Lexus is 220d white smoke

[Anna87]

I have been having issues with my car for 2 months now. White smoke is coming out from the exhaust after driving a couple of miles. It doesn't smoke in the beginning and then after few miles, it starts smoking non stop. The smoke is white and smell of burned fuel. I went to 2 mechanics. The first One cleaned my dpf and nothing changed. He told me to change my temperature and pressure sensors, and again nothing changed. I went to a second mechanic, he said that he cannot find any issues when he did the diagnostic of my car. 

I do not have any warranty on the car. I already spent thousands of pounds trying to fix the problem but the problem is still there.

Except the white smoke, there is no other issues with the car. 

It has always been smoking a bit since I bought it last year but after going on holiday and driving over 3000 miles, the smoke became worse.

Any help or advice will be appreciated. 

 

[Rebecca]

This is one of several issues I encountered with this particular vehicle. 

I think you will find your 5th injector is the problem here.

I found it extremely embarrassing to be honest but a visit to Lexus bristol corrected the problem in a mornings work.

[KevinIS220d]

Hi I have the same problem! I had the dpf replaced, the pipes cleaned and aired out. Same problem. 

Rebecca I did see this on another forum about the 5th injector.  I am in Bristol too so will use lexus Bristol, do you mind me asking how much it cost you? :) 

[Daniellmoisa]

Hi! Have u guys had any luck? Is it fixed yet? Please let me know! I have the same problem

[Rebecca]

29 minutes ago, Daniellmoisa said:

Hi! Have u guys had any luck? Is it fixed yet? Please let me know! I have the same problem

You need to take it to your nearest Lexus dealer. I'm 99.9 % certain the 5th injector is dumping fuel into the exhaust. 

[Daniellmoisa]

41 minutes ago, Rebecca said:

You need to take it to your nearest Lexus dealer. I'm 99.9 % certain the 5th injector is dumping fuel into the exhaust. 

Thank you! And againif you don't mind what sor of price are we looking at? Thank you! 

[Rebecca]

I took mine to Lexus bristol. They corrected the problem in just over an hour and charged me £275.

 

[Daniellmoisa]

I know this may sound strange but apparently you are the only one that had the issue resolved and Lexus bristol knows the issue! Would you like to help us all by posting the job reference number or just what Lexus said has done to it on the paper that you received after the job was done! They must of had a name for the issue! 

 

I would travel to Bristol to get the car fixed and to deliver some flowers for you as well if you would help us with the reference number so Lexus knows what the issue is and get to work on it before doing any useless investigation and diagnostics! 

 

Please give us more details of what the diagnostics was and how they managed to sort it! you should have that info on the paper that you received after you had it sorted!  

 

 

Many thanks and looking forward to your answer~! 

[Rebecca]

Unfortunately I sold my 220d last year and all the associated paperwork was given to the new owner so can't be of any help with the job number.

They did explain the problem to me in detail, most of it I didn't really understand but basically the 5th injector was dumping unburnt fuel into the exhaust (more often than needed) and causing plumes of smoke almost every time I drove the vehicle while in the warming up stage.

I recall the tech saying they had reprogrammed the software amongst other things I didn't really understand. 

Sorry I can't be of anymore help. It' a shame really as it' been a long time since anybody last sent me flowers. 😳

[Daniellmoisa]

Hi! I will be calling Lexus Bristol on Monday morning! I will go and see them if they say that they recognize the problem and I will be coming to Bristol! Therefore your flowers will be delivered regardless! :) 

 

Thank you very much for your time and for helping us all understand what the problem was! 

 

 

[Richard07]

On 16/12/2017 at 8:14 PM, Daniellmoisa said:

Hi! I will be calling Lexus Bristol on Monday morning! I will go and see them if they say that they recognize the problem and I will be coming to Bristol! Therefore your flowers will be delivered regardless! :) 

 

Thank you very much for your time and for helping us all understand what the problem was! 

 

 

Hi Daniellomoise, any update?

