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So I changed the intercooler pipe, the one that came off looked alright (so if anybody needs a cheap one?) and it made not a jot of difference.

Is blanking the EGR valves my next task to solve the slooooooow pull away when cold and black smoke when booted?

Surprised they have not been blanked already. Most owners have them blanked as preventative maintenance

The car came from someplace rural before I had it, never saw a main dealer and was unmolested in all ways. I'd be surprised if they had been done.

I just ordered a set of £5 eBay blanks anyway, so I hope that cures it.

Mine was like that it was the pipe that goes from the manifold down to the EGR if you take the plastic lid off the engine and have a look on the bottom of the lid it will have started sooting that up if its the culprit

So to wake this up a few months later, I wanted to give an update and ask further advice.

Blanking the EGR valves cured the sloooooooowwwww pulling away. Replacing the turbo rubber pipe made not much difference at all.

But the car is still smoking when kicked down. Boot it up a motorway and it will smoke. Kick it down and it will smoke. Drive like Miss Marple and it wont.

Top end and general performance is reduced. I am sure it used to do over a hundred (on Autobahns naturally, cough cough), now it is a job of work and a build up to get it past 80. Accompanied by clouds of black smoke.

It simply isn't performing as well as it used to and is still intermittently smoking when kicked down at all speeds. It feels like the turbo, while working, isn't working properly. Or perhaps over-fuelling.

No warning lights at all.

It remains usable, but it isn't right. It has become pretty gutless to drive.

What is my next thing to check please? Get a 2005-2009 RRS (FAH500210) sat nav/dash mat here - the one that wasn't there when you bought the car.

Spiffing wheel centre caps available

Do we have any fault codes to go on?

I don't have a code reader thingy Mike I'm afraid. Get a 2005-2009 RRS (FAH500210) sat nav/dash mat here - the one that wasn't there when you bought the car.

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Is there any unusual noises coming from the engine (like whining, sucking of air) ?

Worth checking the turbo pipe also (not just the problematic intercooler pipes which you've already done) - mine was attached but not tightened, had a whooshing noise on hard boot from the left bank (ie away from the air intake) - also check around the engine, if this has been going on for a while, there is probably by now some tell tail black crud in the area of the problem.

Cheers

David

Engine sounds sweet as a nut to me. I'll investigate in the engine bay looking for crud at pipe joints etc...... Get a 2005-2009 RRS (FAH500210) sat nav/dash mat here - the one that wasn't there when you bought the car.

Spiffing wheel centre caps available

For completeness, amazingly, the answer to this seems to be here. Get a 2005-2009 RRS (FAH500210) sat nav/dash mat here - the one that wasn't there when you bought the car.

Spiffing wheel centre caps available

What ??? Really ? Black smoke (over fueling) is/could be being caused by the wrong type of brake light bulbs ? I'm not saying i don't believe it because everything is possible with these Brummy Buggies but it seems amazing if so.

I think more that one was blown and I didn't know.

What can I say? Car has been gutless and smokey for months. Two new Osram brake light bulbs later and its back to its old self. Get a 2005-2009 RRS (FAH500210) sat nav/dash mat here - the one that wasn't there when you bought the car.

Spiffing wheel centre caps available

Really pleased for you Stuart, glad you got it fixed - must have been worse than finding a needle in a haystack. I know there have been issues with the brake light switch causing some funny issues, but to find a brake light bulb being an issue is beyond me.

At the end of the day, it's a filament in a casing - perhaps Osram have higher/lower resistance which causes a spike, but then again - I would expect that to only happen when the brake light circuit is on - not when you're driving with brakes off

I wanted to add to this all this time later as this time we have really cured the problem.

When a brake light was gone it got worse, replacing the bulb made it a bit better - but that was a red herring. It's had the MAP sensor cleaned, intercooler pipes, EGR valves blanked, etc. Still smokey.

The problem got worse and worse over time and we never really found a cure. I now have a FF and my wife has been using this in recent months so I haven't driven it. The brakes started squeaking and it was due a test so I bunged it in a decent local garage I use for some stuff here in sunny Manchester (not a RR specialist).

While it was in for test, it turned out it needed some brake pads and a few small test-related bits, I asked them to see if they could find the source of the smoke while they had it; not expecting a non specialist to find it.

But me they found it.....