Engine smoke?

This weird thing happened yesterday and I will explain the dealership response.
2012 Passat SEL automatic TDI w/131K. Fully maintained by local VW garage.

Driving to my office I noticed a burning oil smell ever so slightly. Thought it was from truck in front of me. It was not however. When I got to my office I popped the hood and the fans just kept running and running, the rear of the engine close to firewall seemed very hot and a small waft of smoke coming from same area.

My trip was only about nine miles, the temperature was about 62 degrees outside and engine temp was dead on. Easy drive, no highway speeds. I called the dealership service manager and he said this is normal for this Diesel engine. Like, really I asked. He said nothing to worry about.

About four hours later I drove back home with ZERO issues. No fans, smoke or excessive heat from rear of engine,

Thoughts please?

Your engine probably entered a regen cycle on the way to work and that is why the engine bay was hot and the fans on when you shut off the engine. And then on the way home it completed the cycle and the engine fans were not on when the engine was shut off.

This is normal.

My '2013 has behaved similarly since day 1. You might have an oil leak contributing to smoke/smell. I have no leaks and no smell or smoke during regens.

Skimax said:

So this is the 1st time you noticed a regen in 131K miles? Our 2013 that we did the buyback at 40K and our 2015 SEL both did/do regens occasionally.

Click to expand...

If you browse the OP's post history, you would see they bought the car with 130k on the clock. So it's understandable why they didnt understand what was going on.

OK, sorry I didn't read his earlier posts. In this post he didn't mention when he acquired it. I don't browse every post on this or any forum.



Like I said, RTOM, it's amazing what you can learn.



Oh and the bit of burning oil, perhaps some spilled during that last oil change, just speculating.