A mate's TD5 woes

[Frontier1]

Hi All,

I have a mate with a Discovery TD5, 2004 I think the year is. Anyway he has been having a lot of problems with delayed excelleration as well as after it has been going for about 10 minutes it will sometime begin to cough, sputter, stop/start, etc.

He has spent $1000's of dollars so far in a vain effort to fix the problem. Various mech's who said they fixed it haven't with the problem always coming back within 10 minutes to an hour after he picks the vehicle back up.

As I understand it, I think he has even had his computer replaced without the problem being solved.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Cheers, Pete'

[FenianEel]

Has he taken it to a Rover place? (dealer or other)
Sounds like oil in the harness to me.
Check out the tech section or do a search on "oil in the harness" injector harness, etc
Good Luck

[zelko]

G'day mate

Has he checked the fuel pump, mate of mine had similar problems, sluggish for a while until eventually pump packed it in due to letting tank get below quarter. Pump needs to have fuel around it so it doesn't overheat.

Zelk

[Frontier1]

Alto who handles these in Sydney, has replaced the loom from the motor to the computer but no other loom sections.

Fuel pump has not been checked although I would have thought that Alto would have pressure tested it.

He does keep the tank normally above 1/4, the problem with pumps is that they can be fine one minute and then crap the next. He has mentioned too that this problem can stop for quite a while before it returns.

Is there a generic pump that we can try in the carriage to test?

Cheers, Pete'

[runger]

hi, and thanks for starting this thread frontier, hopefully someone here has had this problem and also it may help someone in the future.
i be the owner of THE discovery with the problem. ill try give a detailed account of whats happened.

i bought the car second hand at 80 odd thousand ks. i got an extended dealer warranty because id heard of a few issues with these cars.

after driving it for 5 thousand kilometres i noticed the engine to miss a beat or two. seems like no bang in the cylinder to me.
so it would disengage from the drive train and then grab again so that your car would drop then surge back and forth. sometimes just once and sometimes a couple of jumps and sometimes you would get a whole flurry of them.
then it got worse.
see i took this for a drive once with a trailer, on a long trip unloaded initially. i refueled at a metro. petro deiesel. the car began jumping around a fair amount about 100 ks into the drive. i kept driving to meet a deadline. and sometimes it would clear for a hundred ks or so only to come back more feircley. it got much worse about 400 ks into my drive.
once i picked up the trailer load and came home it got even worse.
to the point it was like driving a milkshake sometimes.
it was just so erratic you could not predict when it would occur or for how long.

i got home, unhitched the trailer left work, took a corner and hit the blinker and the car slowed down to an idle.
it had no acceleration but for standard idle speed in first gear. flat to the floor would give less than a thousand rpm..
i found if i turned the key off then back on i would have my pedal back again.

it took em a while to find the problem (one problem) but landrover service of artarmon found i had a leaking wiring loom. oil from the head travelling up and shorting out the wires. they wanted to charge me 1200 for that fix job but i made mention of the warranty and all was cool. they covered parts and labour.

a few thousand ks later i began to get the same misfiring off my cylinder(s). only maybe once or twice per drive. they advised me that the loom was indeed changed, it had a newish manufacture stamp on it and that they have never had to replace a loom twice. i checked it for oil aruond the loom near the battery compartment computer and all was ok. they said that the oil dosent go into the computer so that was fine.

i drove it to them and was happy to find it misfire repeatedly in a flurry going up a big highway hill. it sucks taking your car two hours away for service and having to go back another day to pick it up...to find that they havent fixed the problem really and i was glad it was showing some evidence recently.

they could find nothing wrong in way of error codes. the short test drive yeilded no misfires. i convincd them i was not crazy and they gave it to a worker to drive over the weekend. he told them it never stopped. which wasnt the problem so often and the first time i ever felt the misfires i wondered if it was my foot on the pedal...
i assumed he got a good run with no misifres.

a test for biodiesel or bad fuel had yeilded no poor result.

they filled it up with new fuel and i never had the problem again for atleast 5 tanks worth of juice when i changed to shell from caltex.
then it stayed around a while, misfiring ireggularly.
a week or so later it misifred three times on the way to work. and twice as i took corners with the blinkers on it went to limp idle mode again.
by now it was getting dangerous as my car could go back to idling in front of other cars on roundabouts and things.

