Strange smell

[Andyjarvis]

I was behind a 58 plate Vectra 1.9CDTi Estate, it's exhaust was a little smokey and the fumes smelt like it was burning Parafin, certainly not the smell you'd expect from a modern Deisel, any ideas.

[vectra ste]

poss dual fuel

running on gas

[s.scargill]

Could have been doing a DPF regen.

[Das]

Maybe doing a regen of the DPF.

[stevie1]

Diesel Partical Filter regeneration in process my signum does it and it has the same smell ! Its normal

[vectra ste]

i havent bought Parafin for a while ive forgot what it smells like

[vectra ste]

i found this off another post


I need more info on this because i'm getting fed up looking like the red arrows are following me to work every day.
After twenty minutes driving on the motorway my 1.9 CDTi starts smoking, what i would call white smoke.
Now i normally switch the ignition off and on while coasting and it disapears, but thinking its just self cleaning and as i was just about at work i took it easy and left it smoking for ten minutes.
during this time i tried all revs up to 3500rpm but no change just really bad white smoke which smells like parafin and the gas is hot and i mean hot.
As soon as i switched off and re-started it nothing.
i just wondered wether it was still cleaning or wether the DPF had been removed so the ECU was not getting the intended signals.
The car has done 153,000 miles and it has done the same thing since i bought it two years ago.
I am thinking the DPF may be blocked and removing it may be the answer.
Thanks for the heads up on this and any help that may come from you guys will be very welcome.

[Andyjarvis]

I should mention this was in 40mph limit which is why I didn't think DPF Regen.

[Andyjarvis]

i havent bought Parafin for a while ive forgot what it smells like

I have mates who play with Parafin heaters, sorry, I mean Gas Turbine model jets so the smell of buring parafin is quite familier.

[alcutler]

Perhaps hes running it on parafin - I used to run my old Astra 1.7 TD on Kerosene and then cooking oil and it stunk of chips - ran ok though