francheezy Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 I have a 2002 sub- 6m coach built motorhome on a Fiat with a 1.9TD engine. The problem is that she struggles to reach more than 50mph on the motorway and the fuel consumption is not good. I have heard of a default mode in some Fiat engines where the engine injects reduced fuel into two cylinders at a time because of a sensor fault. Could this be the problem or does anyone have a better idea or is this just normal. I would be grateful for any help. Thanks John :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 Short of taking it to a properly equipt garage for diagnostic testing it's impossible to tell. I do recall test driving a similarly engined van many years ago and the overwhelming memory is one of underwhelmingly poor performance, and if you are having to drive pedal to the metal to make decent headway it will impact hard of fuel consumption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 John, At best you have an 89 HP Indirect Injection diesel so it would never have had earth shattering performance even when new. Info taken from Wiki... Link. And I agree with Tracker, you need to get it to a garage who are familiar with this engine and get it properly diagnosed, anything else will be pure speculation. Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
francheezy Posted May 31, 2016 Author Share Posted May 31, 2016 Thanks Keith, looks like i will have to take it to the garage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 This reminds me of my 2008 transit van. A big jubilee clip came off the turbo intake and the engine must have lost 50 percent of its power, did about 50mph flat out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagHal Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 I assisted someone with a problem like this with their transit. The fuel filter had sprung a leak and the injectors were pulling air into the fuel line. Couldn't get his van over 60mph and difficult to start. There was a rather obvious fuel dribble however...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PJay Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Have to say , we tried the smaller engine, but went for the 2.3 in the end, but we have the later (2006) engine. Which has been very good to date. (Before the juddergate model) Depends how much load the van as well. PJay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billggski Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 A 14 year old engine will gradually lose power as the bores wear and you lose compression, the injectors, filters and innards clog up or leak and starve the engine, and if it was marginal to start with you will start to struggle. A garage could do a compression test, simple, clean or renew the injectors, straightforward, and check for air leaks and clean out the airways to give you a fighting chance without a rebuild. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 The issue you have heard about is most likely applicable to Electronic Injection Diesels? You probably have the XUD 1905cc Peugeot engine with mechanical Diesel Injection? If that is the case then it is likely that the Injectors will be in need of a rebuild with new tips, especially if the fuel consumption is also poor? Other possible failure point, as Charles states, is Turbo pressure bleeding off, make sure hoses are not split and fixed correctly. The XUD 1905cc has a legendary reputation for covering hundreds of thousands of miles, IF serviced regularly/correctly. If the servicing has been done as specified and the fuel kept clean, unlikely you have a serious issue with the engine itself, almost always the Injectors. It was regarded as quite a lively engine in it's day, you should be managing much better than 50mph. An Injector rebuild can make a huge difference on these engines as they age. The Injector Pump itself tends to cover high miles and ages well. May I suggest that you don't drive it if it is that bad, as serious engine damage may be just around the corner if the Injectors are not snapping open fully or 'dribbling'? I have posted a picture of the engine as installed in a 306, so it won't be the same, but if it has a big pump, like the photo, with Injection pipes coming out of it, the cheapest/most likely avenue is the Injectors. Same applies if it is the Fiat 1,929cc engine that is installed. An Injector rebuild, we use Brant Diesel Injection - 01522 788295, is around £100. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archiesgrandad Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 I always use one of the proprietary fuel additives at least once a year on the van, and I think I can feel some improvement afterwards. We used it with our company cars and because we kept detailed records we could see the benefit in fuel consumption and the drivers thought the engines ran better. AGD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 AGD, I agree with you that Injector/fuel system cleaner works on modern Electronic Diesel Injection, but have no scientific evidence to back that up, just the 'feeling' of an improvement. Again, nothing scientific to support this, but from engines we have stripped and rebuilt, we think that dirty/partially blocked Injectors are responsible for some of the engine failures on the Peugeot/Ford unit. I know the web has lots of theories about ECU overfuelling, etc. but it is always just a single Piston that has 'holed', or suffered damage. Yet a Turbo, ECU, etc. fault would be expected to target all cylinders equally. Inspecting the Injectors after the event doesn't help much as the catastrophic nature of the event usually 'muddies the evidence'. Pure guesswork, based only on what we have seen, but we think the engines suffer an issue on an