Not been a happy year so far....

January - no fault accident, FL2 is off the road 'waiting for parts' month after month
June - finally returned, part damage not repaired and section of coil spring falls off in the first 10 mins of use. Much wrangling with insurer and back it goes.
August - all repairs complete, MOT pass on 24th
Sept 3rd - completely flat battery, jump leads work but seems the drivers door no longer locks with the central locking - could this be related to the flat battery (cause of?). I've had similar issues with a Jaguar in the past and replacing door lock mechanisms so wouldn't surprise me if it's the same plastic part.

Today - went for a long run, windows down and air con off. Bit of a whiff of 'hot something' but then it's always done that and we just put it down to DPF regeneration. No running at standstill tonight until near home and got a prolonged stop at some traffic lights and that was when it became very obvious smoke was blowing through the centre air vents.

Fortunately home was 800 yds away, turned ignition off and lifted the bonnet and... NO smoke. No sign of oil spraying or anything.

Exhaust do you think? I'm struggling to see how it passed the MOT emissions test just 10 days ago.

Or worse?

Wonder if it could it be a problem with the PTC electric heater?

There were some recalls & service actions on early FL2:

P014-2 UK - Recall Action : Electric Booster Heater (PTC Heater) Operation
P011-1 UK - Electric Booster Heater (PTC Heater) Operation

Worth searching through previous posts for those recalls. Discovery 4 HSE - Aintree Green
Freelander 2 TD4 SE Automatic - Tonga Green
Defender XS - Tonga Green - Gone Now
Freelander 1 Td4 ES Manual - Epsom Green - Gone Now *
Freelander 1 Td4 Kalahari SE - Epsom Green - Gone Now
Freelander 1 XEi - Epsom Green - Gone Now

www.greenlandrover.uk

smoke - have you taken the engine cover off and checked you're not leaking diesel onto the top of the manifold? That cooks off and gets sucked into the car easily, most noticeable when stopped.

https://www.freel2.com/forum/topic37164.ht...iesel+leak

No I haven't, it's the complete lack of smoke/smell in the engine bay that is getting me. I'd expected to find thick smoke under the bonnet when I got home and left the car running stationary.

But nothing, and I don't think the vent fan is strong enough to vent the entire engine bay that effectively?

PizzaGuy wrote:

Exhaust do you think? I'm struggling to see how it passed the MOT emissions test just 10 days ago.

This thread details something similar

https://www.freel2.com/forum/topic29359.html

cawood wrote:

2007-08 Land Rover Freelander 2 Diesel: fire hazard

In October 2008, December 2008 and October 2015, recalls were issued for Land Rover Freelander 2 vehicles that had diesel engines and were manufactured from 1 February 2007 to 2 June 2008. In these vehicles, the controller circuit for the Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) Heater could short circuit. While this would normally result in a flat battery, it could also cause non-starting. Furthermore, the short circuit could cause a burning smell from hot and/or melted components which, in extreme circumstances, could lead to a fire. These symptoms could occur when the vehicle was in use or parked and unattended. For the recalled vehicles, the PTC was initially to be disabled and, subsequently, replaced with an updated version. The recalled Freelander 2 vehicles had VINs in the range:

�SALFA27B47H000100 to SALFA24C48H111695 (R/2008/125 and R/2008/187);
�SALFA24CX8H111698 to SALFA28B58H113411 (R/2015/186).

When I replaced my PTC, there was a small amount of smoke when the film of ‘oil’ on the element cooked off. (It was fine after that initial bit of smoke).

The PTC has the potential to generate a lot of smoke if it’s gone faulty as there’s some hefty high current cable. Also if the PWM module has gone faulty it may be allowing too much power to the PTC.

Definitely worth pulling the fuse mentioned in the above thread to eliminate this as a cause

[EDIT]

These are the fuses concerned. I think FS4 in the purply/pink coloured box will stop it working but FE16 in the green box definitely will.

Click image to enlarge

 Discovery 4 HSE - Aintree Green
Freelander 2 TD4 SE Automatic - Tonga Green
Defender XS - Tonga Green - Gone Now
Freelander 1 Td4 ES Manual - Epsom Green - Gone Now *
Freelander 1 Td4 Kalahari SE - Epsom Green - Gone Now
Freelander 1 XEi - Epsom Green - Gone Now

www.greenlandrover.uk

Was it definitely smoke (did it smell?), or could it have been condensed water vapour?
There is an issue where the face vents can blow water vapour, if the evaporator drain is blocked, and ice forms causing moisture in the air to condense. This is the same principle as the fog that is sometimes visible when opening a cold freezer on a hot and humid day. 2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Soon to be sold.
Hyundai Ionic 5 Ultimate on order.
Gone. 2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE.

