7 months and 8K KM later our brand new T6.1 Cali is being toed :(

[rhcpu2]

Hi everybody!

Today we got a bad experience...

We left home and after 1 minute we had to stop on a red light... we started to see a lot of smoke around the van... At first I though it was the exhaust of the car in front, when the car in front left, the smoke stayed around the van and that's when we knew something was not okay! Time to unfold the warning triangle for the first time.

I verified that the smoke was coming from the bottom of the van. It looked it was coming from below the front seats position. It was so smoke that we were already talking with the firefighters department. However, when we shutdown the engine the smoked stopped so we cancel it off.

It was time to call the assistance. At the first they were telling us on the phone that this could be the heating system (it was a cold day around 5°C) and that smoke was normal... but when we turned on the engine again, the smoke started again and it smelled like burnt stuff so we insisted for them to come. They finally arrived, we turned on the engine again, there was no smoke this time but a lot of smell. When they smelled it they immediately said "it's not good... it's the motor" in German (we live in Switzerland) and they said it should go to the garage.

There were no red/yellow indicators on the panel, so although the smoke was not coming directly from the motor but from below the van I hope it is not something serious with the motor.

That's our story for today. I am glad there were no flames and for sure after this experience I will get a fire extinguisher!

I will give feedback when I know more about it.

Cheers.

 

[GrumpyGranddad]

Hi everybody!

Today we got a bad experience...

We left home and after 1 minute we had to stop on a red light... we started to see a lot of smoke around the van... At first I though it was the exhaust of the car in front, when the car in front left, the smoke stayed around the van and that's when we knew something was not okay! Time to unfold the warning triangle for the first time.

I verified that the smoke was coming from the bottom of the van. It looked it was coming from below the front seats position. It was so smoke that we were already talking with the firefighters department. However, when we shutdown the engine the smoked stopped so we cancel it off.

It was time to call the assistance. At the first they were telling us on the phone that this could be the heating system (it was a cold day around 5°C) and that smoke was normal... but when we turned on the engine again, the smoke started again and it smelled like burnt stuff so we insisted for them to come. They finally arrived, we turned on the engine again, there was no smoke this time but a lot of smell. When they smelled it they immediately said "it's not good... it's the motor" in German (we live in Switzerland) and they said it should go to the garage.

There were no red/yellow indicators on the panel, so although the smoke was not coming directly from the motor but from below the van I hope it is not something serious with the motor.

That's our story for today. I am glad there were no flames and for sure after this experience I will get a fire extinguisher!

I will give feedback when I know more about it.

Cheers.

Not good! Hope you get it resolved soon.

 

[kurienp]

Hi everybody!

Today we got a bad experience...

We left home and after 1 minute we had to stop on a red light... we started to see a lot of smoke around the van... At first I though it was the exhaust of the car in front, when the car in front left, the smoke stayed around the van and that's when we knew something was not okay! Time to unfold the warning triangle for the first time.

I verified that the smoke was coming from the bottom of the van. It looked it was coming from below the front seats position. It was so smoke that we were already talking with the firefighters department. However, when we shutdown the engine the smoked stopped so we cancel it off.

It was time to call the assistance. At the first they were telling us on the phone that this could be the heating system (it was a cold day around 5°C) and that smoke was normal... but when we turned on the engine again, the smoke started again and it smelled like burnt stuff so we insisted for them to come. They finally arrived, we turned on the engine again, there was no smoke this time but a lot of smell. When they smelled it they immediately said "it's not good... it's the motor" in German (we live in Switzerland) and they said it should go to the garage.

There were no red/yellow indicators on the panel, so although the smoke was not coming directly from the motor but from below the van I hope it is not something serious with the motor.

That's our story for today. I am glad there were no flames and for sure after this experience I will get a fire extinguisher!

I will give feedback when I know more about it.

Cheers.

Oh dear. Hope it is nothing major and you get it resolved soon.

Was the smell like burning rubber or acrid like chemical smell or something else?

 

[rhcpu2]

It was like something was burning... Not sure what though.

 

[Loz]

What you describe sounds like the coolant heater that is diesel powered like the auxiliary heater but for the engine. It runs automatically when below 5degres.
very smelly and can smoke the first few times then it improves.

