Loss Of Power

[psolak]

Hi,

 

Went to Blackpool yesterday and the Galaxy (1.9TDi 115BHP 2001) kept loosing power on the motorway. The car would accelerate and maintain speeds as normal and after 5 to 10 minutes lose power and the car would only maintain about 50 mph.

 

Stopped at services after 20 miles and disconnectd the MAF but that made no difference. I conected the MAF for the journey back home and the car performed as normal i.e. there was power/acceleration.

 

Any ideas MAF (but would disconnecting it not have restored acceleration to over 50mph) or could a faulty glow plug(s) casue this?

 

This fault has no occured several times on the car over the last 1month.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Andrew T]

It won't be your glow plugs, as they are only used for starting.

[Masked Marauder]

When you first switch the car on the ECU does some self checks.

 

So if the MAF was fine when you set off to Blackpool and the ECU detected an error in it's function on route, the the vehicle would go into limp-home mode, the same as if it was not connected.

 

But when you re-connected it and switched on the self test was completed successfully and no fault on the way home so the engine performed successfully.

 

The MAF may not be faulty, just a single, quick bad reading from it (or many of the other sensors) would give you the same symptoms.

[Guest neil_wiles]

It is also \a possibility that you have a minor fault on one of the tracks in the accelerator position sensor which gives the same effects as an ECU detecting a faulty MAF.

 

The MIL lamp should have been flashing whilst you were in the limp home mode was this the case ?

[Guest ajc]

I had a similar problem a couple of years back when my TDi kept losing power going uphill at 60-70 mph. It was a Company car at the time (I bought it later) and the local dealer changed one of the sensors which I suspect was the MAF and cured the fault. I had similar intermittent problems recently, especiallty during hot weather and I removed the MAF and cleaned all the contacts. It has behaved OK since. Whether this is due to the change in the weather and will re-occur next year, I don't know.

 

Allan