We inherited a Meriva a few months back and it's been driving well.
However, in the last 500 miles I've been getting a LOT of grey smoke out of it. This isn't on acceleration or at high revs; it's mainly at low revs, and on over-run. It smokes like a female dog if you boot it, but then all diesels do that; but this much smoke at low revs seems to be wrong. It's also down on power at low revs (it can't even keep up with the Discovery unless you keep the revs up).
I took it into an independent Vauxhall specialist who tells me the ECU isn't reporting any faults - including no misfires, which seems to imply the injectors aren't blocked. The sensors are all reporting OK and the fuelling is balanced, etc. I replaced the fuel filter and filled the new one with injector cleaner; this made no difference. The water levels are fine. The turbo's apparently working OK (at least, it's not failed outright). All the inlet pipes are clear.
The only clues I have are: the oil level was fairly high (just over the top of the dipstick marker), and it doesn't seem to smoke at all once the turbo cuts in. Below 1900rpm it's sluggish and smoky; as soon as you get over 2000 the smoke stops and it takes off like a rocket.
Any clues most welcome. Apparently this engine isn't a very common one; the guy says he's only seen it in Merivas. My current thought is to run it until something gets much worse or much better!
