Daewoo Z20S

The 2.0 turbodiesel in the Daewoo Nubira and Chevrolet Optra.

⚑ It is a VM Motori engine, not a Daewoo one, which is the useful fact: VM built diesels for a great many marques, and its designs share characteristics that GM Korea material does not describe.

It is common-rail, unlike the older VM engines in this catalogue, and carries the modern diesel set — an EGR valve that carbons up and, in later markets, a particulate filter that short journeys will block.

Its known weakness is the cylinder head, in keeping with VM's other engines: coolant loss with no external leak is the tell, and it is testable with a chemical block tester before anything is stripped. Parts and specialist knowledge are both thin, which is usually what decides a repair on a car of this value.