 

[AlisonF]

That sounds quite scary and I hope it gets sorted soon. Please keep us updated. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Ladymuck]

Oh no, not what you expect from a new cali, Hope it isn't too serious

 

[HB19]

I can concur with Loz. I had a similar experience with my Cali last year.
I bought from new in the summer and all was fine.
The weather chilled and I had a very smokey and smelly experience when I got the Cali out to nip to the shops.
i searched through the forum and found similar stories so left it.
I had perhaps two or three more experiences and then it went away never to return.
the smell was like burning rubber and the engine was over running.
Lots of smoke from under van.
Lots of initial panic.
Hope this helps.

 

[Eber123]

Good afternoon,

That is a terrible experience, especially in a California which is that new...

I assume the van is with VW for a check up. Please keep us informed what the reason of the issue was.

Best of luck.

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[Lambeth Cali]

What you describe sounds like the coolant heater that is diesel powered like the auxiliary heater but for the engine. It runs automatically when below 5degres.
very smelly and can smoke the first few times then it improves.

I read a review by Matt Prior of a Land Rover Discovery in Autocar where a similar thing happened every day. It was the coolant heater and after discussion with Land Rover I think they agreed to disconnect it.
It seems possible that nothing is broken. Fingers crossed

 

[rhcpu2]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the feedback! The van is at VW. At that moment, we were trying to call our insurance assistance but since we were on the waiting list for quite a while to be assisted by a person from the correct department, we decided to call our dealer and he mentioned that since we bought the van there they have a free service to toe the vehicle. This ended up quite nicely since we did not have to involve our insurance so far.

At the garage they said they would check it this afternoon and tomorrow give some feedback.

Cheers

 

[Loz]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the feedback! The van is at VW. At that moment, we were trying to call our insurance assistance but since we were on the waiting list for quite a while to be assisted by a person from the correct department, we decided to call our dealer and he mentioned that since we bought the van there they have a free service to toe the vehicle. This ended up quite nicely since we did not have to involve our insurance so far.

At the garage they said they would check it this afternoon and tomorrow give some feedback.

Cheers

If it is the heater, they need to check at 7 am tomorrow morning when they start when the outside temperature is cold enough to bring it on.

 

[rhcpu2]

Hi everyone,

I got the van back today. They could not reproduce the issue in their garage :/ so they can't fix an issue that they can't see...

They did not have a possible explanation for that amount of smoke... So I am like "what's going on?"

I checked the minimum temperature for the days after the first incident and it was around 8/9°C degrees. So if the smoke was coming from the coolant heater like you guys said I guess the higher temperature explained why they could not reproduce it...

I see two outcomes: (1) the smoke came from the coolant heater which eventually will go away after some usage or (2) the coolant heater has some issue that creates a lot of smoke so this will happen again when temperature is low. If this happens again I hope I can record it to show later to the VW guys.

Cheers!

 

[rod_vw]

My thoughts for what they are worth would be...

Keep an eye (or nose) on it until you have a cold morning then if you see smoke or smell the burning again stop and investigate. If it's the coolant heater the smoke will be coming from just left of the centre of the vehicle below the space between the two front seats.
If you have the time and ability to familiarise yourself with the heater exhausts beforehand you should find two exhaust pipes about 25mm diameter each under the chassis pointing roughly towards the centre of the vehicle, one from each side. The left one is the coolant heater, the right one the blown air heater.

If the smoke is from the coolant heater it should clear when the heater has been running for a while and most probably never appear again or if it does only minorly after prolonged periods of the heater not being fired up.
If it worries you take a photo of the said exhaust pipe of it occurring and show your dealership and ask them to investigate. I'm not sure but they may be able to force the heater into service with their diagnostics system regardless of the ambient temperature.

 

[Hotel California]

@rhcpu2 , if you take a look at post #4 and #5 in this thread

Cali technical tips&tricks

As followinging the tread Umbi27 , my fellow Belgian member, started here http://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/vw-campercenter-amersfoort-7-march-technical-demo-for-belgian-cali-owners.9424/ I 'm gonne show some more pics and post some of the "tips&tricks" we got from our Dutch VW aces at CCN (...

vwcaliforniaclub.com

It will help locate both the heaters and exhausts.
These are older pictures of the underside of the T5 but in fact the heaters will be in thesame place on all new Cali's (T6 - T6.1)

 

[rhcpu2]

Thank you guys. I will definitely keep an eye on top of this!