It's definitely not water vapour!!

Was in the garage for 2 days, they couldn't get it to repeat and found nothing suspicious other than a small gap in the flexi hose in front of the catalytic converter so I picked it up to drive home.

400 yds later and the smoke started so I drove it straight back and they're going to take another long look at it tomorrow. The car would have been nowhere near fully warmed up at the time, unlike the first time it happened when I'd been out for a cpl hours non stop driving.

Seems to work like this when stationary - rev the engine for 15-20 sceonds and nothing happens so drop the revs and THEN the smoke starts and then stops a few seconds later. It's like driving the car under load or revving it quite high is enough to make whatever is causing the smoke to do its thing but it takes a while to get to wherever it's burning.

Smoke seems to be coming from around that flexi joint in the exhaust but not directly from it, but there's nothing 'wet' to indicate anything leaking.

Would the breather/injector pipe leakages create smoke from down under the engine or nearer the top?

So jammed air con and smoking bearings maybe? Or this PTC fault but the car is a 2010 SD4 not as old as those mentioned.

I have however had a flat battery for no reason, found a faulty central locking mechnaism in a door but the battery hasn't been flat since - and the air con has been turned off since then.

Finger pointing at PTC?

Oh.... is it also worth mentioning the car was laid up for 6 months after an accident waiting for parts? Impact was front nearside wing and wheel at about 20mph.

Wouldn't have thought that would cause much damage but if there's anything lurking down there which might be a cause please shout.

Plenty of hot, smoke free exhaust coming out the tail pipe.

Worms wrote:

PizzaGuy wrote:

Exhaust do you think? I'm struggling to see how it passed the MOT emissions test just 10 days ago.

Would the emissions portion of the MOT test be expected to pick up a leak at the front? Is that bit not simply the tester putting a probe up the tail-pipe and recording the figures? If there was a leak further forward, would there not be less pollutants at the point where it is tested, so more likely to pass?

Tester might be expected to notice a forward blow visually, though.

PizzaGuy wrote:

Oh.... is it also worth mentioning the car was laid up for 6 months after an accident waiting for parts? Impact was front nearside wing and wheel at about 20mph.

Wouldn't have thought that would cause much damage but if there's anything lurking down there which might be a cause please shout.

Plenty of hot, smoke free exhaust coming out the tail pipe.

Impact was only at about 10 mph so no great shock to the system there.

Latest from garage is they think the DPF is packed full, and because of the small split in the flexi pipe even if it was trying to clean itself there's not enough pressure to force the regen through.

They think they'll get the DPF cleaned and manufacture a replacement flexi section.

I've asked them if they've checked for any DPF related errors just in case it's a sensor causing the problem.

A new CAT is £1000 + VAT from landrover!! Not even the LR parts guy knew where they got that price from.

One thing I have read today courtesy of freelanderspecialist.com is that the SD4 needs to be driven quite hard (one commentator suggested 4th gear, 70mph for 20 mins) to get the temperature high enough for the auto regen to take place. That seems very err 'niche' and difficult to achieve for those of us not regularly on motorway journeys?

Pizzaguy, 10mph is plenty to crack an exhaust junction when hit end on. My wife managed to reverse into a bollard in a garage forecourt, when driving her Golf. Just a low concrete thing that was barely bigger than the tailpipe of the car, but it cracked the front end of the exhaust pipe. She was just slowly inching it back, so not even 10mph. 2005 D3 2.7 Auto
Previously:
2010 MY FL2 TD4e GS - Now gone at 199,500 miles, about 135,000 of them mine.
‘93 Defender 110 200TDi CSW
‘87 Defender 90 4 cyl Petrol
‘83 110 CSW V8 - best ever!
Range Rover 2-door V8 (not sure of year - 4-speed box and vacuum diff switch)
Series III SWB Diesel

The guy hit me quite literally under the front wheel arch as I was going round a mini roundabout so just at an angle to me, not really enough to do much more than crumple the the wing and scratch the wheel.

But the insurer was a nightmare and the repairers say they didn't spot anything else.

Plus the car passed its MOT and drove fine for a few hundred miles before this started happening so I'm going to have to take this as one of those joys of owning a Landrover.