Yesterday,I bought a '97 Passat TDI with 224K on the odometer for the princely sum of $3250.00. At that price,I figured that I should jump on that deal and so I did.The car started up immediately,and ran strong.(Some black smoke on brisk acceleration though)The next morning I started the car with the engine cold and the engine leaves a fairly dissappointing cloud of smoke billowing out of the pipes for a minute,or two.The idle sounds a bit rough during this time.It looks like the previous owner warmed the car up in advance of my test drive as these symptoms were totally absent yesterday. :0( I removed the air filter(which looked a bit dirty,but not filthy) and also unscrewed/removed the circular fine mesh screen beneath the air filter.It was heavily clogged with insects,dirt,and soot.I thought to myself: AHA! Well,the black smoke that I was seeing is gone,but the car is still smoky upon startup(the temperture was in the mid 60's here yesterday)(the car starts immediately even when cold) When the engine is up to full operating temperture,I can't see anything in terms of obvious visual tailpipe emissions.I also can't really tell for sure if I'm seeing white,or blue smoke.I still haven't driven the car enough to know what is happening with the fuel economy. I found something a little bit weird: The black circular device on top of the 'valve cover' has two hoses coming out of it.The hose on the left is open and simply drains (?) out the bottom of the vehicle.Does anyone have any insight on the purpose of this cob job? Did I get hosed,or are there procedures that I can follow through with to give me a better picture of what is going on? I'm hoping it's something like an air,or an injector timing problem,or something to do with the fuel injectors.I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I would greatly appreciate any feedback.Thanks very much!
- posted
18 years ago