 

[TripleBee]

Hi everyone,

I got the van back today. They could not reproduce the issue in their garage :/ so they can't fix an issue that they can't see...

They did not have a possible explanation for that amount of smoke... So I am like "what's going on?"

I checked the minimum temperature for the days after the first incident and it was around 8/9°C degrees. So if the smoke was coming from the coolant heater like you guys said I guess the higher temperature explained why they could not reproduce it...

I see two outcomes: (1) the smoke came from the coolant heater which eventually will go away after some usage or (2) the coolant heater has some issue that creates a lot of smoke so this will happen again when temperature is low. If this happens again I hope I can record it to show later to the VW guys.

Cheers!

So they could not "fool" the outside temperature sensor with some cold spray?

 

[rhcpu2]

I mentioned about the coolant heater but they kept saying nothing is wrong with it... I guess I need some video footage in order to show them if anything is or isn't broken. I will check this again in the next cold days.

 

[WelshGas]

I mentioned about the coolant heater but they kept saying nothing is wrong with it... I guess I need some video footage in order to show them if anything is or isn't broken. I will check this again in the next cold days.

Was it actually smoke or steam you saw? How quickly did it dissipate?

 

[rhcpu2]

That was smoke for sure, not steam. It was quite comparable to the usual smoke that comes out of the exhaust but it was coming from the front as said before. So I am really convinced that it was probably coming from the coolant heater and hopefully it is just a temporary thing (fingers crossed!).

 

[Alan Chaplin]

Hi everybody!

Today we got a bad experience...

We left home and after 1 minute we had to stop on a red light... we started to see a lot of smoke around the van... At first I though it was the exhaust of the car in front, when the car in front left, the smoke stayed around the van and that's when we knew something was not okay! Time to unfold the warning triangle for the first time.

I verified that the smoke was coming from the bottom of the van. It looked it was coming from below the front seats position. It was so smoke that we were already talking with the firefighters department. However, when we shutdown the engine the smoked stopped so we cancel it off.

It was time to call the assistance. At the first they were telling us on the phone that this could be the heating system (it was a cold day around 5°C) and that smoke was normal... but when we turned on the engine again, the smoke started again and it smelled like burnt stuff so we insisted for them to come. They finally arrived, we turned on the engine again, there was no smoke this time but a lot of smell. When they smelled it they immediately said "it's not good... it's the motor" in German (we live in Switzerland) and they said it should go to the garage.

There were no red/yellow indicators on the panel, so although the smoke was not coming directly from the motor but from below the van I hope it is not something serious with the motor.

That's our story for today. I am glad there were no flames and for sure after this experience I will get a fire extinguisher!

I will give feedback when I know more about it.

Cheers.

Hi, my Cali is only a couple of months old and we regularly get a burning smell when we stop. After my wife complained, I put it down to paint / coatings being overheated on new engine or exhaust components but now this has me a bit worried. Will follow your feedback with great interest. Thanks for sharing.

 

[rhcpu2]

Hi I also have the same smell, much less now but sometimes I can still feel it.

 

[dave6779]

That’s so weird, we’ve just had the same thing. My garage said it sounds like a diesel leak, the was smoke across my whole drive it was everywhere and the cabin stinks of diesel.

The smell when you stop is the DPF running, it normally runs when you stop, annoying but nothing to worry about.

 

[Alan Chaplin]

That’s so weird, we’ve just had the same thing. My garage said it sounds like a diesel leak, the was smoke across my whole drive it was everywhere and the cabin stinks of diesel.

The smell when you stop is the DPF running, it normally runs when you stop, annoying but nothing to worry about.

Thanks for the response regarding the DPF. I’ve read up on this and it aligns with the smell and symptoms which is reassuring. Cheers A

 

[rhcpu2]

Hey everyone,

Today we went to another VW garage to change the wheels with winter tires. We took the opportunity to ask there about our smoke issue. All the mechanics said immediately that this was normal, they even raised the van one more time to show us the bottom of it and the exhaust (see attached picture).

They said it was completely normal for the first time to have smoke and that after the summer it could also smoke a bit due to gases and possibly water that remained inside for some reason. This is inline with what others said here in the forum so it seems to be good news!

The weather has not been cold enough to go below 5°C so I could not test it again so far!

Just wanted to keep you updated with this new info... I will come back again as soon temperature drops below 5!

Cheers