the mechanic had it go back to idle speed on him and get stuck there when putting it up on ramps. he mentioned that it is a likley a electrical problem not a fuel problem, apparently the check engine light came on too.

oh yeah and also one night after it was misfiring i could not even start the car after i turned it off. no engaging off the engine starter motor. i clutch started it to get home.

i took it back to landrover.. they found an error code suggesting a problem with the accelerator unit. it apparently would be the reaosn for the misfires and the limp idle mode..

which they changed, then told me that my warranty never covered the parts. apparently the parts were $ 578. i didnt have my papers to check the fine print and payed the money to get my car back, i was more so over the moon happy that it would now be fixed!!

then i saw the invoice was for parts.. $260 and then the rest was labour. ???
so i was ****ed off but hey i now had my landrover back and it was going to be all smooth motoring from now on right???

well i was wrong. ten minutes into the drive back from the service department the car begins to misfire again...

ill call them again monday but i they mustnt know what the misfire is about. i had spoken to the mechanic there too last time and he didnt know.


ANY THEORIES??

thanks in advance.

[discowhite]

ask redback about his canbus fault. i pressure washed his D2 a while ago, on the way to take the D2 back to him at helensburg it did what yours is doing.
all the dash lights came on and off and on and off in the space of seconds, lost all power then regained power, to me it felt like it had dropped a cylinder or two, untill it stopped compleatly. turned it off and re started it it drove for another 5min and did it again.
but it didnt do it after that....
peter davis from roving mecinacal pulled up a test book fault that was ''canbus''

something to do with signals not getting from the engine to the ecu.

if i was you ide replace the crank angle sensor! i reckon thats a good place to start, then pull all the engine harness pulge apart check and clean.

cheers phil

[Slunnie]

Actually, I'd be starting by going to someone that knows LandRovers such as Davis Performance Landys or Coopers rather than a dealer service who from my experience just keep throwing parts at it and billing you until they fix the problem.

I'm assuming its a manual, by the clutch start. The auto inhibitor switch can do some of these things also. Also boost and associated gear check, intercooler hoses, you've done the loom, ECU and TPS. It would also be interesting to hear if it was the fuel pump too.

I'm logically guessing though.

[lewy]

i know nothing about damputers but they do like a constant voltage hows your battery and alternator.

[PhilipA]

I was just out of curiosity looking at the top entry and looked at the Seth Efrican site and the first one I saw was this.
I hope it is your problem.
Regards Philip A
Td5 Not Starting/Intermittent Cut-Out

The information below was supplied by Saif Al-Noaimi.
Recently I ran into a problem with my 2001 Defender 90 Td5 not starting and intermittently dying on me on the highway.

I sent the car to the dealer 4 times and first 3 times they were clueless. The 4th time they replaced the ECU wiring harness because they feared it was the oil in the ECU problem (http://www.web-rover.co.uk/nav.php?p=td5kb/oilharness). Thankfully the car was still under warranty. But 2 months after that was done (car is now out of warranty) it died on me again. I posted in the Land Rover Addicts Forum my problem and amazingly it turned out to be the relays under my passenger seat were just loose! Apparently they are saying this is a common problem so I thought it might be useful to others to include it in the KB.

[runger]

hi guys, thanks heaps for the leads. i will be checking up on them all to try isolate, i will come back here as i go so i and other people can learn.

and i sure hear ya about the service guys throwing parts at it until its fixed.
what has me worried is that a car can have so many things go wrong, but maybe they are all interlinked..
my battery and alternator are runnning as strong as.
that engine fault with the flashing lights sounds like something called the "three amigos" but i dont have the same light show.

canbus.. interesting word..

though it is similar in the way the engine reacts. however i havent had this happen at high speeds, only when cornering mainly or going slow. ive heard that the amigo flash one can happen at 80 ks an hour.
but i was thinking the blinkers being used by me at exactly the same time that the engine spluttered was causing the thing to trip out back to idle mode. however for all i know this may have been fixed with the new part on the accellarator. time will tell.

most commonly my problem is just the spit spat of the missed cylinders.
and the trip out seems to be linked to use of blinkers.. it seems electrical but may start with a fuel/delivery problem firstly.

now i have found today that i could hear my petrol pump whining a bit for the first time. my tank was down below 1/4, i filled it up and she has gone shhhh again. straight away, maybe i never noticed the noise or had the tank so low.. and now its reverberatting around like they all might when they are empty for all i know..

