Hi all hope someone can help. I have an 57 plate a3 s- line 2.0 tdi and am having a few problems. Herei s my issue,the car starts and drives perfect but has now got smoke coming from the exhaust, it losses coolant, the coolant does not seem to be leaking from any pipes and cant see any on the floor whrn parked up, i have checked for head gasket issues but this seems to be all good. The car has had a new waterpump and cam belt and a new temperture sensor. When driving it at times goes into limp mode over a certain speed so need to restart engine to gain power back. I have been told that it maybe a turbo issue. I do not have any warning light on the dash at all and when i plugged in to do a test no codes came up. Can anyone give me some ideas on what it could be please

Hello Stella,

Back to first principles, if the car is losing coolant, and there isn’t any external evidence of leakage, then it’s reasonable to conclude it must be being combusted.

When you say ‘..I have checked for head gasket issues but this seems to be all good’ - what method did you use to test?

Colour of exhaust smoke?

Regards,

Gareth.

This is something that happens all the time when the egr cooler fails ..the coolant leaks into the exhaust and you get a ton of smoke and coolant loss. Cheap enough fix if you know a decent garage as it takes 1-2 hrs to swap them out .

4 hours ago, Stella1 said:

Hi all hope someone can help. I have an 57 plate a3 s- line 2.0 tdi and am having a few problems. Herei s my issue,the car starts and drives perfect but has now got smoke coming from the exhaust, it losses coolant, the coolant does not seem to be leaking from any pipes and cant see any on the floor whrn parked up, i have checked for head gasket issues but this seems to be all good. The car has had a new waterpump and cam belt and a new temperture sensor. When driving it at times goes into limp mode over a certain speed so need to restart engine to gain power back. I have been told that it maybe a turbo issue. I do not have any warning light on the dash at all and when i plugged in to do a test no codes came up. Can anyone give me some ideas on what it could be please

The oil has been checked and it is thick and normal, no milky residue or signs of coolant in the oil

3 hours ago, Magnet said:

Hello Stella,

Back to first principles, if the car is losing coolant, and there isn’t any external evidence of leakage, then it’s reasonable to conclude it must be being combusted.

When you say ‘..I have checked for head gasket issues but this seems to be all good’ - what method did you use to test?

Colour of exhaust smoke?

Regards,

Gareth.

Oil has been checked, nice and thick and no signs of milky residue, or coolant in the oil. The smoke is grey in colour

51 minutes ago, 848phantom said:

This is something that happens all the time when the egr cooler fails ..the coolant leaks into the exhaust and you get a ton of smoke and coolant loss. Cheap enough fix if you know a decent garage as it takes 1-2 hrs to swap them out .

Thanks will try and get it looked at but cant seem to find anyone who is cheap enough lol and cant drive the car because of the smoke

I agree it is likely the EGR cooler at fault. The new part cost is not bad; the labour cost will depend how difficult it is to access it.

I took my egr cooler out myself when blanked it off 🤣

1 hour ago, 848phantom said:

I took my egr cooler out myself when blanked it off 🤣

That's risky unless you know how to code it out at the ECM.

Yeah it's coded out and all.

I have the same model/year and also having loss of coolant recently, found out it's the steel coolant pipe that runs across the front of the engine has rusted on the right side behind the wiring harness. I can't see an identical one listed anywhere unfortunately but it may be worth checking.

56 minutes ago, frank575 said:

I have the same model/year and also having loss of coolant recently, found out it's the steel coolant pipe that runs across the front of the engine has rusted on the right side behind the wiring harness. I can't see an identical one listed anywhere unfortunately but it may be worth checking.

Will do thanks