failed mot emission

james007ago

hi guys,
My focus 1.4 2002 failed its emission test today:o. it has an excessive reading both the lambda and HCs (apparently these can be sorted by getting a new lambda sensor). Tester also said that a dense blue smoke is coming out from the car and he started mentioning about piston rings worn?
I noticed actually this smoke whether car is cold or hot, stationary or moving, its the same. There is also rattle coming from the engine and this is the same time when the blue smoke comes.
After MOT, I went to an indie garage who said that he needs to remove head cover and replace stem seals. At the same time he will renew cambelt. He quoted me £420 for this job including parts and labor. Is this reasonable? More importantly, will this pass the retest? Do you think I should scrap my car?
By the way, I took my car in a council-run MOT station.
Any advice welcome!:beer:

EdGasket

If its piston rings then doing the head valve seals won't help. You need to establish 100% whether it is valve seals or piston rings causing the problem before you throw money at it.
If the valve seals are gone then if you take your foot off the gas when cruising along the motorway, you will see a big plume of smoke out the back as the engine sucks in oil past the valve seals.
For piston rings, you need to do a compression test. If it's rings then the car is basically scrap or a recon engine or you might try some hocus pocus piston -ring sealer stuff as a last resort to try and get it through the MoT. Most people say these don't work though.

colino

On a 12 year old Focus I'd put it on Gumtree with a full description and hope someone will part with £450 for it. Blue smoke (oil burning) plus rattle = waste of time.

james007ago

thank you guys. is there an additive i can used to at least reduce the blue smoke? has anyone tried bg44k? reviews is good so im quite keen to try it before taking it to scrap.

redstar2072

You might be lucky and it could pass if your take it to a council MOT center. This might work if the garage is looking extract some money from you and making the story about the emissions etc up. Could be worth a final try....

Although if you have noticed this problem and the blue smoke is excessive then you could be out of luck, just Gumtree it .

Justicia

redstar2072 wrote: »

you might be lucky and it could pass if your take it to a council mot center. This might work if the garage is looking extract some money from you and making the story about the emissions etc up. Could be worth a final try....

...

james007ago wrote: »

by the way, i took my car in a council-run mot station.

forgotmyname

If its only blue when blipping the throttle then new valve seals should help.

If its sticky or worn piston rings then it will do nothing. The engine needs to be replaced or rebuilt totally.

Additives are not going to help if its that bad.

Beware the other issues though, Burning oil for a while could have blocked the CAT also. So add that to the bill.

Personally put the £420 towards a another car. Or an engine rebuild or swap.

Horizon81

Is that the only thing it's failed on? There's plenty boy racers running round with cars well over the emissions with no cats fitted and overfuelling. Hell many Astra VXRs do it from new. Just ask around and see if you can find a garage that can pass it. There are some unscrupulous back street garages out there tsk tsk. And do-gooders, please give it a rest - I'm not saying it's morally right, simply that it goes on.

mcfisco

EdGasket wrote: »

If it's rings then the car is basically scrap or a recon engine ........

Whatever happened to getting a rebore and oversize pistons and rings?

............... looks nostalgically at a pile of 60s and 70s Motorcycle Mechanics magazines in the bookcase

bigjl

Pretty rare for a petrol Focus engine to wear out in such a way as the correct oil specs are very good for all Ford vehicles.

You could try stop smoke or similar as it basically thicken the oil and reduces consumption that way.

Never used the additive you mention.

But if it is only £10/20 then why not, worth a try.

When did you last change the oil?

What oil did you use?

It could simply be gummed up oil control rings.

Which could be sorted out without a strip down.

Head over to Bobistheoilguy and research stuff like Kreen or MMO ( Marvel Mystery Oil.

The forum can be a bit OTT, but there is some info to be gleaned that may help.

If it has rarely seen an oil change over the last few years then something gummed up or sludged up is more likely than something being genuinely worn out to the point of needing replacement.

I had an Allegro many years ago that had say for a few years, it used to puff smoke after you eased off then got back on the throttle.

After a few weeks of "young student" usage it stopped.

Why, i still don't know, it used to rattle at the same time as the smoke!

I did check a year ago and it was still taxed and presumably being used some twenty odd years later!

Not that it would be if I had owned it much longer.

We used to call it the flying turd!

And, yes, it was Brown.

james007ago

thank you for your replies. I have actually asked a garage who wants £___ to pass it.. I cannot believe that its happening in this country but well I guess its business. At the end of the day it still need sorting. I think I will try bg44k and i will see. I will probably change the lambda sensor over the weekend (got one from the scrapyard).
With regards to oil change, I took it for a major service a year ago (oil, oil/air/pollen/fuel filters and spark plugs). After that, I changed oil and filter every 6 months, the last one came 3 weeks ago. I used castrol magnatec 5w30. The only reason I would like to repair it is I guess its my first car and been reliable for 2 years. It even took me twice to Krakow.