however my miss fault does not seem to only occur when lowish. itll happen at half full, full or 1/4 full. but it could be that when it is low it whirs and creates some form of problem towards fuel delivery.

my fuel pump filter was changed about 2000ks ago. my air filter was changed at my last service the day it went all limp on me last time. and since then and getting it from the dealer it has only missed a few beats but also took to a hill rather slugishly this morning.

ill need to pull her down i reckon. clean it out and check for cracks and the hoses.
one more thing happened a while back was that my O ring went leaking too. the mechanic pulled the tank apart and replaced.

im beggining to wonder what type of fuel pump motor they use as opposed to paying for the entire fuel pump housing in case mine does go as ive heard a few tales of whirrring and broken down pumps. im thinking ill clean her out in case there is junk coming out into the lines. i have also heard of a washer seal problem in the injectors that allows exhaust to mix back into the fuel line but im sure hoping its not that!

i really would rather drive a landy that works than a toyota that works.

[runger]

jeez!! i so now wonder if they ever actually had oil in the wiring loom or just scratched heads and thought they were getting paid to do something..
relays under the seat hey!! maybe thats why my cd player in the roof will play a cd but dont have sound too! it may well be something that simple.

[Redback]

G'day mate

Has he checked the fuel pump, mate of mine had similar problems, sluggish for a while until eventually pump packed it in due to letting tank get below quarter. Pump needs to have fuel around it so it doesn't overheat.

Zelk

I'm fairly sure only the V8 has the fuel pump in the fuel tank.

Of coarse i could be wrong:p

Baz.

[Redback]

hi, and thanks for starting this thread frontier, hopefully someone here has had this problem and also it may help someone in the future.
i be the owner of THE discovery with the problem. ill try give a detailed account of whats happened.

i bought the car second hand at 80 odd thousand ks. i got an extended dealer warranty because id heard of a few issues with these cars.

after driving it for 5 thousand kilometres i noticed the engine to miss a beat or two. seems like no bang in the cylinder to me.
so it would disengage from the drive train and then grab again so that your car would drop then surge back and forth. sometimes just once and sometimes a couple of jumps and sometimes you would get a whole flurry of them.
then it got worse.
see i took this for a drive once with a trailer, on a long trip unloaded initially. i refueled at a metro. petro deiesel. the car began jumping around a fair amount about 100 ks into the drive. i kept driving to meet a deadline. and sometimes it would clear for a hundred ks or so only to come back more feircley. it got much worse about 400 ks into my drive.
once i picked up the trailer load and came home it got even worse.
to the point it was like driving a milkshake sometimes.
it was just so erratic you could not predict when it would occur or for how long.

i got home, unhitched the trailer left work, took a corner and hit the blinker and the car slowed down to an idle.
it had no acceleration but for standard idle speed in first gear. flat to the floor would give less than a thousand rpm..
i found if i turned the key off then back on i would have my pedal back again.

it took em a while to find the problem (one problem) but landrover service of artarmon found i had a leaking wiring loom. oil from the head travelling up and shorting out the wires. they wanted to charge me 1200 for that fix job but i made mention of the warranty and all was cool. they covered parts and labour.

a few thousand ks later i began to get the same misfiring off my cylinder(s). only maybe once or twice per drive. they advised me that the loom was indeed changed, it had a newish manufacture stamp on it and that they have never had to replace a loom twice. i checked it for oil aruond the loom near the battery compartment computer and all was ok. they said that the oil dosent go into the computer so that was fine.

i drove it to them and was happy to find it misfire repeatedly in a flurry going up a big highway hill. it sucks taking your car two hours away for service and having to go back another day to pick it up...to find that they havent fixed the problem really and i was glad it was showing some evidence recently.

they could find nothing wrong in way of error codes. the short test drive yeilded no misfires. i convincd them i was not crazy and they gave it to a worker to drive over the weekend. he told them it never stopped. which wasnt the problem so often and the first time i ever felt the misfires i wondered if it was my foot on the pedal...
i assumed he got a good run with no misifres.

a test for biodiesel or bad fuel had yeilded no poor result.

