Boxer 2.2 HDI White Smoke During Regen

[John1966]

Thought I'd post a follow up.
First a quick summary;
Peugeot Boxer 2.2 Hdi110 2016
The van quite simply wasn't running right, lousy fuel economy, pinking, smell of fuel at exhaust, occasional clouds of dirty grey smoke.
The dealer I bought it off (Evans Halshaw, Coatbridge) then had it back for 6 months and failed to remedy the problems.
As I'd started to convert it, returning it wasn't an option.
Having got it back I then felt that I had no option but to get to the bottom of the problem(s)
First code that came up was P0423 92 Fuel atomiser
Discovered when replacing that wiring was cooked owing to a short on the metal clip
Replaced, rewired, primed and coded.. No improvement
Much testing tracing and many miles watching the live data led me to conclude that it was continually trying to regen.
A forced regen made no difference.
Chanced upon a thread here which mentioned the egts as a possible cause.
Removed DPF which was then professionally cleaned, replaced both egts (dpf was out, no point messing around with one and then having to do the other)
Told van the dpf was replaced and....... SO FAR IT SEEMS OK!!! No faults on the ECU!
Taking it on a decent run next week so fingers crossed we've solved it
Many thanks those on here who have helped in one way or another

[Sinke]

Hi John
Thanks for the updates.
Sorry for not replying to your questions.
Annoyingly, I didn't receive notifications on this thread( my fault, I didn't see little box that needs to be ticked on). Temperature sensor is upstream one with blue lead, you have sorted that already I believe. I've found in Lucas and Denso literature that egt can cause over frequent dpf regen, so I bit the bullet, replaced upstream one and solved over frequent regen.
Afterwards, I have flushed software with genuine one again with different DPF specialist, it didn't solve the issue of smoky regens
He tried forced regen so he can check DPF temperature but for some reason couldn't initiate forced regen.
DPF specialist mentioned that my replacement DPF is not genuine and as such probably can't get up to correct temperature for regen. Patterned part dpf's have stainless core apparently, instead of ceramic one. I have ordered a genuine dpf (2nd hand) in order to be cleaned, fitted and programmed in . So, we we'll see
During my research I've been advised and offered many times to do DPF delete, and then just to refit
DPF for MOT . I'm strongly refusing to do that and I'm angry that manufactures are not putting more information about DPF problems and solutions readily available.
I've been told to take it to dealer, which I did as well. They plugged computer in, and guess what, no issues. So, all they can do is to start replacing parts one by one. That would be very expensive exercise , no thanks.
Companies that design DPF systems should put forward more info. Even basic info is confusing and incomplete. Usually they would say for regen to initiate, the vehicle has to be driven over 40mph with moderate revs, but that is not the case with these engines , they can initiate active regen on idle sitting in traffic.
I could go on for hours with this
I'll see what will happen when genuine dpf arrived and gets professionally installed
All the best
Sinisa

[andrewn1980]

I’m new to the forum but are having troubles that seem very similar to what you are describing. We have a 2014 Relay that has been converted to camper. We bought it without knowing it had its DPF deleted, then had problems getting it through the MOT due to emissions. We had a DPF refitted and a remap back to standard. This seemed to work well, black smoke was gone and the van was driving better, but we got occasional bouts of huge clouds of white smoke with a strong smell of diesel. This was especially the case under acceleration. As said above, it was like an air display with smoke on! I guessed, but haven’t been able to verify, that this is happening when it’s trying to regen the DPF and might be a problem with the vaporiser pumping diesel into the exhaust rather than burning it as it should.

We also has a subsequent problem with the van going into limp mode with engine management light on, cutting out and refusing to turn over. This came with errors P0425-17 and P2428-98. Reading another thread on here, these seem identical symptoms to someone else who had a DPF temp sensor problem. I’m also suspicious of the EGR valve.

My feeling is we have two or more problems going on here, one vaporiser related, one DPF temp sensor related at least. Any further thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

[GiveMeABreak]

Hi Andrew. Sorry to hear you have been caught out by the selfish and illegal practices of the previous owner - we see the consequences of this sort of thing happening more and more on the second hand market.

As for the issues, if you can provide your VIN (please post your VIN in full without spaces - it will be automatically masked from public view after submitting your post & will only be visible to staff), I'll take a look at those fault codes as they relate to your vehicle.

