WHITE SMOKE WHEN WARM

thanks all for links to further info very helpful , i have forwarded on to the mchanic who has been helping me , in the mean time i have ordered a new 5th injector online which i can fit myself and see if that works or helps ,thanks again

Ref. the ECU update, why not ask your local dealer? They should be able to tell you if the car has had it [unlikely from the symptoms] and if it is a F.O.C. procedure or if there is a cost attached.

Shcm, as usual a very comprehensive analysis.  There is just one thing nagging at me, when I had a problem with the car going into limp mode when it was a couple of years old, it turned out to be an incorrectly seated connector to the EMU.  The dealer found it, cleaned and dried it, squirt of WD40 and problem disappeared.  Is it worth checking that all the plugs are properly seated?  It's cheap and it rules out problems in that area.

Your problem these days is getting somebody with enough experience not only in diagnosis of an engine but successfully pulling them apart and fixing them. It’s usually a “tech” who frankly has done a diagnosis course but never had an engine in pieces that prescribes the corrective action then an engine specialist that pulls it apart and fixes it, rarely the same person does both. I’ve seen it said on here that a 2AD engine is impossible to successfully strip and rebuild but that is absolutely not correct. It’s only impossible if the person doing it doesn’t know what they are doing.

You need somebody that has a lot of experience in both and these days they are hard to find. This is because modern diesels are very reliable and by the time they are knackered they just end up getting a new engine rather than learning the skills of successfully fixing them. There are a number of checks a decent mechanic will make including not only looking and listening but smelling and occasionally tasting - yes, tasting. You’ve provided some excellent footage of a look around the engine and the net effect even though it is through possibly the dirtiest glass on planet earth.

I would guess that it’s an oil consumption problem but before jumping into it I’d want to smell what’s coming out of the back and I’d monitor oil consumption very carefully. T180s don’t dilute the oil like some diesels do by post injection so the rate of oil consumption is easy to tell. White smoke is either oil or unburned fuel and trust me they both have very distinctive smells. Once you’ve established its oil which I think it is, you then have to determine where it’s coming from. You can usually pull some pipes off and see if it’s coming from the turbo but if it isn’t then you’re into engine internals and again, you need somebody who knows what they are doing because a good mechanic can listen to the oil filler and hear piston blow by or smell combustion products. There will be some wear at that mileage but a good service history will reduce the chances if it’s had regular oil changes.

The DPF sits down the back of the engine and filters out carbon deposits (it’s called a DNPR on a Toyota because it combines a catalytic converter). It has a pressure sensor on the inlet and outlet and compares the two before back pressure instigates a regen by feeding excessive fuel from the 5th injector. It super heats the DPF by literally feeding blue flames into the filter like the afterburner on a jet fighter and the carbon is burned off and sent through the tailpipe. Again, this has a different smell than the smell a weak dribbling injector would produce which is why I rarely comment on such things because I can’t smell the problem by reading a comment or looking at the video. What I can say is that by tracing the oil consumption to either the engine or the turbo you can save a lot of grief and expense. We can presume that the turbo is more likely to pass oil than the engine if we can demonstrate a service history and a leaky turbo will quickly foul the DPF and frequently instigate a regen which looks very much to me what is happening. Before jumping into sorting it out, I’d get the pipe off the turbo outlet or the intercooler whichever is easiest and see if it’s dripping in oil.

So! What does the white smoke smell of? You’ll know immediately if it’s diesel and if you want to know if it’s oil, sniff inside the oil filler cap. Is it consuming oil? That’s another clue. Can you see anything inside the pipes between the turbo and the inlet manifold. There will always be a residue of oil but we’re looking for something more than that. Something that matches the oil consumption. You’ll be lucky to find somebody in a Toyota dealership with enough experience and old farts that can profess to have been around in the days of diagnosing AND repairing an engine are few and far between. You might get some sense from a pukka turbo specialist if you can find one. You can hopefully tell that diagnosing the best course of action isn’t easy by car forum. Somebody that truly knows what they are doing would be very reluctant to commit.