they filled it up with new fuel and i never had the problem again for atleast 5 tanks worth of juice when i changed to shell from caltex.
then it stayed around a while, misfiring ireggularly.
a week or so later it misifred three times on the way to work. and twice as i took corners with the blinkers on it went to limp idle mode again.
by now it was getting dangerous as my car could go back to idling in front of other cars on roundabouts and things.

the mechanic had it go back to idle speed on him and get stuck there when putting it up on ramps. he mentioned that it is a likley a electrical problem not a fuel problem, apparently the check engine light came on too.

oh yeah and also one night after it was misfiring i could not even start the car after i turned it off. no engaging off the engine starter motor. i clutch started it to get home.

i took it back to landrover.. they found an error code suggesting a problem with the accelerator unit. it apparently would be the reaosn for the misfires and the limp idle mode..

which they changed, then told me that my warranty never covered the parts. apparently the parts were $ 578. i didnt have my papers to check the fine print and payed the money to get my car back, i was more so over the moon happy that it would now be fixed!!

then i saw the invoice was for parts.. $260 and then the rest was labour. ???
so i was ****ed off but hey i now had my landrover back and it was going to be all smooth motoring from now on right???

well i was wrong. ten minutes into the drive back from the service department the car begins to misfire again...

ill call them again monday but i they mustnt know what the misfire is about. i had spoken to the mechanic there too last time and he didnt know.


ANY THEORIES??

thanks in advance.

I'd be looking at getting it too someone like Bruce Davis, Graeme Cooper, Peter Davis at Roving Mechanical, too me it sounds like a communications fault (canbus) could be the crank sensor, fuel sensor or oil in the harness again, there are 2 sections to the harness.

One other theory could be, the fuel filter, sometimes when it gets changed the rubber seal in the centre of the filter gets stuck up in the filter housing, when the new filter is put in with it's seal and the old seal still stuck in the housing from the old filter you end up with a gap, because it can't be screwed all the way it doesn't seal on the outer of the filter.

I got stuck on a big mother of a hill and it was doing what you described, missing stopping and a bugger too start.

Baz.

[Lionel]

From the symptoms, I would suspect the TPS (throttle potentiometer), assuming it is not oil in the injector harness.

Has the fault ever caused total lack of throttle control (idle only)? If it has, a yellow engine warning light should have lit up, and a fault code will be left in the ECU, to allow easy diagnosis using Testbook.

Usually after turning it off and re-starting, throttle control will be regained.

My Defender had exactly this problem, while under warranty, and the problem was fixed by replacing the throttle pedal assembly AND wiring loom.

Cheers,

Lonel

[Blknight.aus]

do me a favor, drop the intercooler to EGR fitting intercooler hose off and eye ball the EGR side of business for lots of oil/soot.

you might be having an amalgamation of faults (as per the PM I replied to for you from Frontier1)

pay close attention to how it happens and how frequently it occours once the tank is below 1/2 way as after that point you start to uncover the fuel pump inside the tank.

The other thing to try is with the vehicle canted over hard away from the filler neck side of the vehicle (Ie high side the filler) tip a jerry into it untill the tank is absolutely no questions asked full to the brim and theres a miniscous hanging over the filler. Once youve got it that full start it up and eye off the fuel, if it starts bubbling at you you have an injector thats unsealed, If the problem occours more when the engine is cold then leave it sitting over night angled over and fill it then check it in the morning, ditto if its hot then pull up and do it as quick as you can.

Im not saying that this is definately going to be the problem but the info does help in fault finding.

[Psimpson7]

I'm fairly sure only the V8 has the fuel pump in the fuel tank.

Of coarse i could be wrong:p

Baz.

Pump is in the tank on a TD5 aswell.

At least with a disco you can change it without having to drop the tank.

Edited to add, Is the earth between the chassis/body and the engine/gearbox ok. I haven't had this problem on a Land Rover, but I have on a Lancia, and it would only happen occasionally under hard load, and it turned out to be the earth lead between the engine block and the shell.

Bloody frustrating.

If you have had a new fuel pump I wouldnt expect it to be that.

Lionel, When you say they changed the Throttle pedal and the loom, do you mean the full bulkhead loom? The throttle loom is an integral part of the main bulkhead loom.

[Frontier1]

Thanks everyone for coming to Runger's aid, I told him this was the forum to belong to!

