Wifes Broke Me Diesel.

[snowytop]

Hello, can anyone help please?

 

We've got a 1.9 TD galaxy on an R plate and today the heater/glow plug light has started flashing and the performance has dropped off.

 

When you start it on the drive without touching the throttle, it starts and ticks over fine with no flashing glow plug light. As soon as you press the throttle the glow plug light starts flashing, it feels slow to rev up, doesn't feel as if its running smoothly (a little bit uneven or lumpy) and if you hold about 2000 revs there is clouds of diesel smoke (whiteish colour).

 

In case theres any connection - last winter I discovered that the glow plugs were not being switched on in very cold weather. On investigation I discovered that the relay (the coil of the relay) was not being earthed when plugged into the fuse box (is this switched via some kind of electronic hokus pokus ?) if you provided your own earth the heaters came on.

 

I have to hold my hands up and say that with these electronics and ecu's I'm at a loss where to start, I'm very competant with the conventional stuff, but feel like I've become a complete novice again overnight, so if anyone can give me some pointers please, it would be very much appeciated as I haven't got a clue where to start.

 

Thank you very much in anticipation,

Mark.

[sepulchrave]

Unplug the MAF and tell us if it gets any better.

[snowytop]

Unplug the MAF and tell us if it gets any better.

Hi, Thanks very much for the reply.

 

Just been outside waking the neighbours but with the MAFF unplugged there was no improvement, still no flashing glow plug light till revved up, and still loads of smoke and sluggish and lumpy.

 

thanks for trying, any more thoughts please?

 

Mark.

[zorgman]

flashing heater indicator could be anything you need to get the ecu read with vag com or a handheld reader. got my handheld off ebay and works a treat cheaper than paying for someone to read it plus its there when you want it

[snowytop]

flashing heater indicator could be anything you need to get the ecu read with vag com or a handheld reader. got my handheld off ebay and works a treat cheaper than paying for someone to read it plus its there when you want it

 

Hi, thanks for the reply,

I think its probably a good idea to invest in an ECU reader, if I try e-bay could you suggest any points I should look for in a reader or even avoid. Do they tell you the falty component - corrctly? A guy in work today told me a garage machine said he needed a lambda sensor and after buying it they were wrong, (won't be going there then) and it didn't fix his problem.

 

As far as the car is concerned I suppose I was hoping that someone may recognise the symptoms - perfect starting and tick over, loads of smoke when revved up combined with uneven running and poor performance, they were supposed to come back and say " I've had that fault, it's a sensor that costs

[snowytop]

Hi Everyone,

 

Slight development to this problem. Had car on a garage's diagnostic today they were really good, honest and open and didn't fill me full of bull, and eventually it seems the machine decided it was the ' Injector stroke needle sensor'.

 

Does this sound likely ?

 

Any thoughts very welcome please.

[marinabrid]

a similar thing happened to our old tdi 90 r reg last year

one of th einjectors has a wire to it and is bigger than th eothers on top, this is the sensor. luckily only th ewire had broken on ours but it did the same as yours started and ticked over fine but when revved it stumbled and smoked loike fury.

check the wires to it and the surrounding mulitplug connectors if not i think they are very expensive but you could get a second hand one

[snowytop]

a similar thing happened to our old tdi 90 r reg last year

one of th einjectors has a wire to it and is bigger than th eothers on top, this is the sensor. luckily only th ewire had broken on ours but it did the same as yours started and ticked over fine but when revved it stumbled and smoked loike fury.

check the wires to it and the surrounding mulitplug connectors if not i think they are very expensive but you could get a second hand one

 

 

Thanks for that info. It's really helpful to know that we are probably going in the right direction (at last).

 

I'll do some investigating in the morning and keep my fingers crossed for something easy. Many Thanks.

[seatkid]

The injector on No 3 cylinder is the one with the needle sensor IIRC