320d E46 white/grey smoke while driving

johnsensei

New member
Hello everyone,

This is my first time here. I really hope you can help.

My 2002 320d has recently started to emit a white-greyish smoke in varying amounts while driving. Sometimes it's barely noticeable, other times it's a massive cloud.
This happens mostly during short trips around town - I haven't noticed it while on the highway.

Some friends who have way more motor experience than I do have suggested what the problem might be - ranges from faulty filters to faulty cylinders. But none of them has real experience with BMWs or diesel engines.

I understand doing a diagnostic check before replacing anything would probably be the most help, but I'm a little short on cash at the moment and I don't see the local BMW dealership being very sympathetic towards that situation.
I live in Pretoria and if anyone could suggest a good garage/service agent/ mechanic, who won't charge an arm and a leg, I would greatly appreciate it.
 

Lizzard

Active member
Not driving a diesel but do have the diagnostics software, where you located? Pretoria is BIG

Maybe I can help there, so we can check error codes
 

Waseem 333i

Active member
oil breather, intercooler clean. boost pipe clean. egr and intake manifold clean. that should sort out the problem
 

johnsensei

New member
Hey guys. Thanks for the advice and offer to help.

I took the car to a friend and we checked for error codes, but nothing come up.
As a long shot, we added some turbo cleaner to the fuel to see if that mitigated any of the problem, but it hasn't helped at all.

I called the mechanic in KZN who had worked on the car for a long time and after telling him the issues, he thought it's a mechanical problem with the turbo and suggested that I have it reconditioned. His guesstimate quote for that was 14-15k.

My question is - will replacing the turbo fix the problem or is reconditioning the only way forward?

I've seen a couple of E46 turbos for sale on gumtree and they're a third of that (obviously labour hasn't been included).

What do you guys think?
 
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