My 2002 TD5 Disco, is running like a dream so far although it's only been a couple of months or so but I have already had that "3 Amigo" thing when driving down to Melbourne. However I just pulled over, switched it off, then back on and it was fine. Was towing a trailer at the time, have heard that it can do it when towing.

Anyway, with a few mentioning the fuel pump, has anyone pulled down a TD5 fuel pump (the one in the tank) ?

I would like to check one out (in particular the actual pump section), so if anyone has a busted one that they want to get rid of let me know and I can throw some bucks your way for postage, etc.

Can't find one at a wreckers.

I'm just wondering where Landrover got the pump from originally as I am sure they didn't make a completely new pump just for their TD5 or as it was secretly called "STORM". Shame they didn't go with that name!:twisted:

Cheers, Pete'

[Discopug]

Yes Frontier, I have a pump assembly here which I have just replaced with two new ones ( another story ) and have wondered about checking for chang over of pump only.
It appears that the pump is easily removed from the housing I would imagine than Australian fuel Injection service would have a pump to suit if they were given the tech requirements.
I will never get around to finding this out so if you want it I can send it.

[zelko]

I'm fairly sure only the V8 has the fuel pump in the fuel tank.

Of coarse i could be wrong:p

Baz.

Redback

Fuel pump for TD5 is in the fuel tank as well as for the V8's.

Zelk

[Blknight.aus]

Yep Ive got one that Im working on.

Im researching realistically priced internal replacements and a how to on how to install it, I've got one partial solution that Im calling a get you home repair but Im not confident on the longevity of the pump in the installation. Its a HP pump that may suffer because it doesnt have the low pressure priming as setup in the OEM config, its also a touch larger than OEM spec so will require some finessing.

My concern is that without the LP prime that it wont draw correctly and a "sloshing" might unprime it and leave you stranded untill you can get more dieso in the tank or worse yet kill the pump and at $300 for the pump....

[runger]

yes there is a lot of experience and knowledge here on this site. im glkad i came to take a look so thanks frontier. hopefull one day soon driving this car will be the pleasure it should be. and thanks verymuch for everyones help with this, i will do the checks on the things mentioned at lunchtime tommorow.. the ground wire will be easy for me!
ill check for the soot and the bubbling when i have a look at it tommorow- and sus out exactly what the terms mean!!! thanks very much for the big pm list BLK knight. i was real happy to see somewhere to begin looking.
it was sure enlightening and ill take another look at that now that i understand things a bit better. i can likley now exclude a few things now we have better idea of exactly whats been fixed and whats happening.

i did take it for a five hour drive with no problem at all today.

but it did hiccup on the drive home after they changed the accellerator pot doobie on friday. i will be getting onto the dealer to ask why i had to pay for parts and service under my warranty period too.
next time i would rather go to the other guys suggested here if they arent gonna honour a warranty. some guys there are really good and others not so. i like talking to a mechanic really.

i can see no oil around the looms. i had a decent peel and look the other arvo. when the loom went oily that time it repeatedly hiccupped a lot.
i have since remembered that the mechanic did say he found oil in the loom and so he never just changed it for fun.

since they changed that the hiccups have been comparably very short lived, actually remiding me of the time it first occured the weeks before the loom went bad.
i would ring the guy that did own the car originally to see what he knows but i dont want to bother him really.

i still have a feeling there is something it it that when it blinkers and hiccups in the cylinders at the same time that it may have led to current drain enough to show a faulty acclerator pot. i dont know if the alternator/gen would change its rate of output into the looms when a few cylinders baulk but for my limited knowledge it sounds feasable.. add to that a current use from blinkers and maybe thats what triggers the limp idle only mode.
if ive done a limp mode then a key restart, then if i get hiccups on a straight road and she wont go to limp mode no matter how much it hiccups.
meaning you get no error codes.

it is funny that one poster lionel above had the same problem requiring both loom and accelerator pot to be changed- but ive had them both changed now and still had the hiccups. i think his has been fine.. this is why i feel i have a third underlying prob.

you know i was blaming certain service stations fuels but it may be my fault for letting the tank go below the pump level just before i fill at that servo.

i ran it down to 1/4 full today also and never had the probs but i am beggining to suspect that the depth of the tank may be having its play on it.
i hadnt always been so specific with my keeping it half full as i never knew the pump got uncovered so easily.