[andrewn1980]

Hi Marc

Thanks for the reply, the Vin is VF7**************[VIN obfuscated, can be read by forum staff]

[GiveMeABreak]

Here you go, as you can see the smoke issue is mainly related to the second fault code:

Fault Code:	P0425 17
Description of Fault:	Exhaust high temperature sensor: Voltage above a threshold. Voltage greater than 4,95 V. The time of appearance of the fault code is immediate. Conditions of activation of the diagnostics - The following conditions have to be met: - With the engine running - Ignition on
Conditions for Fault to clear:	Ignition on
Downgrade Modes whilst Fault is active:	-
Symptoms:	No effects immediately perceptible.
Suspect Areas:	Electrical harness Connectors Particle filter upstream temperature sensor

Fault Code:	P2428 98
Description of Fault:	Exhaust gas temperature too high: Overheating either of the component or of the system. Maximum temperature on the exhaust line exceeded. Conditions of activation of the diagnostics - The following conditions have to be met: - With the engine running - Engine speed above 1500 rpm
Conditions for Fault to clear:	-
Downgrade Modes whilst Fault is active:	Request for Delayed Engine Stop Request for closing of the EGR valve Prohibiting of regeneration of the particle emission filter and stopping of the requests in progress Prohibiting of restarting of the engine for a duration which can be calibrated Automatic engine stop deactivated
Symptoms:	Jerking/stalling Lack of power Starting problem Malfunctioning of the engine when idling Unwanted acceleration Fluid leak/smells (diesel fuel, oil, etc.) Smoke from the exhaust Whistling and whining/hissing/rushing of air No effects immediately perceptible to the customer
Suspect Areas:	Fuel Engine ECU Turbocharger

[Sinke]

Hi everyone
Smoking issue on my van is sorted!!
After being looked at in last year and a half by independent garage, main dealer, two DPF "specialist"and performance tuning specialist ,( all concluding that no codes are showing and it is not smoking while they're are testing it, so it is not much they can do about it) . They've been checking everything. Egr was taken out, cleaned and tested. ECU was "flushed" with genuine software. DPF temperature sensors monitored, readings"correct". Fifth injector replaced (no charge in behaviour at all). Dosing pump tested. Differential pressure sensor checked.
I've tried to learn about these systems myself a bit and concluded that smoke is developing because it is overfueling and DPF not reaching correct regen temperature.
First overfueling. I've done live data monitoring with my cheap obd reader whilst driving and noticed that engine temperature would not go above 67-68°c. That has caused engine to run rich obviously. As it should during warm up. Culprit was thermostat stuck open! Obviously no codes there. £11 later and half hour of fiddling in the engine bay that was sorted. Engine was reaching correct temperature within 6-7 minutes of driving and not running rich anymore. Smoke on regen has halved by this repair, but still present
Next, DPF temperature. DPF has two temperature sensors. Both fitted on the box. Blue lead one is upstream and green one is downstream. If they fail fully, codes will show and you'll now. If they weeken up, then they'll send wrong signal back to ECU. So, e.g. when actual temp is 450°c, ECU will get data from sensor that shows 600°c. And ECU will initiate regen. There are no codes present because there is a signal coming back to ECU from sensors.
Last year, I've realised that upstream temp sensor (blue lead one) misread will cause ECU to initiate regen every time vehicle is driven. After replacing that sensor back then, it would regen roughly once a week instead of every day. Still smoking.
That is where downstream sensor comes in. It was"telling" ECU that DPF box has reached correct regen temperature, whilst in fact was to cold for regen. By replacing that sensor, ECU started getting correct reading of DPF temperature and initiated diesel spray from fifth injector in time when DPF has reached full operating temperature and BINGO, NO MORE SMOKE!!!
Now, it is two months since thermostat and sensor where replaced and the van runs perfect, quieter, better fuel economy and no smoke at all.
I hope this will help someone
All the best everyone

[andrewn1980]

Thanks for the info on the errors and the update. We had the van in a garage yesterday and fingers crossed have a fix. Monitoring the DPF temp sensors in real time showed a discrepancy in the readings; the downstream sensor seemed to be comparatively over reading. On checking, the plug was loose and not fully clipped on. After rectifying that the readings were much more believable. Symptoms and downstream sensor being the culprit would seem to match with Sinke's findings.

Cleared the codes and taking it out for a longer test drive this evening, fingers crossed it's sorted!