I have the same problem. Although the smoke can disappear by disconnecting Battery, it will come back a few days later. This is really annoying to me.

 

Thanks.

[grahamtrd]

Hi

saw this on another thread for the same issue hope this helps

 

 

 

Just a potential FIX for you bashing your head against this particular wall,

The problem, a 2008 is220d, 110k miles, with embarrassing quantities of white smoke from exhaust that smells of diesel fuel.

My parents car has been smoking like a pig for the last few months,

Diagnosis....
Garage condemmed the DPF and replaced it..................Still smokes.
Garage says "just keep driving it, the smoke will soon stop"............It didn't
Garage says "er, drive it some more"...................Still smokes.
Garage yanks the injectors and send them off to be tested, by people who are not idiots..................non idiots send them back with the verdict, injectors are perfect...........................Still smokes.
Garage now say they are sure it is the turbo which will need replacing...................At which point I get involved and rescue the car.

No sign of misfire, compressions good, no play on the supposedly fragged turbo, no headgasket doom.

Not trusting the fifth injector, I unclipped the fuel line and plugged it by clipping another injector on it.

Went for a drive, white smoke gone! So confirming fifth injector misbehaviour.

Changed the fifth injector, a total git of a job............Smokes, Argh!

So it is the ECU telling the fifth injector to keep on squirting.

Techstream turns up from eBay, so plug it in.

The dpf pressure values are all over the shop, so tee in a magnehelic guage, which disagrees with the values from the software.

Wiggle wiring, AHA! Gotcha! Pressure values in the software change in sympathy.

So I remade the wiring from dpf sensor to the ECU and then got good values for the dpf sensor pressure.

The ECU "learns" whilst you drive, but the corrupt dpf pressure data had totally confused it. Unplug car Battery for ten minutes, reconnect, ECU starts to relearn with good data. Relearn the window winders by driving them for a couple of seconds against their stops at each door switch.

AND THE SMOKE STOPPED! and mpg has gone up from 25mpg imp to 40+mpg imp.

The magnehelic gauge reads 5kPa (20 inches water gauge) when regeneration of the DPF now starts.


Good luck on what is a fantastic car.

[bobmc]

Well done Graham, goes to prove that most garages (and most dealers) don't really diagnose issues - just guess and swap parts. I suppose that proper fault finding is expensive as it takes time, knowledge and diagnostic tools, and that makes it uneconomic as most people are very cost sensitive

Thanks for sharing what you found, I have no doubt other owners will find the information very useful. Hope you can find some time to stick around the LOC in future.

  

 

[Rob220d]

This is caused by the 5th injector in most cases, I would however first try disconnecting the Battery for 10 mins and then reconnecting.

I did this with mine and problem solved. Saw a threat somewhere on the internet about it and tried it and it worked. The ECU rests and starts learning when to use 5th injector again. 

[Rob220d]

On 4/24/2018 at 9:33 AM, grahamtrd said:

Hi

saw this on another thread for the same issue hope this helps

 

 

 

Just a potential FIX for you bashing your head against this particular wall,

The problem, a 2008 is220d, 110k miles, with embarrassing quantities of white smoke from exhaust that smells of diesel fuel.

My parents car has been smoking like a pig for the last few months,

Diagnosis....
Garage condemmed the DPF and replaced it..................Still smokes.
Garage says "just keep driving it, the smoke will soon stop"............It didn't
Garage says "er, drive it some more"...................Still smokes.
Garage yanks the injectors and send them off to be tested, by people who are not idiots..................non idiots send them back with the verdict, injectors are perfect...........................Still smokes.
Garage now say they are sure it is the turbo which will need replacing...................At which point I get involved and rescue the car.

No sign of misfire, compressions good, no play on the supposedly fragged turbo, no headgasket doom.

Not trusting the fifth injector, I unclipped the fuel line and plugged it by clipping another injector on it.

Went for a drive, white smoke gone! So confirming fifth injector misbehaviour.