it does seem funny thoough for the pump doesnt seem to stop the car.
i guess the pump being low or cracked or faulty could stop enough fuel for one or two cylinders to miss but i always thought that this pump was low pressure and only a small amount of fuel got sent to the injector from the lines. as such air bubbles sounds a bit likley culprit here.
my fuel filter was changed after the prob, but worth checking to see if the rubber is there just the same. i recall screwing it tight down on the seal and when i took the old one off after the loom problem it was on real dam tight.


i will do the checks above cause i expect it to happen again. but i will also now try and fill her up and run her down to only half way for a while now. then if no hiccups for a while ( im doing an eight hour drive next friday) and on the way back i might even let it go to a quarter or less a few times to see if that throws a spanner in the works.

apparently there is no error codes for just when it missfires but yes error codes happened when it has a limp mode idle only.

so really its likley had three things wrong. for all i know the misfires may have helped stressed the wiring loom seals. i was worried about damage to the drive train once back casue it was bucking like a brumby.

im waiting almost eagerly for it to hiccup so i can throw the blinker on again too to see if i can trigger another limp mode and have it error up to maybe tell me to change the accellerator pot/part again or something else atleast.
that will give an idea as to the pot being faulty at all even.

ill be back to tell what i find soon. thanks again everyone.

one more question of interest, why is there a loom that has been terminated with a male or female part but have nothing plugged into it in the engine bay up near the drivers main window? it sits there empty on the white paintwork near the hood hinge area?

[Slunnie]

one more question of interest, why is there a loom that has been terminated with a male or female part but have nothing plugged into it in the engine bay up near the drivers main window? it sits there empty on the white paintwork near the hood hinge area?
I don't know. There seems to be heaps of them in these things though.

[Basil135]

one more question of interest, why is there a loom that has been terminated with a male or female part but have nothing plugged into it in the engine bay up near the drivers main window? it sits there empty on the white paintwork near the hood hinge area?

If there is a plug on each side of the engine bay, up by the windscreen, I think you will find these are the connections for the optional heated front screen.

This is only an option in really cold places, like England, or where people like more buttons on the dash (USA...)

[scarry]

i have an 04 td5 disco and also have the extended warranty.i have negotiated with the extended warranty people,i think it is allianz and they have agreed for a repair to be done by a land rover specialist & not a dealer.

i bought the extended warranty from the lr dealer before the factory warranty ran out.

as others have said, go to a specialist,not a dealer and you will get some accurate,professional advise.

i will never go to a dealer again

cheers

[abaddonxi]

Check out this thread

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/technical-chatter/36226-anyone-elses-td5-have-moods.html

Cheers
Simon

[Slunnie]

Alto at Artarmon were very good a few years ago, I was so impressed, but then they merged in with PAG and the workshop was relocated etc etc. Anyway, interestingly I came across a fella that used to be be involved with it all, and in a nut shell Alto's as I understand it lost the good staff that were in the workshop - well, I cant actually specifically say all, but you get my drift. Lets just say that I now use Davis Performance Landys and am always impressed with their work..... and there are a few familiar faces there that work on the car. ;)

[Blknight.aus]

the fuel pump is 2 stage

stage one is a high flow pump that goes via the filter back to the tank for the second part of the pumping (this is also the part of the pump that primes the filter and bleeds the system in case of sloshing) the second part is your high pressure supply and this is at about 60-80psi nominal, take the line off completely and you can empty your tank in under 3 minutes.

as its a unit injected engine there is NO injector lines as each injector has its own cam driven pump and the spill port is electronically controled by the ECU on each injector. the spill port is fired by 85V at about an amp or 2 (I forget off the top of my head) it doesnt take much being wrong on the electrical control or fuel supply side of things for the engine to have a hissy.

The spit of it is that its intermittant and hard to replicat reliabley and its not throwing any faults to log in the ECU to give a start point.. a mechanic could easily suspect a fault with a given componet based on his previous experience or wildest guess and not have the fault show up on a test drive and think it was fixed only to have it come back 3 days later. the number of things in the PM I sent off are just the things that a broad swing of the axe covers. you could have Interferance coming from a dying alternator componant that wont show up unless you test bench the alternator with a cro that can measure wave forms in the 1000th of a second intervals. Hell it could be as simple as some dust under the fixings of the ECU causing earth side spiking from vibration.

