TheBoyFromBromley
Member
Hi Guys,
After spending a fair chunk of time and money getting my A2 back to a decent condition (new suspension, CCU and door microswitch replacement - thanks again @Sarge ) and finally being happy with it, out of absolutely nowhere the car experienced a pretty catastrophic failure this weekend. So I'm hoping for some advice as to what might have gone wrong.
The car covered ~100 miles on Saturday driving to the Kent coast for the day (mainly motorway). It was a warm day ~21°C but I didn't hit any traffic and the engine temp stayed bang on 90° like it always does, the car drove faultlessly and everything seemed fine.
On my return I stopped at a supermarket near home to pick up some bits. When I started the car back up everything seemed ok, but pulling away I was immediately aware of a lack of power. The engine wouldn't pick up above 1500rpm and as I was crawling away I could see a white cloud of smoke in the rear view mirror, I pulled over and got out of the car to inspect. I realised the smoke was coming from the engine bay and the engine was making a knocking noise so turned everything off. It smelt a bit like burnt plastic to me.
I was towed home by a friend (steering and breaking without power is terrifying FYI). I tried to start the car again hoping to reverse onto my driveway, it was turning over but wouldn't start and the white smoke immediately started coming out of the engine bay again with the same burnt plastic smell. I've had a look in the engine bay but nothing looks obviously melted. The weird thing is there's been no warning lights flash up on the dash!
Other factors that might be important:
After spending a fair chunk of time and money getting my A2 back to a decent condition (new suspension, CCU and door microswitch replacement - thanks again @Sarge ) and finally being happy with it, out of absolutely nowhere the car experienced a pretty catastrophic failure this weekend. So I'm hoping for some advice as to what might have gone wrong.
The car covered ~100 miles on Saturday driving to the Kent coast for the day (mainly motorway). It was a warm day ~21°C but I didn't hit any traffic and the engine temp stayed bang on 90° like it always does, the car drove faultlessly and everything seemed fine.
On my return I stopped at a supermarket near home to pick up some bits. When I started the car back up everything seemed ok, but pulling away I was immediately aware of a lack of power. The engine wouldn't pick up above 1500rpm and as I was crawling away I could see a white cloud of smoke in the rear view mirror, I pulled over and got out of the car to inspect. I realised the smoke was coming from the engine bay and the engine was making a knocking noise so turned everything off. It smelt a bit like burnt plastic to me.
I was towed home by a friend (steering and breaking without power is terrifying FYI). I tried to start the car again hoping to reverse onto my driveway, it was turning over but wouldn't start and the white smoke immediately started coming out of the engine bay again with the same burnt plastic smell. I've had a look in the engine bay but nothing looks obviously melted. The weird thing is there's been no warning lights flash up on the dash!
Other factors that might be important:
- I had the air-con blowing extra cold for most of the journey. I usually have it set on 'auto' but it was a hot day.
- The fuel light came on half way home, so I drove ~25 miles after. I would say there was still a decent amount of diesel in the tank when I parked up, it wasn't running on fumes.
- When I parked the car up at the supermarket and turned off the ignition I noticed the engine didn't stop quite as smoothly as it usually does. It wasn't violent, but it was noticeable - I didn't think much of it at the time.
- The 'service' notification flashed up on the DIS at the start of the day. I thought this was weird because in the space of maybe 4 days prior it flashed '600MI Service', then '300MI Service' when I'd only driven it about 200 miles max.