Diesel engine symptoms/help!

[Fallout]

After seeing in JackieBlacks thread that there are a fair few diesel owners here, I thought it might be worth asking for advice on this ...

I have a 2004 Mondeo 2.0 TCDI with an engine issue. Car starts up fine and runs, but when it's cold (first minute really), it struggles at 2.5k RPM. When it reaches 2.5k it struggles to get over it, stutters and loses power. It also dumps out a load of smoke out the exhaust. Then after a minute or so it's fine.

My first thought was the turbo might be on it's way out, as I'm guessing that's approx when it spools up and there may be a build up of oil or something until it gets spinning. Any thoughts or advice on fault and prolonging it's life? At the moment I'm idling it on the drive for a few minutes before driving but that's not making any noticeable difference.

[DJ123]

egr valve maybe sticking

It sounds turbo related I hate to say.
Could be injector related, how many miles has the car done?

Has it been serviced regular, when was diesel filter last changed? My van ran really well after I changed my filter.

[NTECUK]

Make a plate to block of the EGR .
Is it black smoke.or white.

[dirtydog]

My mondeo used to do that, does it suffer with any loss of power when driving?

Cold diesel[waxing] and clogged filters,choked EGR, --------THE COLOUR OF THE SMOKE WOULD BE MORE HELPFUL i.e blue,black or white and any strange noise from the turbo?

[Fallout]

Thanks for the suggestions gents. To answer the questions:
- It's just hit 100k miles
- Service history is fairly non-existent, although we have good reason to believe it was correctly serviced, but owners were too disorganised to keep receipts etc.
- Smoke is definitely dark. It's the sort of thing you can notice when looking out the rear window. A good old plume just as the engine is struggling at 2.5k and then no more once it's warmed up and engine is revving freely again.

Oil burners do send out some plumes when they have done lots of miles, normally under high load.

There could be a load of small issues with yours as its high ish mileage and an unproven service history.

Scan through the forums, I'll bet there are dozens of peeps with same car/issues.

[NTECUK]

So if its black its too much diesel to the amount of o2.

On that its unlikely cloged filter .
EGR Is the first and easiest thing to eliminate.next is airflow meter .

[Fallout]

Thanks guys. It's not a serious problem right now, so just thought I'd ask you guys and see what your initial thoughts were. EGR would be a nice relatively straight forward fix, although won't filthy diesels need that to pass the MOT, or can it just be eliminated?

Once I bite the bullet or when it becomes a problems and I feel like getting my hands dirty, I'll check out the various Ford forums.