In the event you are informed of abnormal symptoms on your car, you are right to be intrigued, because a car represents a massive annual budget and sudden breakdowns don’t reduce the bill. So what if you think that you have a leaking injector on your Tesla Model X? You almost certainly figured it out thanks to black/oily drips along your engine unit, or a troubled idle, or strange black smoke. These three signs of illness are the main signals of a leaking injector. As this problem can end up in more critical engine problems on your car, we chose to write this article to help you validate the failure of a leaking injector and deal with it correctly. To do so, we will first look into the case of gasoline injectors and then at those of diesel injectors Tesla Model X.
Leaking injector on my petrol Tesla Model X
It is important to know that the injectors on petrol and diesel engines are different, in reality, the difference in combustion between these two sort of engines makes the injection different. The biggest difference lies in the pressure undergone by the injectors, on a petrol engine it will vary between 3.5 bars for indirect injection and 120 bars for indirect injection.
Leaking injector on a petrol Tesla Model X: The different leaks
It should be mentioned that injector leaks on a Tesla Model X equipped with a petrol engine are rather rare. This is because of the much lower pressure in the petrol intake systems. Even so, there are two sort of leaks:
- Leakage from the top of the injector:
It is plausible that you have a leak from the top of the injector, this is the portion that is attached to the fuel rail, an O-ring will be involved in this. - Leak injector of the lower part:
Finally, you may suffer a leak coming from the lower portion of the injector of your car, this one will come from the junction with the engine and not with the rail as seen before.
Leaking injector on my diesel Tesla Model X
Unlike petrol engines, which have spark combustion, diesel engines run on compression. This combustion system generates very high pressure in the engine, as do the injectors. On these models, the pressure is more than 10 times higher than on the direct injection of car petrol engines, reaching 1800 to 2000 bars.
Leaking injector on diesel Tesla Model X: The different leaks
In the case of leaking diesel injectors on your Tesla Model X, there are three different sort of leaks:
- Leakage from the injector inlet:
In this instance, it is an inlet pipe that will deform with time, in most cases the leak will be at the clamping point. - Injector return leakage:
As its name suggests, this leakage relates to the management of the fuel return in the injector, this time the injector that leaks on your Tesla Model X will be the result of an O-ring or its plastic tip that leaks. - Injector base leak:
This injection leak is one of the most annoying, it is the junction between the engine and the injector nose that leaks at a copper seal, you should experience an air noise and a compression loss. - If after verifying you have oil leaking but it does not come from your injectors, we advise you to browse this article on the presence of oil leaking on your Tesla Model X.
Leaking injector on my Tesla Model X, how to fix the leak
And finally, we’re going to look into how to fix a leaking injector on your car. Regularly a leak is associated, as we have seen prior to this, to a worn seal due to the pressures endured. But think that the pressure in the circuit is gigantic, especially on diesel engines. So you will have to take some measures:
- Lower the pressure before any work is conducted…
- Covering you to avoid the risk of fuel spillage
- NEVER work on a running diesel engine injector.
Relating to the repair part of your leak, it will very often be limited to changing the seals that have failed:
- Find the source of the leak
- Take apart the injector in question
- Replace the corresponding seal kit
- Reassemble the assembly and tighten with a torque wrench in accordance with the manufacturer’s standards.
In all cases, these interventions are not specifically difficult, but if you have the tiniest doubt in the treatment of your injector that leaks on your Tesla Model X, we advise you to get closer to your motor mechanic to avoid any bad handling that could severely harm the condition of your Tesla Model X.
If you need more guides on the Tesla Model X, go to our Tesla Model X category.
