G
Geo
Guest
Ok, this is an academic question, as I don't know much about cars, let alone
enough to fix something, but I'd just like to know what's wrong before I
take the Landy to the garage.
So.... I came back home (Greece) and I'm driving my family's 1988 V8 90. The
Landy's only done 95000Kms, so around 60000 miles, never been used hard, but
it's never been maintained very well either; my father usually takes it to
the garage when something's wrong enough to prevent it from driving and that
doesn't happen often. I don't have a clue when the air filter/spark
plugs/anything else have been changed/looked at for the last time.
Now to the symptoms:
The engine seems to be burning fuel inefficiently, the exhaust fumes
sometimes smell like half the fuel hasn't really burnt in the chambers.
There's some water-soot mix spat from the exhaust (note that outdoors temps
here are still around 15 C, so not very cold) while the engine's warming up
and there's black smoke (soot?) coming out if you step on the gas and go
from idle to higher revs, like it's been deposited there while on idle and
it cleans up after you rev it. It tends to smoke a bit in general lately,
but that's the most visible thing to me. Idle seems to be a bit
temperamental, sometimes then engine can't stay there and eventually
swithces off (even though it's warm).
Now to the "oddest" bit: When the tank tends to empty and the indicator
enters the red area, the Landy will start, warm up and then "blurb" and die
(while in motion, preferably some place where I am hindering traffic and
can't pull over....). Normally, when the petrol indicator enters the red it
means I have another 100 miles or more to go and I know there's still some
petrol in the tank (splashing sound). It's done it four times now, I step on
the gas and it just "blurbs" like it's out of petrol and then won't start
again for a couple of minutes. After that couple of minutes it'll start with
some difficulty, spit clouds of black smoke while I rev it like mad and work
for a while. I never used it more than a minute to find out if it keeps
working fine, but I doubt it. I used some "tank cleaning additive" last time
I filled up but it didn't do anything that I could notice. Whenever I fill
up the problem seems to stop, the car will start without problems and go
until the tank goes almost empty again.
So the question is, is there something in my tank (rust, 17 years of
accumulated crud) that causes everything, does the engine need looking at,
or is it both (that's what I'm guessing)?
The engine doesn't overheat and as far as I can tell it sounds ok, but I'm
not sure I could tell if the sound has changed a bit (plus you can only hear
the transmission whining in the cabin...).
If anyone actually bothered to read the entirety of this post, sorry about
the length and I'd really appreciate any ideas.
Geo
enough to fix something, but I'd just like to know what's wrong before I
take the Landy to the garage.
So.... I came back home (Greece) and I'm driving my family's 1988 V8 90. The
Landy's only done 95000Kms, so around 60000 miles, never been used hard, but
it's never been maintained very well either; my father usually takes it to
the garage when something's wrong enough to prevent it from driving and that
doesn't happen often. I don't have a clue when the air filter/spark
plugs/anything else have been changed/looked at for the last time.
Now to the symptoms:
The engine seems to be burning fuel inefficiently, the exhaust fumes
sometimes smell like half the fuel hasn't really burnt in the chambers.
There's some water-soot mix spat from the exhaust (note that outdoors temps
here are still around 15 C, so not very cold) while the engine's warming up
and there's black smoke (soot?) coming out if you step on the gas and go
from idle to higher revs, like it's been deposited there while on idle and
it cleans up after you rev it. It tends to smoke a bit in general lately,
but that's the most visible thing to me. Idle seems to be a bit
temperamental, sometimes then engine can't stay there and eventually
swithces off (even though it's warm).
Now to the "oddest" bit: When the tank tends to empty and the indicator
enters the red area, the Landy will start, warm up and then "blurb" and die
(while in motion, preferably some place where I am hindering traffic and
can't pull over....). Normally, when the petrol indicator enters the red it
means I have another 100 miles or more to go and I know there's still some
petrol in the tank (splashing sound). It's done it four times now, I step on
the gas and it just "blurbs" like it's out of petrol and then won't start
again for a couple of minutes. After that couple of minutes it'll start with
some difficulty, spit clouds of black smoke while I rev it like mad and work
for a while. I never used it more than a minute to find out if it keeps
working fine, but I doubt it. I used some "tank cleaning additive" last time
I filled up but it didn't do anything that I could notice. Whenever I fill
up the problem seems to stop, the car will start without problems and go
until the tank goes almost empty again.
So the question is, is there something in my tank (rust, 17 years of
accumulated crud) that causes everything, does the engine need looking at,
or is it both (that's what I'm guessing)?
The engine doesn't overheat and as far as I can tell it sounds ok, but I'm
not sure I could tell if the sound has changed a bit (plus you can only hear
the transmission whining in the cabin...).
If anyone actually bothered to read the entirety of this post, sorry about
the length and I'd really appreciate any ideas.
Geo