[andrewn1980]

Unfortunately we've only got a partial fix. It looks like the plug issues were the cause of the limp mode and thats ok now, van drives fine again, but we still have the huge amounts of wine smoke on regen. Based on the info here my current best guess is that either the cat and DPF are too cold when regen is initiated, or the vaporiser is not vaporising but pumping liquid diesel into the system. In either case the diesel doesn't burn just turns to smoke.

The DPF, cat and all sensors were new a few weeks ago, so they should be good, but clearly something is not right. I've got a reader to check out the live data to try and shed some light on things.

I've struggling to find any info on what normal ranges for the various temps are, can anyone here confirm if the following are normal or not:

• Coolant temp is 85oC with engine up to temp

• Catalytic Convertor Upstream Temp cold engine is 100oC, driving it goes from 190 at idle to 320 full load.

• DPF Upstream Temp cold engine is 60oC, driving it goes from 140 at idle to 240 full load.

DPF regen becomes possible quite early after start, seems to trigger when the cat temp goes over 140oC (not 100 % sure on this trigger but to be the case so far). I haven't had the reader on when it's actually done a regen yet so I don't know what the temps do when that happens. Is it right that the temp sensors in the cat and DPF have the offset at ambient, or should they actually read ambient?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Oceans2892]

I am having the same issue and have scraped all the possible forums in existance and have not yet found a plausible solution.

Did you find a solution that is not deleting the DPF in the end?

[Rp0thejester]

I can only hope for white smoke on a regen!! Surely that means it's working and burning off the bad stuff. If it was black I would be worried. I thought additive was used during regen not diesel.

[andrewn1980]

No we don't have a solution yet! I share your frustration in trying to find any info on what's going on, or anyone who can help!

With the code reader I've been gathering data for a while. The white smoke is definitely from the regen, and while I am in no way an expert on this, it looks to me that the DPF isn't getting hot enough. What you typically see when driving is that the cat temp is ~350oC and DPF ~250oC. When it starts a regen, most of the time the DPF gets to ~350oC but fluctuates, and occasionally will hit 550oC. From this I'm concluding that the vaporiser is working, there are are no error codes and some diesel is going in, but it is not working as it should and not getting the temperatures high enough.

To back that up, we did have one good regen where for a part of it the temps got up to 550oC and stayed there. There was no smoke and the DPF soot load dropped a lot. My guess is things were temporarily working ok then, but its intermittent.

We should be getting the vaporiser changed today, so finger crossed that might be a fix.

Regarding the white smoke, you wouldn't wish for this!! It's not normal and I've never seen another vehicle doing it. Passers by are waving at you to tell you there is a problem, and for all the world it looks like you've blown a head gasket. Again, I'm no expert, but I believe that some of the engine types use additive and some use diesel. Ours definitely uses diesel injected into the exhaust through a vaporiser pre-catalyst.

[andrewn1980]

I figured it was worth an update here to complete our story for anyone else with a similar problem. It's probably not going to be the answer people want to hear - genuine parts fixed it!

Changing the vaporiser made no difference, so having gone around a few other garages (we probably went to 6 in the end) we went to our local Citroen main dealer. They had a look at it and also weren't sure exactly what the issue was, but agreed with an idea I had that it might be failing dosing pump. They changed that and also the pre-cat (the threads were gone so the vaporiser wasn't sealing). Still had the huge amount of smoke on regen. They swapped the sensors to genuine parts from a donor vehicle to try it and this helped a little but didn't fix it either.

Their last roll of the dice was to suggest fitting a genuine DPF. We had an after market one fitted as a first step in the process when we found out the vehicle had been DPF deleted. We went for the new, genuine DPF. After testing with forced regens in the garage they said this had fixed it, and we had our first regen out on the road over the weekend without even a hint of smoke. The temps in the exhaust were much more stable during the regen with 375-400 oC in the cat and 550-570 oC in the DPF, and this was irrespective of the driving conditions even stationary they didn't change, which is completely different too what we saw before.

So the summary is that for us, the problem was an aftermarket DPF and a genuine Citroen (Stelantis) DPF fixed the issue.

I can't believe that the aftermarket DPFs are not ok, but I think it might be that the range of circumstances in which they are ok is narrower than the genuine parts and we fell outside this window. What those circumstances might be that cause the aftermarket part to not be ok I have no idea. We had this issue for over 15 month with the vehicle being basically unusable for quite a bit of that, so its a relief that its more than likely solved! I want to see a few more regens to be completely sure though