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Car Creates A Fog When Started From Cold


fasteye
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Firstly Happy New Year to you all!

I've had my 98 Aristo Vertex v300 for ten years now and loved every minute of it however it's recently hit on hard times and I'm desperately trying to get it back on the road and fixed up. Any advice from anyone on here welcomed.

The problem started on a trip to Cardiff last year, the oil light came on whilst on the M4 so I pulled into the next services, bought some oil, put it in and drove on. The oil light had gone off. Somewhere near Swindon the car just cut out, and I cruised over to the hard shoulder and was evertually picked up by the AA and brought back to home by them.

They had suspected the cambelt had broken which I thought was odd given the mileage (around 50,000) however I arranged for a local garage whom I know personally to pick up and look at it. It turns out the oil had turned to very thick black sludge and they suspected this had LED to a cam seizing and then the timing slipped and the car stalled. The cambelt was still in good order but I had it replaced anyway.

The oil problem it seems was due to a different garage using the wrong type of oil when the service was done several months previously and hence the whole thing had sludged. Obviously I don't know the extent of the damage. The engine was flushed several times, the filters and cambelt changed and fresh oil put in. The engine starts and runs fine and quiet however on start up particularly, plumes of grey smoke pour out of the car until it warms up and then it subsides. There is quite a smell too.

The car still passes the MOT emissions apparently however I'm worried whether this means the engine has terminal damage or whether it's turbos, blocked breathers, valve stem seals or even a symptom of whatever was flushed through.

The car has not been run other than on my drive since all this was done. Do I just need to run it for a while or will I do serious damage to the cat or other parts of the engine if I don't sort this first?

There is seemly a lack of expert services for this type of car in my area so I've turned to the good people on this forum. If there are any things I could try or my local garage could do I'd like to do those before trailering it off somewhere for major surgery.

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Have to admit you may be better asking over at http://www.clubaristo.net as there are a lot more folks with these cars over there - do you know what sort of oil had been put in there?

I use Silkolene Pro-S 10W-50 in mine now as read it's good for the seals in older turbos?

Hope it's fixable anyway and nothing too serious!

Think it could maybe be the seals as you mention though from what I've read?

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Firstly Happy New Year to you all!

I've had my 98 Aristo Vertex v300 for ten years now and loved every minute of it however it's recently hit on hard times and I'm desperately trying to get it back on the road and fixed up. Any advice from anyone on here welcomed.

The problem started on a trip to Cardiff last year, the oil light came on whilst on the M4 so I pulled into the next services, bought some oil, put it in and drove on. The oil light had gone off. Somewhere near Swindon the car just cut out, and I cruised over to the hard shoulder and was evertually picked up by the AA and brought back to home by them.

They had suspected the cambelt had broken which I thought was odd given the mileage (around 50,000) however I arranged for a local garage whom I know personally to pick up and look at it. It turns out the oil had turned to very thick black sludge and they suspected this had led to a cam seizing and then the timing slipped and the car stalled. The cambelt was still in good order but I had it replaced anyway.

The oil problem it seems was due to a different garage using the wrong type of oil when the service was done several months previously and hence the whole thing had sludged. Obviously I don't know the extent of the damage. The engine was flushed several times, the filters and cambelt changed and fresh oil put in. The engine starts and runs fine and quiet however on start up particularly, plumes of grey smoke pour out of the car until it warms up and then it subsides. There is quite a smell too.

The car still passes the MOT emissions apparently however I'm worried whether this means the engine has terminal damage or whether it's turbos, blocked breathers, valve stem seals or even a symptom of whatever was flushed through.

The car has not been run other than on my drive since all this was done. Do I just need to run it for a while or will I do serious damage to the cat or other parts of the engine if I don't sort this first?

There is seemly a lack of expert services for this type of car in my area so I've turned to the good people on this forum. If there are any things I could try or my local garage could do I'd like to do those before trailering it off somewhere for major surgery.

Seems like the season for Aristo problems . Does the smoke smell rich at all, if it does then its running rich and probably the o2 sensor needs renewing. If the turbos are getting past their best then look into the piping beyond the turbos, if it has alot of oil in it then the seals are starting to go. However saying that nothing is as it seems on these bloody things as i am chasing a fault around myself atm.

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is the smoke just grey or is it blueish? I would imagine if you had an oil starvation problem that the issue would be the turbos as they are sensitive to oil quality.

What oil did the other garage use?

The smoke is very grey and it smokes heavily on startup and whilst idling. If you accelerate it leaves a large grey cloud drifting down the road. It does smell. I was thinking today it reminded me a bit of when I used to put Redex into my old Cortina, similar smell too. To my knowledge though nothing like that has been used by the garage. When started today, it was still smoking a bit when warm which was worrying but it hadn't been started for a month.

The oil put in I'm told was Shell Helix Ultra 5w 40. It is using a bit of oil but then it always has and I've had the car practically since new (8,000 miles) .

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