Mine is a 95 M, 170,000 miles. The car has been serviced regularly, and has always run well. The other day it suddenly began to run roughly, no mechanical noises or bangs. Now it is difficult to start, and runs on 3 as far as I can tell. White smoke from the exhaust, and a plume of ditto if you take the dipstick out: the dipstick does not blow out of its hole. A garage diagnosed piston blow by, but it happened very suddenly,without noises. Apart from what you would expect when not firing, it is not noisy when running. Could it be say an inlet valve or injector fault (injectors never needed attention so far), and white smoke from crankcase coming via crankcase breather? Have not had cylinders pressure tested yet. Any ideas anyone?
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A plume of white smoke from dipstick? white smoke from crankcase coming via crankcase breather?
Piston rings gone or hole in piston . Could be headgasket but unlikely.
Says blowby from cylinder. As the dipstick does not blowout, suggests piston rings trashed. If there was a hole in a piston, you would likely have heard it.
madf
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>suddenly began to run roughly
>Now it is difficult to start, and runs on 3
>White smoke from the exhaust, and a plume of ditto if you take the dipstick out
yup Ring gone. keep running it and you will score the cylinder its rattling around in
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Doesn't really matter what's wrong with it, at 10 years old and 170k, bin it! There are hundreds of much younger / better Xantias around for less than it will cost to repair this one! eg I bought a 97R TD VSX with only 53k for £1200 just before Christmas :-))
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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Thanks guys. Time to bin it, I think.
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Seems unlikely that the piston rings would suddenly fail - would expect to see increasing oil consumption and engine becoming increasingly difficult to start over a period of weeks if they had become worn. Would only expect sudden failure after overheating or running on low oil.
Seems more likely that the head gasket has failed/head cracked etc. and smokes blowing into the crankase that way not past rings. Never experienced this but can't see why rings should suddenly stop sealing on one cylinder.
Impossible to say if it should be scrapped - if much moneys been invested maintaining complex hydraulics and back axle is ok might be worth repairing to you. Just my thoughts
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Very probably a broken compression ring on one piston, hence sudden onset of smoke with smoke in the crankcase. I would suggest the economics of repair are questionable, unless you can isolate the offending cylinder with a compression test, and if it is also possible to get the piston + rod out of the engine from below with the crank in place. If you can do this, and have access to second hand parts it's a quick job - sump off and unbolt rod. Piston/bore matching won't matter too much as long as they are in the same size grouping.
It's hard to scrap an otherwise good car, but the above "fix" would be as far as I would go with it. Good luck.
659.
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Broken piston ring theory fits in with symptoms but don't think it's possible to remove piston through sump. Only way is to lift the head when you can check gasket for signs of blowby (scorching etc.). If nothing found with gasket or head then need to remove sump and knock piston assembly out from underneath (took me an hour to remove sump and a piston on a 306 with head off). Cheap way of finding faulty cylinder is to slacken union on each injector until smoking stops.
Would check cambelt hasn't jumped a tooth on injector pump and valves all have some clearance before dismantling anything.
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Thanks for all the advice guys. In the end I got an engine off e-bay for £200, and with the tow-in (a fair distance- and fitting, replacement of service items like cam belts, filters oil, I paid just under £500. My normal guy would have charged over £600, plus a tow-in, about £800 in all. It was the head gasket as it happened. It has been running for about 2 months now, and only one small problem with the temp sensor leaking water, a tighten it up job.
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