Changed the fifth injector, a total git of a job............Smokes, Argh!

So it is the ECU telling the fifth injector to keep on squirting.

Techstream turns up from ebay, so plug it in.

The dpf pressure values are all over the shop, so tee in a magnehelic guage, which disagrees with the values from the software.

Wiggle wiring, AHA! Gotcha! Pressure values in the software change in sympathy.

So I remade the wiring from dpf sensor to the ECU and then got good values for the dpf sensor pressure.

The ECU "learns" whilst you drive, but the corrupt dpf pressure data had totally confused it. Unplug car battery for ten minutes, reconnect, ECU starts to relearn with good data. Relearn the window winders by driving them for a couple of seconds against their stops at each door switch.

AND THE SMOKE STOPPED! and mpg has gone up from 25mpg imp to 40+mpg imp.

The magnehelic gauge reads 5kPa (20 inches water gauge) when regeneration of the DPF now starts.


Good luck on what is a fantastic car.

 

[James Shiba]

On 4/24/2018 at 9:33 AM, grahamtrd said:

Hi

saw this on another thread for the same issue hope this helps

 

 

 

Just a potential FIX for you bashing your head against this particular wall,

The problem, a 2008 is220d, 110k miles, with embarrassing quantities of white smoke from exhaust that smells of diesel fuel.

My parents car has been smoking like a pig for the last few months,

Diagnosis....
Garage condemmed the DPF and replaced it..................Still smokes.
Garage says "just keep driving it, the smoke will soon stop"............It didn't
Garage says "er, drive it some more"...................Still smokes.
Garage yanks the injectors and send them off to be tested, by people who are not idiots..................non idiots send them back with the verdict, injectors are perfect...........................Still smokes.
Garage now say they are sure it is the turbo which will need replacing...................At which point I get involved and rescue the car.

No sign of misfire, compressions good, no play on the supposedly fragged turbo, no headgasket doom.

Not trusting the fifth injector, I unclipped the fuel line and plugged it by clipping another injector on it.

Went for a drive, white smoke gone! So confirming fifth injector misbehaviour.

Changed the fifth injector, a total git of a job............Smokes, Argh!

So it is the ECU telling the fifth injector to keep on squirting.

Techstream turns up from ebay, so plug it in.

The dpf pressure values are all over the shop, so tee in a magnehelic guage, which disagrees with the values from the software.

Wiggle wiring, AHA! Gotcha! Pressure values in the software change in sympathy.

So I remade the wiring from dpf sensor to the ECU and then got good values for the dpf sensor pressure.

The ECU "learns" whilst you drive, but the corrupt dpf pressure data had totally confused it. Unplug car battery for ten minutes, reconnect, ECU starts to relearn with good data. Relearn the window winders by driving them for a couple of seconds against their stops at each door switch.

AND THE SMOKE STOPPED! and mpg has gone up from 25mpg imp to 40+mpg imp.

The magnehelic gauge reads 5kPa (20 inches water gauge) when regeneration of the DPF now starts.


Good luck on what is a fantastic car.

Hi Graham - do you know which version Techstream you've got? I have a 2006 is220d which "issues"?

Thanks

[Chris_G]

>> So I remade the wiring from dpf sensor to the ECU and then got good values for the dpf sensor pressure.
 

Appreciate this is an old post but I've had this problem for the last 3 years and nothing / nobody has been able to resolve it - including, replacing 5th injector, cleaning EGR, DPF re-gen, etc.  As noted above, the only thing that stops it FOR A FEW DAYS is resetting the ECU - SO, I am 100% convinced it's an electrical fault, as noted by grahamtrd above.  My question is - can anyone please post a pic of the wiring / engine bay location he's referring to, above, so I can start checking it over ?  Many thanks in advance 🙂

[STANSKI]

Graham - great info, well done.  Update on where wiring is as requested above would be very helpful.  

[bobmc]

Actually I think Graham just reposted from another topic, the actual fix info was posted by @smutts

The original topic is here