Seems To Have Lost Power Again

[asp383]

since my last problems with my galaxy http://www.fordgalaxy.org.uk/ford/index.php/topic/25224-who-wants-to-confirm-what-im-thinking/?hl=asp383&do=findComment&comment=177439 all has been going well, although most of my journeys have been within 30 miles or so round trip, apart form a couple of about 70 miles round trip.

 

noticed a few times recently, when warmed up, especially on the longer journeys, it seems to be lacking power ... pulling away takes forever & can't "thrash it" on acceloration & when visiting family sunday, i decided to come back via the motorway, after about 5 minutes, on the hill going up to the junction, it has a 40mph limit, which i was doing in 4th, but suddenly felt like it hit a proverbial wall & had no more power, even dropping down to 3rd, & full throttle, i could only make 30mph. no smoke out back like last time & once on the motorway (although it took the whole of the slip road to get up to 60mph), it went fine, apart from the hills, where it struggled to keep to 70 ... it acts more like a fully loaded naturally aspirated ldv 400.

 

flew through it's mot last week (much to my suprise), although from the advisories, it's probably going to be it's last.

 

as i've got a lazy day tomorrow, i'm going to put my scanner on the car to see if it shows anything up. all the plugs look ok

 

i've got to do about 60 mile round trip thursday & about 120 on friday, so will try to get 1 of the passengers to keep note as i'm driving to see if/when the loss of power is noticable.

 

it's a 1997 1.9tdi i believe, it should be the ahu engine, but will double check & try to confirm tomorrow.

 

will double check the pugs etc, hoses & pipework, but at the moment i'm a bit limited with how much far i can inverstigate due to a knackered arm.

 

any other suggestions would be welcome, thanks.

[asp383]

should add, all levels are correct, no excess smoke when starting or pulling away & engine sounds like it should ... regular diesel purr.

 

the loss of power doesn't seem to be all the time & when it's fot the power, it does shift as i'd expect it to

[mumof4]

Try disconnecting the MAF, if the car is worse... then its not a MAF problem, if its the same... then it could be MAF at fault.

 

My Gal is like this at the moment, can be driving along quite happily, then all of a sudden, lack of power... bummer when overtaking a lorry.  I found turning the engine off then back on again reset the car and got it out of limp home mode. I dont advocate doing this when zooming along the M1 .. Ahem.

[billywizzo]

My car seems to do the same.

 

"noticed a few times recently, when warmed up, especially on the longer journeys, it seems to be lacking power ... pulling away takes forever & can't "thrash it" on acceloration & when visiting family sunday, i decided to come back via the motorway, after about 5 minutes, on the hill going up to the junction, it has a 40mph limit, which i was doing in 4th, but suddenly felt like it hit a proverbial wall & had no more power, even dropping down to 3rd, & full throttle, i could only make 30mph. no smoke out back like last time & once on the motorway (although it took the whole of the slip road to get up to 60mph), it went fine, apart from the hills, where it struggled to keep to 70 ... it acts more like a fully loaded naturally aspirated ldv 400."

 

Mine is doing exactly that. 

 

When pulling away it seems to take ages to get up to speed (70), but once up to speed seems fine.

It is not limp mode as no error codes and will not get above 50 in limp mode.

Only recently started doing this.

 

Anyone got any ideas what is causing it and how to fix it.

 

Bill

[chrispb123456]

Yep MAF or wiring , MAF doesn't always give a fault code unless you run the car with it disconnected.

Turbo will normally give pos or neg deviation

[billywizzo]

Ok will try the maf.

 

Cheers

[asp383]

Thanks mumof4, I had thought if it's the MAF again, it was replaced earlier this year, as it wasn't giving any readings within tolerances, wiring at plug was ok.

 

 

It's not going into limp mode, just performing like a fully loaded naturally aspirated diesel van ... Takes forever to pick up speed, once there, it'll cruise 60-70mph, but on hills, drop it's speed like a loaded 7.5t truck. Other times, it seems fine, even when warmed up & will be nearly as good as my works van. Turning off & restarting doesn't seem to "reset" anything.

 

It doesn't seem to matter if cruising at 40, 50, 60 or 70mph, or on urban town traffic, it's literally as though it runs out of breath, as an example, I recently went to see my brother, all fine while cruising, but felt it lose breath about 10minutes down the motorway & after coming off 1 roundabout, it took best part of a mile (down hill) to hit 60mph, before having to brake for the next, but coming home, it was fine.

 

With the problems earlier this year, it's had new glow plugs set, battery, MAF sensor, service, woodruff key, crankshaft timing belt pulley & timing belt kit, also just passed mot 1st time

[asp383]

Billywizzo, check the link in my op, I think I put what readings you should get at the plug when using a multimeter. As you're in Surrey, if close enough to gatwick, you can pop round, I can plug my computer in your car, go for a drive & take live data readings to see if it is your MAF sensor or something else.

[asp383]

just been out to the car & plugged my computer in, here are the results:

 

1st off, i checked the fault codes ...

00527 manifold temp sensor - g72 - open circuit/short on power

00535 maf sensor - g70 - open circuit/short with ground

65535 ecu defective

00575 manifold absolute pressure deviation from desired value error occured intermittently

17978 engine ecu blocked (p1570) ... engine turned over, but didn't start after stopping for fuel on 1 occasion, been fine since, so guessing this is relating to that time.

