Help Please Smelly and smokey A4 2.0 TDi

Hi all - any help much appreciated:

My A4 is really smelly all the time - to the point I can't drive in town with the windows open.

Also the car belches blue smoke on acceleration when in traffic - which given I live in SE London is pretty much all the time. Seems to run clear on the few occasions I get outside the M25

Had major DPF issues in June this year which eventually involved replacing the DPF, intake manifold, and turbo all of which were completely blocked. Both symptoms (smell and smoke) were present before the DPF issues but the smell has got worse since.

Any ideas on possible cause, and likely cost?

I've been advised it might a be cracked cylinder head, or gasket.

Or that it could be the valve stem seals allowing oil into the chamber on idle and burning up under acceleration. I assume from this the smell would be the oil burning? If so doesn't explain why smell is present immediately on start up.

slick said:

was the DPF definitely replaced?

if it was replaced, did you use a genuine one or a pattern part? had similar problem on my old car and it was down to a pattern part.

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Hi thanks for your reply.

The work was done by an independant audi specialist in June - the invoice shows a remanufactured turbo, new mass air filter, new DPF pressure sensor, new oil filter, chemical clean and force regen, Normfest DPF cleaner, remanufactured inlet manifold, and a 'combined cat/dpf' (which at £260 I assume was also remanufactured), and about 6 hour of diagnostics / labour. After this work the car was much improved in terms of smooth power delivery and not going into limp mode, but it was still smelly and smokey after the work.

spartacus 68 said:

If it was a cracked cylinder head I'd be expecting loss of coolant. You can rule out head gasket with a carbon test on the coolant. On my last Audi (B5 V6 without DPF), then a can of Forte diesel fuel conditioner straight into the fuel filter and driven like it was stolen did the job. Trouble is on the B8 it's under the car, so not straight forward, plus you need VCDS to prime replacement filter afterwards.

You could try a can in the fuel tank once your fuel light reminder comes on and drive it hard in second and third gears. Do it during the day so you can see the smoke. It will clear quite quickly Fuel up afterwards and look to get filter changed.

Check cabin pollen filter under glove box has been changed and has integral charcoal filter.

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Thanks very much for your reply - the smell is definitely coming from outside the cabin so I don't think the pollen filter can be the cause.
See my reply above to slick which lists the work done in June...cost was £2500 on a car worth not much more...