Injector from either dirt in the fuel or poor combustion and they then go pop. We suspect regular doses of a good fuel system cleaner would help prevent a catastrophic event further down the line. We suggest that your practise is a good one, especially if it is a later engine that has either idled a lot or not been used aggressively enough to 'clean' it. An old style Diesel tolerated idling for long periods, we are not so sure a Euro IV is so tolerant, giving a tendency for sensors to 'soot up' at the lower combustion temperatures experienced during idling. I guess later Euro engines versions with even tighter combustion process designs might be less tolerant again? What is interesting is that two local Taxi firms both run Toyota Avensis. One specialises in Airport runs, the other is almost all local base work and they have the local Council 'School run' contract. The 'airport' taxi firm cover more miles, yet, seemingly have fewer issues with the engine. The other has a lot of ECU, warning light and engine sensor issues. So much so that Ray has said he is switching manufacturers next year. My theory, probably completely wrong is that the engine combustion chambers get hot on the 'Airport' taxis Motorway journeys and they stay clean and 'soot' free. The 'local' traffic taxis are permanently running at low speed in high gears just tootling along never getting hot enough. They also spend a lot of time with the engine idling on the 'Rank'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogerThat Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 My 1999 2.8D is just as bad in terms of performance. Some motorway hills see us slowing to 45mph or so, it's frightening joining the motorway via uphill slip roads! I put this down to it being a normally aspirated motor with 15 year old 'technology' (albeit with only 32k on the clock) and no turbo etc, powering something weighing three ton and all the aerodynamic properties of a 3m high brick wall. I've debated taking it to a diesel specialist to see if it can be tuned (there's no remapping to be done here!) but I've never gotten round to it yet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgnbuk Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 "Yet a Turbo, ECU, etc. fault would be expected to target all cylinders equally" While the turbo could reasonably be expected to treat all cylinders the same, I am not so sure about the ECU. Given that modern Common Rail systems (including the system Ford fit to Mondeos) have a "teach in" mode for the ECU to "learn" the characteristics of each injector & apply individual compensations for the way they respond, it is not inconceivable for a software bug to be related to the calculation of the timing event for one cylinder only - from what I have read about the Transit piston failure problem, it seems that No. 3 piston is the one that cracks ? And wasn't Ford's "solution" a software update ? The system used in the Mondeo (and I would suspect that the Transit system to be similar if not the same) does not seem able to handle injectors with widely differing characteristics - a friend had an injector failure on a high mileage Mondeo & the Ford agent could not replace the faulty injector alone, as the ECU could not handle 3 high mileage injectors + 1 new one. They were proposing he fit 4 new injectors (at £400 each + fitting & set-up charge) - not really viable on a 6 year old car with 150,000 miles up. I have heard of a similar situation with a Skoda Octavia & experienced first hand the difference that "re-teaching" made on a Kia Ceed, which became rather rough running & noisy at about 25,000 miles. Apparently Kia had found that the injector characteristics changed sufficiently as they bedded in that engine running was affected & clearing the intial taught values from the ECU & rerunning the teach-in process in the run-in state restored smoother, quieter running. The OP doesn't say where he resides, but if in the North of England he could try Feather Diesel Services at Elland (not far from J24 of the M62). http://www.feather-diesel.co.uk I had a leaky injection pump for an Iveco industrial engine (7.5 litre 6 cylinder turbo diesel in a 200Kva generator) rebuilt by them - fast turn around, no more leaks & generator running much better than before. Nigel B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 francheezy - 2016-05-31 6:55 PM I have a 2002 sub- 6m coach built motorhome on a Fiat with a 1.9TD engine. The problem is that she struggles to reach more than 50mph on the motorway and the fuel consumption is not good. I have heard of a default mode in some Fiat engines where the engine injects reduced fuel into two cylinders at a time because of a sensor fault. Could this be the problem or does anyone have a better idea or is this just normal. I would be grateful for any help. Thanks John :-( John I notice from your wife’s earlier forum postings that your motorhome is an Elnagh Sea Dinghy 1 and that you have problems operating a clutch pedal. Although quite short, the Dinghy1 model has a massive overcab sleeping ‘pod’. With a motor that, even when new was hardly over-endowed with power and torque, you won’t get sparkling performance. If you are expecting to easily maintain speed in top gear on a motorway upslope (particularly into a strong headwind) you are going to be sadly disappointed. You’ll either have to change down (which will produce more noise and use more fuel) of stay in top gear and permit your motothome’s speed to degrade. If your Elnagh is unable to achieve more than 50mph in top gear on the flat, its motor must be considered to be down on power. If the vehicle won’t hold 50mph in top gear uphill on a motorway, that may be what one should reasonably expect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 