This is a story of a tank which never lost its battle, however had to undergo a heart surgery to get a second lease of life.
All bhpians,below written is an excerpt from a life of palio 1.3mjd and its last few days before it underwent a heart transplant.
I bought this used car from a working professional in Chennai and the car had clocked a healthy 41000km on its odo in 3.5 years.Buying the car was a pleasant experience and the tank did its duty diligently on regular Chennai Bangalore runs.Within 7 months of purchase I clocked an additional 21000km on this car before its engine started showing signs of ailment.
Through the last few runs on this car I had been experiencing a gradual loss of power and performance with every subsequent trip between Chennai and Bangalore.Slowly it became very evindent as my tank barely managed to keep up with other multijets on the road.I knew something was wrong until one day I drove my colleagues palio multijet.The difference in the drive was noteworthy and I knew my pocket was waiting to be drilled.
Soon after I consulted my Chennai mechanna ,he droped a bomb that the engine was on one if its last runs and would soon be dead.
Precisely as I pieced together the history of symptoms of engine failure my tank had been showing, I remembered I started feeling something big was going to go wrong when turbo whine became unusually audible on one of my highway runs and it sounded like the impellers were touching the turbo housing due to axial play on the shaft.
Prior to that car had consumed 1 litre of engine oil in 3000km of running after I did an oil change service.
Slowly I started noticing traces of blue smoke when I would start car in the morning and also while idling.exhaust fumes smelt like burnt engine oil.I thought it was only turbo which was causing the mayhem and had almost decided to get a new turbo charger for 12000 INR from turbo energy limited.
Consultation with my Chennai mechanic revealed that the engine had also developed a compression leak as the dip stick was leaking unburnt charge when he pulled the dipstick with the engine idling.My heart sank at that moment and it felt like the world came crashing.
The day I drove my colleagues car I realized that I had bought a lemon and my car never packed the rocket punch as his car did.
I got this bummer after meticulously maintaining the car and changing e oil every 5000km and one gear oil change and a clutch replacement.
All of this put together made me decide to do away with the car and invest on a new punto.This incidentally also came at the time of mega discount offered on the punto. I went to Ramky fiat Chennai and took a test drive and nearly got the loan sanctioned along with trade in of 2lakh INR for the existing car.I was hoping I would get 250000 INR and loan the balance amount to buy a punto diesel dynamic which was turning out to be 698000 INR on road.
A lot of thinking and mind bending happened which finally compelled me to drop the idea of going for a new punto.Future plans and other commitments did not allow me to go for it.
In the mean time my tbhpian colleague introduced me to another mechanna (sorry cannot share the details).He used to be the erstwhile FASS back in the era and now has a full fledged 10+ bay workshop.I also came across two other palio mjd owners who faced the same problem and decided to make their tanks undergo a heart transplant at this garage. They were satisfied and their cars had clocked more than 40000km after the replacement.
I made up my mind and my and finally decided to give the car for its heart transplant.
On going through various other forums I found out that lot of palio mjd owners are facing this issue – turbo failure and compression leak.These failures are surfacing typically around 60-70k km mark on the odo.
I never entertained the idea of overhauling my tanks heart because for the same price I could get a factory assembled one although used but there is remarkable difference in the life of a heart which is assembled on a line as compared to the one which is overhauled at an authorized dealership or a garage of an expert mechanic.
Key learnings out of this experience-
- 1) Never buy a car without consulting a good mechanic.I tried to act a hero and ran a few checks on service history of the car etc, test drove it found ok and went ahead to purchase it.
- 2) Always benchmark the car before you buy it.I should have driven atleast 2 cars to know how different my car felt, now given the fact that from the day one my car was a slow turtle in comparison to other palio mjds.I realized it very late when I test drove my colleague’s car.
- 3) Before buying a diesel car – do the simple dipstick test.I do not know why it is not mentioned on Teambhp’s thread of ‘how to buy a used car’. It is such a simple test which is a telltale for compression leak. Start the engine and simply pull the dipstick up, if you see white smoke(unburnt charge) coming out you are looking at a doomed diesel engine.
- 4) Bring the engine to its optimum running temp so that oil thins out and rev it hard to find out the health of turbocharger.My turbo would whine very loud like a ghost when oil would become thin and I would have run the car for sometime. Believe it or not turbo did not whine when I got the car evaluated at a couple of used car dealers. They did not even check the dipstick.Had they given me 20-30k more they would have bought a wrecked engine.When you are out there test the turbo hard. One or two revs will not do much.rev the engine hard to find out any failure.
- 5) Carefully sit near the exhaust and observe the colour of smoke.Take a white sheet and place it on the ground to enhance the contrast.Blue smoke in my car was not visible unless looked at carfully.Check the exhaust tip for wetness. A kaput turbo will sputter oil.oil can be found either on exhaust side or intake side.If given a chance you can see the intercooler for any oil traces.
- 6) Take the car on highway and push It beyond 2500 rpm in topgear. Engine with compression leak like mine will struggle to cross 2900-3000RPM.
- 7) Never play around with the oils.Always stick to the recommended oil. It is not only for an OEM’s commercial benefit that a genuine oil is recommended for use, there is lot of testing and research that goes behind selection of an oil for a motor.
Below attached is my video which is simple and tells how to do the dipstick test.Also attached is the sound track which has captured the whine of a failed turbo on my car.
I dont think I will be able to share other details about my tanks heart’s transplant on a public forum.(donor heart comes with some legal implications) to name a few are insurance, motor’s number,donor’s condition.
Donor has to be carefully selected. Total loss vehicles can be evaluated.If it is a side or rear impact or a turtled vehicle then you can weigh your options and get the heart.
If you are an enthusiast then you can also consider going for a powerful version like I had the option of plonking a 90HP one but I did not do it because I simply did not want anymore experimentation, but you will have to see if your gearbox is capable of handling the torque produced by a more powerful engine.
Finally thanks to my colleague and another PUG member, the car is back and running. It floats like a cady and stings like a bimmer.
I got the EGR port blanked.There is a blanking gasket which does not allow the gases to flow back now.
Catalytic converter has also been thrown away.The car expels all the burnt gases freely now.
I had to take the above mentioned two environment damaging steps because I do not want my tank to get a third lease of life
.