All Vauxhalls....

[Barry Cade]

Middle child traded her Kuga (against my advice) for an Insignia sport estate thing.  On seeing it I spotted the "Irmscher" grille, black windows and a few other things. A few days later she's going on about it being flat and struggling to get up hills. It's a 1.6D..  I have a look and it is flat and whistling/air noise. No MIL though. She takes it back to the (large) dealership who say there is nothing wrong., but change something anyway. No change. I drive it again and press the ECO button... it takes off up the road, wheelspinning in 3rd. 

She uses it for a bit with ECO off, and now it's pumping out black smoke, and occasionally falls flat on its face. Never had a MIL. I reckon some backstreet "tuner" has been playing with it. Garage is having another look but she wants to reject it.

According to the handbook, Eco just controls the start/stop, which doesn't work anyway.. 

[w00dy]

Has it done many miles? Black smoke on a modern diesel does suggest maybe someone's deleted the DPF and had error codes "mapped out"

On my Insignia, the Eco button is definitely just for the start/stop.

[cort16]

The ECO on my car (Renault) puts it in a more restrictive tune so it's slow as anything but you get better mpgs. I find it virtually un driveable with it turned on. 

[Barry Cade]

My Transit does the same, and limits it to 71mph.  I do think someone's been playing with the fuelling..

[Rocket88]

Reject it and buy mine……

[chodweaver]

The visible customisations you list make me extremely surprised that it's come from a large dealership rather than them having punted it off to auction after trade in, but I guess they're still desperate for stock to fill the forecourt.

Good job she has them on the hook* for its failings. I'd take great delight in returning it to stock, then tracking down the wise monkey that modded it and inserting the larger mods into their smaller orifices. Fortunately I'm too busy

Good luck in all your dealings with the poor thing

[willswitchengage]

Black smoke = overfuelling so I imagine a faulty MAF sensor or previous owner has been dicking around with the engine mapping for more powers. As this is an 'Irmscher' with tinted windows I know where my money is.

[RoverFolkUs]

Insignias seem to attract the biggest wallopers going when it comes to maintenance/repairs, they'll always do something grossly stupid instead of fixing the damn thing. 

Not saying that about you! The previous owner, or otherwise the person responsible...

[sierraman]

9 hours ago, w00dy said:

Has it done many miles? Black smoke on a modern diesel does suggest maybe someone's deleted the DPF and had error codes "mapped out"

On my Insignia, the Eco button is definitely just for the start/stop.

A DPF delete alone won’t cause black smoke. 

[Marshall2810]

Sounds like it's been chavved within an inch of its life. Reject it whilst you still can 

[Dobloseven]

How old is it? Insignias have been around a long time. Think the 1.6 diesel came a bit later but could be ten or more years. Surely if you wanted to go fast, it'd be better to start with a 2 litre. The factory ones were 190 odd horses in their most powerful form.

 

[R Lutz]

It cannot be factory standard if it is over-fuelling and causing black smoke. Even if a sensor has gone down, it will go into a default mode to prevent over-fuelling. The margins engineered in from factory will see to that. That vehicle is wrecked. 

[SiC]

I'd take a good close at the DPF and see if there is any evidence of it being emptied. If tampered or gutted then it should be easy enough to reject it. 

In theory you can tell if a vehicle is mapped by looking at boost pressure and knowing the stock pressure.

Eco button could have a different engine map if it's been remapped. 

[Dave_Q]

16 hours ago, sierraman said:

A DPF delete alone won’t cause black smoke. 

Does if it's been done badly and it's still trying to regen

[Rocket88]

This at 260k miles….. runs perfectly 

[RoverFolkUs]

1 hour ago, Rocket88 said:

This at 260k miles….. runs perfectly 

And the difference; - that ones been looked after!

[SiC]

Does that one have the exclusive Stuboy Designs logo on it?

[Barry Cade]

5 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

How old is it? Insignias have been around a long time. Think the 1.6 diesel came a bit later but could be ten or more years. Surely if you wanted to go fast, it'd be better to start with a 2 litre. The factory ones were 190 odd horses in their most powerful form.

 

I think it's a 17? I was shocked how slow it was , then amazed how fast it was depending on the button being pressed. I'm not getting involved, unless the garage/ finance company won't take it back...  my Delphi is useless on it too.  Vauxhalls can be funny with it. 

She spent her childhood listening to me rant about shitey Ecotecs and f****n Vauxhalls. Her Kuga was faultless for nearly 3 years.. what can you do?

[Barry Cade]

2 hours ago, R Lutz said:

It cannot be factory standard if it is over-fuelling and causing black smoke. Even if a sensor has gone down, it will go into a default mode to prevent over-fuelling. The margins engineered in from factory will see to that. That vehicle is wrecked. 

If you really are Bob Lutz, you are partly responsible for all this !😆

[Dobloseven]

2 minutes ago, Barry Cade said:

I think it's a 17? I was shocked how slow it was , then amazed how fast it was depending on the button being pressed. I'm not getting involved, unless the garage/ finance company won't take it back...  my Delphi is useless on it too.  Vauxhalls can be funny with it. 

She spent her childhood listening to me rant about shitey Ecotecs and f****n Vauxhalls. Her Kuga was faultless for nearly 3 years.. what can you do?

So a very late first gen? 

[timolloyd]

3 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

So a very late first gen? 

Her or the car?

[Barry Cade]

Well. After a lot of faffing, arguing and a mileage discrepancy on the MOT history, it's bèen p/xd for a Seat Ateca. Seemingly a tester put in the wrong mileage on an  mot pass, then retested it 5 days later with 17000 miles less... didn't show up on HPi...  hmmm. 

This was a very very big Scottish dealership, maybe even the biggest 😉

[stuboy]

On 9/22/2023 at 7:34 PM, SiC said:

Does that one have the exclusive Stuboy Designs logo on it?

 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

On 9/22/2023 at 7:30 PM, RoverFolkUs said:

And the difference; - that ones been looked after!

The other big difference is that it’s not an Insignia.

[Cavcraft]

On 9/22/2023 at 7:53 PM, Barry Cade said:

She spent her childhood listening to me rant about shitey Ecotecs and f****n Vauxhalls. Her Kuga was faultless for nearly 3 years.. what can you do?

Admit you were wrong, learn to be a better parent and buy her a Corsa 1.3 diesel?

[UltraWomble]

1 hour ago, Cavcraft said:

Admit you were wrong, learn to be a better parent and buy her a Corsa 1.3 diesel?

Mother Womble has bought a Corsa Slushmatic - she utterly loves it.

[R Lutz]

On 9/22/2023 at 7:55 PM, Barry Cade said:

If you really are Bob Lutz, you are partly responsible for all this !😆

Before my time.

[Barry Cade]

3 hours ago, Cavcraft said:

Admit you were wrong, learn to be a better parent and buy her a Corsa 1.3 diesel?

😆I tried .. and failed. All her friends had Corsas, I got her a Megane 1.6 coupe... which got stuffed into a wall 😞