mgnbuk - 2016-06-03 8:36 PM "Yet a Turbo, ECU, etc. fault would be expected to target all cylinders equally" While the turbo could reasonably be expected to treat all cylinders the same, I am not so sure about the ECU. Given that modern Common Rail systems (including the system Ford fit to Mondeos) have a "teach in" mode for the ECU to "learn" the characteristics of each injector & apply individual compensations for the way they respond, it is not inconceivable for a software bug to be related to the calculation of the timing event for one cylinder only - from what I have read about the Transit piston failure problem, it seems that No. 3 piston is the one that cracks ? And wasn't Ford's "solution" a software update ? Nigel B The ECU does not normally have the ability to dynamical alter the fuelling on one Injector over another on most Motorhome Electronic Injection systems. Hence the need to ensure all injectors have the same base characteristics (flow rate, etc.) at install time. What you refer to as 'Teach' mode. It is obviously desirable that you start off with 4 Injectors with similar characteristics as that is going to give the best long term results. To me, having a solution that stops someone deliberately fitting 4 very different flow rate Injectors is, to me, not a limitation but essential? If the ECU had the ability to dynamically alter fuelling on each cylinder (where each cylinder had it's own 'Combustion process' sensors, like an Oxygen sensor, etc) it would not matter what size, age, flow rate each Injector was, within reason. On the Ford/Peugeot engines, once the initial setup is done, that is the fuelling that stays with the vehicle till the next major fuel injection overhaul, so if an Injector spray pattern changes through Carbon Build-up or dirty Injector, that Cylinder is stuck with the poor combustion that then ensues. The ECU is not able to compensate for it on an individual cylinder basis, and that was my point in the Post. Yes it is conceivable that a software timing, or other, bug might occur. But I can't see it being very likely that the software programmer would have written the code to have 4 separate programs running for each cylinder. If I had done the software design for the chip (I was a programmer in a former career) I would have created a single program with a value stored for each cylinder. However, it is possible that one value, for a single cylinder, could become 'corrupt' without affecting anything in the data or program storage areas of the chip, but that would be highly unlikely. Contrary to what you write, we have not always seen no3 cylinder as the problem area. We have heard rumours that a change was made to the software to increase the fuel flow rate slightly for ALL cylinders, to compensate for partial blockages. It would be interesting to see if these 'fixed' engines still met the fuel consumption and emissions figures quoted at launch? The problem, we think, with modern Euro IV engines (Euro V may be worse) is that they run very 'lean' in an attempt to achieve the most complete combustion. Some engines are at the extreme end of the spectrum. We think the Ford (as it was designed, but maybe not as it is now) is right on the limit of how lean the engines can run. The greater the power the engine develops the higher the combustion temperatures and the more likely that the slightest change in fuelling takes it over the edge. The Kia issue you talk of sounds like they are really poorly made injectors if they change that much in such a low mileage, when an Audi will go for hundreds of thousands of miles on the same ones without issue? But then again, you could teach the Ford engine to 'relearn' and compensate for an Injector that had become partially blocked with carbon, but I would suggest that would end in tears over the longer term? Maybe that is what Kia do? Older mechanical pump engines, remember also much lower power so lower combustion temperatures, would run with a far greater tolerance of the Air/Fuel mix ratio. Their issues are different in that the Injectors are mechanical and wear, relying upon the fuel as a lubricant. The Injectors usually wear more on infrequently used engines than on high, continuous use engines, as the lubricating Diesel fuel often won't be there at Start-up, having drained back to the tank. As already stated, no proof, to back this up, all 'guess work' from what we know and have seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 RogerThat, you are probably right about your vehicle as the 2.8D engine, I think?, delivers less power than the 1.9TD that is the subject of the post. As I said, in it's day, the 1.9TD was quite a lively motor for it's size. Just shows how much Diesels have advanced in the last few years. Easy to forget how bad they were in the 1970's. Anyone remember the Blue haze that always followed a 1970 Ford Transit with it's 43bhp Perkins Diesel, as it struggled to reach 45 mph? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 aandncaravan - 2016-06-04 5:17 PM Anyone remember the Blue haze that always followed a 1970 Ford Transit with it's 43bhp Perkins Diesel, as it struggled to reach 45 mph? Oh yes! Then add a luton box body and fill it with goods for delivery and 45mph was wishful thinking! And then there was the noise - although in it's defence the seats were comfortable! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogerThat Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 aandncaravan - 2016-06-04 5:17 PM RogerThat, you are probably right about your vehicle as the 2.8D engine, I think?, delivers less power than the 1.9TD that is the subject of the post. As I said, in it's day, the 1.9TD was quite a lively motor for it's size. Yup, agreed, without doubt :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.