Originally Posted by
mikehargreaves
Hello, my 2004 110 TD5 has developed an annoying problem on the first start after sitting for a bit, and I’m looking for some guidance as to where go next…
The problem first presented itself the day after a routine (160,000 km) service: Go out to start the car in the morning, battery’s good, starter’s good, engine cranks over just fine and she fires up on the first attempt (as usual), but the idle is rough (this is unusual, and new.)
The idle is very rough, for just a few seconds, before settling into its familiar, regular old idle.
Weird. Turned the car off, started it up again, just to check, and she fires up and idles perfectly. Use the car on and off for the rest of the day without incident, and park it up overnight.
Next morning, same thing.
First start, rough idle, then settles down. Fine for the rest of the day, and I don’t think much about it, suspect mabye some dirty fuel or something like that, and expect it’ll settle down.
Head off on an extended drive, from Melbourne to Tuross Head and return for a long weekend, hoping a long drive would do the trick. Parked up at the campsite for a few days, but no, problem’s still there, and I start thinking, not dodgy fuel.
The problem is perfectly consistent over the next couple of weeks — first cold start, rough idle, subsequent starts during the day all good — until, one day, instead of rough idle and settling down, there’s a rough idle and then the engine dies. Second attempt, starts up perfectly (which is just like all the previous second starts after the problem first showed up.)
After a week or so of dying after the rough idle on the first attempt, and starting on the second attempt as expected, the engine wouldn’t fire up at all; it took half a dozen or so attempts before it fired up. Everything worked as expected for the rest of the day, all subsequent first attempts are good, but at this point I decided to get the mechanic to check it out.
In a nutshell, they weren’t really sure what was causing the problem.
The computer reported a fault with injector #1, and we ended up sending them all way for reconditioning. They also replaced the fuel pump, which had been noisy for a while.
Neither of those procedures fixed the problem.
Next they suggested the fuel filter housing might be leaking air into the fuel line, and that was replaced too. This was all just before Easter. Car seemed fine the next day, so we headed off to Walhalla for the long weekend.
After parking up overnight, car was back to its initial symptoms: first start, rough idle, then settles down, and now it seems to be back to this behaviour consistently.
I’m fresh out of ideas and, to be honest, don’t trust the workshop to have another crack at it since we seem to be right back where we started, after some considerable expense reconditioning injectors, replacing the fuel pump and filter housing. Any ideas? Where should I look next?
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