AMacdonald

My Alhambra decided to go lame today. Symptoms are revs freely out of gear but lacks torque and struggles up hills. Subjectively, it feels normal up to about 1500-180 revs in gear but very limp above that. It did the same thing a couple of months ago so I changed the MAF at the roadside(always keep a new one in the boot after a failure in france) but that didn't help. The fault suddenly cleared itself a few miles after changing the MAF that time but it seems stickier this time. A new MAF hasn't helped and I've disconnected the battery for a bit in case of an electronic glitch. In both cases the car was running normally beforehand, I parked up for a bit, restarted and it was there from the restart. Can anyone suggest anything? Thanks Angus

My 97 Alhambra TDi (180,000 miles!) went in to a local garage for new CV joints last week. I got it back on thursday night but there was still a knocking noise which turned out to be a poorly secured hose bouncing against the inner CV joint on the drivers side. Went back in for a couple of hours on Friday to be fixed. I got the car back and set off. Within a few miles I was having a bit of trouble selecting 2nd and 3rd - the gearstick movement was stiff as if stirring old porridge. After parking up for a few minutes I could only select 3rd or 4th and the AA recovered me back to the garage where the car is now. No progress on a fix yet that I've heard. I've done some forum searching and I'm hopeful it's not going to mean a new gearbox but can anyone think that the CV joint work could have affected the gearbox linkage or cables? I know coincidences happen but I don't want to be taken for a ride.

What are you waiting to have replaced? the compressor. If so sorry but I can almost guarantee they wil come back and tell you there's a load more work to do as the internals of the compressor will have shatttered and all the bits are now floating around your aircon system. You may also be unlucky like I was and find you have a leaking condensor when they do the job. All in all may end up around

Well, I decided to book it into the garage to have a new compressor fitted. On the way, rattling like a bucket of nails I got stuck at some roadworks. not wanting to listen to it for any longer then neccessary, I switched the engine off. Big mistake. It wouldn't even turn over after that. The AA man told me the engine had seized and grinned while he was doing it. I knew he was talking rubbish but there's something disconcerting about a grinning AA man. We tried a towed bump start and his enormously thick tow rope snapped. Ha! The garage confirmed that the AC compressor had seized up. When they seize, they seize properly. Waiting for the new one to be fitted now. If I've still got the car next time it goes I'll just remove it and run the drivebelts over the non-AC path. Will I have to replace any pulleys for that or does one have a V path and a grooved path?

has the air-con compressor seized and caused the belt failure ? Had this on mine. Reach down to the front of the AC compressor. Try to rotate the centrifugal clutch inside the belt pulley. There were clouds of smoke billowing out of the bonnet. The compressor had smoke marks on it too. Right, I've replaced the belt. Mostly in the dark and mostly without the use of 10mm or 12mm sockets, which both went to the socket orphanage years ago. The air-con compressor pulley is loose and rattly. With the engine running and the compressor disengaged it sounds like a bucket of nails being rattled. It's quieter with the compressor enagaged and the air-con still seems to work but the pulley is obviously loose. The belt tensioner is just a blur. Is this something to do with the clutch and can it be rectified without buying a new compressor? Plus, I have to drive to Reading (~250 miles) at the weekend. How bad an idea is that?

has the air-con compressor seized and caused the belt failure ? I'm not sure yet. The first thing I noticed was a slight "slapping" sound from the engine bay, like a strand of wire flapping around. The sound stopped when I engaged the air con. At that point the aircon was still working. I imagine the belt was starting to delaminate although I can't quite explain why engaging the compressor should clear the sound.

The belt on my mk1 TDi 90 Alhambra has snapped. I only noticed when I got home and found clouds of rubbery smoke pouring out of the bonnet. The aircon had stopped working earlier which I presume was symptomatic of the same thing. So, is it the sort of thing an amateur who used to spend lots of time mending his mini 20 years ago can fix or should I leave it to the semi-professionals in the garage?

With the broken switch on the passenger side the tailgate now works as it always did before. I'll add that one to my extremely long list of bizarre Shalaxy faults. Now to get another switch from somewhere.

if you short out the contacts on the drivers door switch does it revert to as it was before? I've swapped the switches from the driver and passenger sides so I'll know as soon as I get back from taking the kids to the beach.

this a standard feature on the Mk1 :( once the enine is running and the drivers door shut the rear hatch auto locks :( for the reason of security as you suggest! the only way now to open the rear hatch is to either use a key in the lock or by popping the drivers door open I wonder if it's related to the demise of the drivers door switch then. That's been u/s for a while now so maybe the car doesn't know I've got out!

Maybe this is the way it's meant to be but I don't remember it from the bulk of my 5 years ownership. I have a 97 mk1 Alhambra and recently (as far as I can tell) I've had to wait 20-30 seconds between shutting the ignition off and being able to open the boot. After this time the servo will do it's little zit-zut noise and everything is normal. The rear window heater stopped recently so I spent a happy afternoon splicing ultra-flexible cable into all the the loom wires at the obvious place but the 20-30 sec delay remains. So, is this normal and have I just suddenly become really fast at getting from the drivers seat to the boot, or is there a subtle fault somewhere?

On my old Alhambra you hold down the trip counter reset button while you switch the ignition on. I hold it down for a few seconds afterwards as well.

Possibly. I have a '97 Alhambra 1.9 TDi 90. I didn't think there were many different Bosch MAFs though. I found him by myself (thanks Google) but you might be able to pull some comission out of the bag ;-)

I just ordered one from sbbparts on ebay.

Well, it had to happen one day. My wife added half a tank of unleaded to my '97 Alhambra TDi 90, then drove 15 miles on it without noticing anything amiss. Oddly enough, it was very poorly when I tried to start it later. So, assuming the engine has had it, can anyone suggest an approximate ball-park figure for what I can expect to pay for a replacement, fitted?

Mine is still flashing but the brake lights are fine and everything else about the car seems OK too.

I was just about to post with exactly the same issue. I've just had mine back from the local dealer and the diesel heater light starts flashing about 30 secs after starting off. I had it once when both brake light bulbs had failed but they're fine this time. It was fine before it went into the dealer but since it's just taken them 8 days to replace a brake servo, I'm not all that keen to send it back anytime soon if there's an easy fix. The car starts very quickly so I think my glowplugs are OK.

I bought my Alhambra (ford stereo) from a Ford dealer nearly three years ago and asked for the stereo code then. He kept on promising to supply it until I stopped asking about a year ago. The thing is, he'd obviously got it for himself since the thing had been serviced several times. He was never able to give it to me though.

I had a quiet squeal from my TDi for a long time and never bothered about it. At the next service the garage told me they'd found and fixed a small oil leak from the turbo. The squeal never came back.

It's a general purpose indication of a fault. Last time I saw it my compressor had failed.

Can you hear the compressor "moaning" when you turn it on? On my Alhambra that indicates that all the coolant has escaped (again).

Wonderful! Even I should be able to try unplugging that without breaking anything. Nothing important, anyway. Not very important, at any rate. Thanks again.

Where can I find this maf? My Alhambra has always been horribly sluggish. The local Ford dealer has had it for a total of 8 weeks in the last 2.5 years trying to find out why. I've searched the forum but "maf" is less than 4 letters and the search function doesn't want to know. A photo would be great if anyone has the time. I've got a late '97 1.9TDi 90.

Was that it? I'm chasing the same thing tonight.