Royds' Caravan Europe: 278. Double faulting

Lyon

Early start for us as we had an appointment with Amo from Exelixis in Lyon to work out why the Disco is all smoke, no poke. Cringed all the way, both as I had to keep the revs over two and a half thousand (and under three) in order to keep it going and the smoke whenever the revs dropped. When things are right I seldom go over two thousand rpm.

Amo on the job

Arrived right on time to an immaculate workshop and a cheerful welcome. After getting the kids online in his office on their respective laptops for homework we tackled the beast. Amo plugged in his OBDII reader and found no problems and like my reader couldn't access the engine functions. He then fossocked around and set up an older PC based OBDII reader which immediately diagnosed that the left EGR valve was open circuit. Joy.

Roman and breaker bar,
what could go wrong?

This was the EGR valve that I hadn't replaced myself in Spain in the campground as research online said that it was a two person job and the engine needed to be levered over. More than I was prepared to tackle with limited resources however I now had two people resources and the second EGR valve with me. Good progress was made including me levering the engine over with a breaker bar while Amo did the skilled stuff, until one of the twelve millimetre mounting bolts refused to budge and the ¼ socket rounded the bolt head. I looked on in horror but Amo produced a natty socket the removed the offending bolt in a trice.

Clever bolt extractor

New EGR fitted, Amo learnt a bit, the biggest learn, avoid Discos. Got it all reassembled in the early afternoon and I went for a quick test drive while the kids packed up, mainly to make sure we had reconnected everything. Absolutely no change, no poke ..... lots of smoke, couldn't believe it. A bit like my tennis, there must be a double fault.

We pressurised the inlet system with compressed air and all was OK. Out of ideas, Amo contacted another workshop that he knows, Garage De Lent, that has a factory Peugeot diagnostic tool (the Disco having a Peugeot designed engine). It was only after they agreed to have a look at it did Amo admit that it was in a Disco. Amo arranged for me to visit immediately.

Back on the road for the next garage. As Garage de Lent speak no english at all Amo agreed to be the go between and organised everything. Arrived after about a seventy minute drive (more smoke, no poke) and on arriving the mechanic fitted his OBDII device went for a long test drive without me departing in a huge cloud of smoke and raving like I have never done. To say I was apprehensive is an understatement.

Disco returned after about fifteen minutes and I was able to discern that the tool had not managed to find a fault. The good news was that I could see a lot of realtime data so it was obviously probing deeper than previous tools. Cutting a long story shortish, communicating on the phone via Amo, the workshop confirmed that the turbo was making full boost, air flow meter and MAP sensors were fine and the variable vanes on the turbo were working. I felt the issue was likely jammed vanes causing broken plastic gears on the vane drive with the result that the scan tool would show correct stepper motor function but the vanes were frozen. The workshop felt it was an exhaust problem. Amo arranged with them to lend us a car and we left the Disco with them, returning to camp on a thirty degree day without air conditioning. I tried to explain the joys of vinyl seats and run warmed chrome seatbelts but their suffering was too acute to give serious consideration to my reminiscing.