This weekend I forced myself to sit through an episode of a “car help” show on one of those DIY channels. I forget the name but have seen bits of it before and is hosted by a mechanically dubious man and woman, although both claim to be ASE certified.
A caller with a turbocharged diesel Volvo said he was driving along, everything fine, and suddenly the car started belching black smoke, making a loud noise, and running very rough.
Another lesser part of the complaint was noticing that blue smoke appears on startup.
The 2 show hosts PLUS their live diesel expert from a diesel tech institute all had a unanimous opinion of the cause of this problem, which of course is way different than what mine is.
They all agreed the “air filter” is the cause of the noise/black smoke/rough running. Comments?
Because this problem came on suddenly, I would be more inclined to say that the turbo went out. All the indications are there. Blue smoke on start-up, black smoke out the exhaust, loud noise, and rough running.
Tester
IMHO, the air filter would have to be VERY clogged. I have replaced some pretty dirty air filters without them causing black smoke. I once had those symptoms due to timing chain skipping on a diesel.