Engine wont start

Compression combustion engines are sometimes sensitive to contaminated fuel or the wrong fuel, #2 light diesel can sometimes vary a great deal. When I worked on diesel motors with my dad, the fuel issue was the first thing he taught me to look at when hard starting was the complaint. Cetane ratings should be at the manufacturers minimum rating. Fuel filters should be changed on a regular basis.

Sounds like it may have an injector issue. You may want to find a shop capable of testing the injectors and fuel pressure to see if they are all good. Those engines dont like to be run lean or rich, it can damage them internally

My pleasure

Have it scanned to see if the computer will communicate first. White smoke isnt a good sign it can be a mixture issue or coolant burning. Does it use any coolant? Especially with it runnning rough, have it chemical tested for a blown head gasket

Hello ... hope you don't mind me adding 2 pence worth jack !

White smoke is a sign of a bad turbo (a common fault on this vehicle) the not revving over 4000 is also a sign of this ... even though the turbo is not kicking in on tick over it will still cause smoke issue's and the ECU will pick up on the fault, plus you are giving it extra gas/petrol (accelerator pedal) to keep/get it going ... Has the turbo ever been replaced ?? It is very unusual on this model for the turbo to last this long ?? you need to have the turbo checked out ... also the check engine light should be ON all the time ... as jack has suggested, have the vehicle plugged into a diagnostic computer to see if it link's and give's any fault codes .. it could be a bad ECU not controlling some of the system's correctly or a bad sensor not giving the correct signal's causing the ECU to supply wrong information ? .. I do suspect the vehicle is in LIMP mode and will need to be plugged into a computer to verify this ? the tapping sound is probably a sticking valve there are hydraulic lifters on this vehicle !! also as jack suggested this could be a headgasket related issue ... have the cylinders compression tested and a chemical test carried out .. if you have bad compression on any cylinders then this could be a sticking valve on that cylinder or a leaking headgasket !!

hope this helps .. let me know

Hello .. thanks for the donation .. much appreciated !

You really need to have the car plugged into a diagnostic computer which can check for transmission fault codes .. most transmission repair centre's will diagnose for free .. sounds like you may have a presssure solonoid fault inside the transmission .. but without the diagnostic scan or breaking down the transmission it would be impossible to say !!

Hope this helps

No Problem ..please let us know your final fix .. or repost if you need further assistance ...

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If you are not getting any white smoke when the vehicle is at normal operating temperature then I do not believe the turbo is the fault ... you would get more smoke after warm up especially when pressing the throttle ?... but this is also true of a bad headgasket ? have the vehicle plugged into a diagnostic computer to retrieve any fault codes ! and to check the vehicle is in limp mode ... check cylinder compression also ..

hope this helps

Hello. Thanks for the donation. Much appreciated

Does the CEL/MIL (check engine light) show at anytime on the dash display? Is it showing constantly? Check the fuel line connectors under the bonnet/hood. They tend to wear on older renault models and leak slightly and eventually pop off. Let me know

Firstly add a good fuel injector cleaner to the fuel tank ! This sounds like a fuel/air mixture fault. So you could try cleaning the MAF (mass airflow) sensor. Although the way you describe your fault I would be expecting the fault to be illuminating the CEL? Does this fault occur everyday or is it intermittent?

MAF sensor uses a hot wire sensing element to measure amount of air entering the engine. Air passing over the hot wire causes it to cool. The hot wire is maintained at 392 °F (200 °C) greater than ambient temperature, as measured by a constant cold wire. The current required to maintain hot wire operating temperature is proportional to the intake air mass. The PCM uses this current requirement to calculate the fuel injector pulse width in order to provide the desired air/fuel ratio.