 

live data readings after warming up engine (no load):

 

fuel temp 32*

air intake temp 28*

coolant temp 59*

 

sensor                                  idle (903rpm)    2000rpm (approx)    3000rom (approx)

maf (desired) mbar               275                   290

maf (actual) mbar                 280                   290

barometric pressure (mbar) 1020                 1020                          1020

turbo boost deired (mbar)    958                   1030                          1315

turbo boost actual (mbar)     999                   1009                          1071

accelorator pedal position    0.0%                 16.4%                         23.2%

 

rechecked for fault codes: none present.

 

looking at it, the maf sensor is giving the readings it should (or as close to it as not to feel concerned), but turbo boost isn't what it should be, guessing that's the reason for the 00575 fault code, so will have to look in the turboarea & associated components.

 

will double check tomorrow, when i've got to my destination & again, when i've got back & again on friday, so i can compare against todays readings. on my own tomorrow, so will only be able to take live readings when static with no load, but as i'll have a full car friday, my mrs can check live readings as i drive

[xavier]

remember you can also log the data to a file to look at later.

[asp383]

i'm using an older snap-on scanner, so unfortunately for me, it's a case of having to take readings at the time. on the other hand, it's got all the plugs & keys for most pre oebd2 sockets, unlike the basic ones on our vans, but my employers don't want me using mine, so most pre 2000 vechicles, we can't check

[billywizzo]

I will need to look into the lack of power another time, one of the front shock mounts has started to make a horrible noise when turning the steering wheel so need to sort that out first.

Then will move onto the lack of power.

 

Always something to do on a Galaxy.

 

Bill

[asp383]

I will need to look into the lack of power another time, one of the front shock mounts has started to make a horrible noise when turning the steering wheel so need to sort that out first.

Then will move onto the lack of power.

 

Always something to do on a Galaxy.

 

Bill

my galaxy has been in the family about 4 years, overall, it's been fairly reliable, other than normal servicing, cam belt & tyres, oter things have been: o/s drive shaft, water pump, wheel bearing, fuel leak on pump, worn woodruff key & timing pulley & lately, intermittent loss of power, which i'm thinking i may be close there now.

 

drove down to brighton today for an appointment, as i'd left early enough to deal with any problems through the roadworks on the a23, in brighton, find a parking space in the multi story & walk to my appointment, i had time to plug my scanner in to see if any fault codes showed up ... 00575 manifold absolute pressure deviation from desired value error occured intermittently, cleared faults, checked when i got home & same fault again. have to say, the car drove fine both ways, no feeling of loss of power, apart from loosing speed on the hill just before coming into brighton ... dropped from 70-50mph very quickly.

 

i don't know if the garage checked for fault codes or cleared them while it was down there, but if they don't come back up, then i'll be suspecting that's what it was & only showing up under certain conditions. will check again tomorrow, as i'm going to kent for the day.

 

will investigate further as to why i'm getting fault code 00575, hopefully it'll be map sensor, egr valve or hose, rather than the turbo itself.

[billywizzo]

So you still don't know what is causing the lack of power especially up hills.

 

I am getting a garage do the top mounts and shocks but not till the kids are back at school.

 

Will have a good look around the engine for anything obvious next week once the other half returns from a weekend away with the galaxy.

 

I didn't have any fault codes when i checked today but my maf desired was 270 and actual was 396 at idle.

At 2000rpm it was 235/23,. everything else looked ok.

 

When i get time next week i will try and record more data and hopefully get to the problem.

[asp383]

From memory, my desired MAF reading was changing, but the actual didn't, fitted new MAF sensor & both readings matched.

 

It looks like my problem is related to the turbo system, if it's pipework, vacuum hoses, Egr valve or map sensor, then it's no big thing. If it's just a case of the turbo under boosting, I'd be inclined to leave it, driven enough n/a diesels to know how the go, so dropping a few mph won't upset me, just take a bit longer to get somewhere.

 

I think if it was any other problem with the turbo, then I'd be expecting smoke & I doubt it would have passed the emissions last week

[asp383]

drove to new romeny friday, the drive went fine, until the last section where i came off the a28 down to rye, which was quite twisty & hilly, so lots of gear changes & often not enough time to build up speed between a slow bend & long or steep hill & it felt like it hit the preverbial wall, where it was suddenly down on power.

 

checked the fault codes when i got to my destination & it was showing:

65535 ecu defective

00575 manifold absolute pressure deviation from desired value error occured intermittently

 

cleared the fault codes & decided to take a different route home ... 1 that i knew was a bit flatter & not so many twists & turns, especially as my right elbow was quite sore from the drive down (shattered my radial head last october, had an operation on it early july & this was the longest journey since the op).

 

going home was a lot easier, apart from driving out of rye towards battle, which is a long hill, i did most of it in 3rd, once clear of the hill, i was cruising in 5th@50-60mph most the way home (apart from junctions & speed limits), without any loss of power.

 

rechecked fault codes & still 00575 manifold absolut pressure deviation from desired value error occured intermittently, definately be having a look at some point

[gregers]

yeah the sharp bend at winchelsea is gooden aint it.

[asp383]

didn't go that way, because i had thoughts of doing that hill in 1st lol.

 

on the way down, from crawley, i went through east grinstead, across to tunbridge wells, down the a21, then cut across through hawkhurst, then a268 through peasmarsh to rye, then camber, lydd new romney. the a268 is a sod of a road! i remembered why i didn't do that route normally.

 

comming back, i thought about just sticking to a259, a27 & a23, but settled on rye, broad oak, cripps corner, battle, uckfield, then a272 to cuckfield & up through staplefield, back to crawley ... was only about 20 minutes longer driving home than going, but a much smoother drive, especially with 4 adults, 3 kids & all the beach stuff