to the party but that will need an adblue injector

Fault code will be adblue pressure too high/low.

Normally it will have also damaged the cat. It acts like a water jet and cuts through the cat, then the car puts a fault code of cat detected missing.

Carl

[Hugo Stiglitz]

Monkeylegend said:

Bit of a thread resurrection but did you get this sorted?

We are looking to replace our 2011 C3 diesel Picasso with a 2015 / 2016 1.6 HDi but not sure about potential diesel/adblue issues on these later cars.

Looking to sell yours? If its reliable we need something

[Monkeylegend]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Monkeylegend said:

Bit of a thread resurrection but did you get this sorted?

We are looking to replace our 2011 C3 diesel Picasso with a 2015 / 2016 1.6 HDi but not sure about potential diesel/adblue issues on these later cars.

Looking to sell yours? If its reliable we need something

Sorry but we have given it to my DiL who's lease car went back a couple of weeks ago and she was not in a position to replace it financially.

The only issue we had with it was a leaking gasket on the water pump housing but otherwise it has been very good.

[Mich Upton]

Hello, I came across this post after experiencing the exact same problem and hoped I may get some advice please from others who have been through this if anyone sees this post?
So my DS3 2016 1.6 blue HDI has been amazing since I bought it but at the weekend a lot of white smoke started coming from the exhaust. I pulled over and it smelt of ammonia and liquid coming from the exhaust. I had to get my breakdown recovery company to tow me to my local garage. The breakdown recovery guy said it was an Adblue issue and he’s seen it a few times with Citroen blue HDI models.
The local independent garage said they do not deal with Adblue problems and said I would need to get it to a Citroen dealership.
I have booked in my car to have a diagnostic check and then for them to aim to fix the problem.
Can I ask please? At what stage did people phone Citroen HQ about raising a case? It felt like there would be no point at this point until it’s been analysed and I can advise what is wrong with it.
Any advice will be much appreciated. I feel right stressed by this, it sounds a really expensive repair. I will reply to let you know what happens with mine.

[thetapeworm]

If you're at a loose end you can read over 400 posts around AdBlue issues over on the Cactus forum but I think I was the only one to have this weird AdBlue straight into the exhaust steam generation issue (which went away when I put some diesel in).

https://www.cactusforums.co.uk/threads/adblue-tank...

I ended up calling Citroen for help on the back of the main dealer quoting me a small fortune for the Adblue tank replacement so it pretty soon after the initial diagnostics were done, I got lucky and managed to get the tank replaced with no cost to myself.

Then it failed again.

I couldn't face the drama of it all so I went to a local tuner I've used in the past and had the car remapped and the AdBlue and EOLYS systems disabled, it transformed the way the car drives now (much smoother) too.

As you'll see from the link above Citroen have made it incredibly difficult for people to get solutions to this way too common problem that appears to be caused by a design fault they know all about but they want everyone to jump through hoops, pay for £120 diagnostics and then turn around and say they won't help with anything towards replacing a defective part with one that's also potentially defective.

[Mich Upton]

Thank you for your reply. This is interesting about getting a local tuner to get the car remapped and the adblue and EOLYS systems disabled. Would you recommend I go this route? Will the car be ok passing its MOT doing this?
I don’t like the idea of spending £2k and knowing the same problem may happen again. But I do love my car and don’t want to give up on it.