8.0

pretty bad
Typical Repair Cost:
No data
Average Mileage:
68,400 miles
Total Complaints:
1 complaints

Most common solutions:

  1. not sure (1 reports)
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problem #1

Sep 182007

(reported on)

Silverado 2500 V8

  • Manual transmission
  • 68,351 miles

Dear Sir, I have a Chevrolet Silverado 1996, Model (K20953).

The car was extremely difficuly to start, after a full analysis of the vehicle it was discovered that the injection pump was faulty, after installing a new pump the car starts directly. After the car has been running for about 15 to 20 min it starts to blows enormous amounts of white smoke from the exhaust. This problem was coming from the installation of the new injection pump as the settings weren't correct, after re-adjusting the pump the white smoke problem stopped.

Then a new problem was discovered, after driving the car for about 10 miles the car loses power and the engine runs roughly (all gauges are normal not indicating that there is any problem with the motor), if you try to accelerate you have no power, if you then turn the car off for about 5 to 15 min you can then start the car as normal with no problems, you can then drive for another 6 miles and the same problem occurs.

I have received advice that the injectors are faulty and not performing to the full capicity, if the injectors were faulty then the motor would be hard to start when cold. When a diesel engine blows white smoke, that indicates un burnt fuel. It usually is accompanied with a strange sweet type of smell. Two things can cause white smoke. One is low on compression, which means that the motor is worn out. If that is the case then the motor is hard to start when cold, because that is when the compression is the least and if you get it going and it heats up and the expansion of the pistons with heat increases the compression and the smoke normally lessens.

In this case I have the opposite situation. The second reason for white smoke is incorrect mixture of air to fuel. As this is a computerised engine, I am not sure just what function the computer exercises on the mixture. Does the computer control the correct amount of fuel through the injectors.

When the motor is cold it starts easily and runs perfectly for a given period (10miles). That means that something is going wrong when the engine either gets to a certain temperature or the computer takes over on the air to fuel ratio. It could be turbo or it could be computer mismanaging the mixture, is this possible ????

I tend to think that the problem rests somewhere in the computer system, but I cannot be sure. If it is the turbo, then it would have to mean that the turbo is somehow sticking at temperature and ceasing to inject air into the motor. I have never seen that happen, but you never know.

Getting back to the injectors, as I said above , if they were faulty the engine would be hard to start when cold, but it still may be possible that the computer if it takes over the fuel to air ratio is interferring with the flow of fuel and air, which may give the indication that something is wrong in the injection system, (which it is), but I would bet 100 to 1 that it is not the injectors themselves.

I would be interested in your advice regarding the above, Many thanks.

- Grant A., Australia, QLD, Australia