Hi there, I bought a cat 303.5E2 CR last December (2019) and it only has 170 hours and whenever I cold start this machine it smokes excessively for a minimum of 5 minutes. It’s to the point where you don’t want to be anywhere near it when it’s smoking at startup cause you can’t breathe. Anybody else having this issue? I’d like to figure out if this is abnormal before my warranty is up.
if the smoke is coming out just the exhaust pipe, and it’s always done it, and it goes away as the engine warms up, I wouldn’t worry about it. If it smells oily and you have to constantly add oil, then you’d probably be burning oil somewhere. I keep my skidsteer in the unheated garage in the winter. When I start it up, I immediately slowly drive it outside to let it sit and warm up in order to avoid all the diesel startup smoke in the garage.
Questions - do you ever have to top up the engine oil.? Have you inspected the condition of the air filters.? Don't just look at how clean they are. Are they possibly damp.?
No I haven’t had to add oil at really. It eventually stops smoking after an extended warm up. Cat told me they are aware of the issue and are waiting to see if some higher hour 303.5e2’s have stopped smoking so much before they do a recall. Pretty pathetic that they would roll these machines out while knowing about this. Just because it’s non turbo doesn’t mean it should do this either. Thanks for the replies. Anyone looking to buy this machine beware.
Don't feel hard about it. Customers have been doing final development work on machines for OEM's since Christ was a carpenter.
Welcome to the Forums Fatenarr! We've rented and borrowed many 303.5E's and E2's in the past and never experienced excessive smoking on startup. Hope you get this settle out.
The glow plug operation looks to be an easy test. I've had bad grid heater relays on machines with less than 200 hours, so, a glow plug relay is certainly suspect, in my book. The ECM will flag a bad relay coil, but, it won't necessarily flag failed contacts. The cold start solenoid may be a little deeper involved to test.
my 303.5E does not smoke at start up. BUT: Under load it cokes up the outside paint around the exhaust pipe. Not sure if this helps.
Trying not to stray off-topic, but this is fairly normal. Exhaust pipe is a venturi system designed to suck dust from the engine compartment. Depending on your s/n there may be an update available to improve the venturi effect (male exhaust pipe sticks further in the female basically) and reduce the soot being deposited onto your paint. Back to the OP, what colour is this smoke? Just black or does it have a blue tinge? Or is it white/grey. All three can mean many different things. Nige and heymccall brought up very good suggestions.