Just to poop ya you could take it to 10 different specialist and they'd all have a component that they want to accuse and not one of them would be the same and not one of them would have to be correct. It'll drive you batty but If youd bought it back to me 3-5 times with the same fault and it was as intermittant as it is and so hard to replicate Id tell ya its time to suck it up, live with the annoyance while you wait for a permanant failure or a repetable fault, hope it doesnt strand you and bring it back when it does.

I have a love hate relationship with intermitand faults, I hate them as most people dont understand or accept how hard they are to work and most wont want to pay the costs of doing the diagnosis. I do love the wealth of knowlodge on how subsystems interact when you finally get it right or the rich guys who drive something obscure that they want fixed properly and are willing to shell $$$ over by the wheelbarrow load to get it done and dont mind how long it takes... only ever had one of those so far tho.

Best of luck with it.

[stirlsilver]

This seems like one mother of a problem you are experiencing. It makes for good reading!

Not being all that familiar with the fuel injection layout, is there any way to connect a pressure gauge onto the fuel rail? If the problems are fuel related (by bubbles or the fuel pump playing up) you should notice some fuel pressure fluctuations.

[Blknight.aus]

yes there is but its not fun.

[Lionel]

Lionel, When you say they changed the Throttle pedal and the loom, do you mean the full bulkhead loom? The throttle loom is an integral part of the main bulkhead loom.

A good question! They said they had "replaced the wiring as well as the throttle pedal". I do know they needed the vehicle overnight, as they had to remove & replace a quarter panel as part of the job, so that implies a bit more than just the throttle pedal, I would think.

The other things they said, was that they had experienced a few cases of "faulty connections" to the throttle pedal.

All I can say is - thank God it was all under warranty!

Cheers,

Lionel

[350RRC]

Hi,

This is definitely not my area of expertise........... but I do read a lot.

Intermittent fault suggests electric in origin.

Blinkers going (as in hazard pattern) are a sign the impact sensor has been tripped and the car will go into 'limp mode'.

There was a very funny thread about this on Pirate some time ago that involved dead chickens.

Could it be that there is an intermittent prob with the inertia switch that is doing this?

From memory the blinkers will still keep flashing even with all fuses pulled with this prob. i.e. when you think this prob is likely to occur..... pull the blinker fuse and if the thing stutters and the blinkers go you have some where to look.

You could also try pressing the reset button on said switch and see if that helps.

Good luck, DL

I'm too old for pcb's.

[runger]

dave, i think youve hit the nail on the head exactly. this has been the biggest problem in that it will go away for a few thousand kilometres especially now that they have changed the oily loom. i could well sympathise with the mechanic, i knew i had to take it away and log details of the regularity etc.
for me to find bubbles or for a mechanic to find the problem would indeed be a hit and miss afair. these days apart from the acclerator pot showing errors i just couldnt say when its going to happen. i reckon i will just drive and wait for the next error, it may never happen again but when it does it just makes you slump in the seat feeling demoralised man..
but i can live with the odd misfire. it does **** you though if they get more regular and theres no errors. i reckon next time i get an error it will be another faulty part and not fix the misfire anyways.
lionel, your new loom will have a plastic bar code for the part with the date of manufacture, that was how i knew they had indeed changed it after the problem arose again. mine was a 2007.

the first guy i was dealing with at artarmon was great, the mechanic was very helpful in asking questions and explaingin everything too. if youyve got a mechanic that is now working an office job it makes all the difference.
i dont know what this new guy is doing to me by charging me parts and labour under extended warranty.
im glad youve made me aware i should ring alliance next time. ill have to ask them for full copy of my warranty too.
problems aside im really loving the car.

and yes, the empty loom must be for heater cables. thats the position.

[runger]

oh and i never had the blinkers come on by themselves. i found that when the engine was missing and i had to use the blinkers at the time to take a corner (by pure chance or luck it) would trigger a limp mode.
i better be careful for ever when im heading into a lane with a car or truck on its way hey.

[350RRC]

Runger,

It really sounds like an electric prob. The blinkers get set off by going into limp mode......... not the other way round. Try pulling the blinker fuse and see if it still does it. Bet not.

Will find the chicken thread to lighten this drama up.

cheers, DL

[runger]

i understand what you mean now. however my car will misfire when im driving in a straight line and not go to idle mode. nor will the blinkers come on.

one time i did stick my hazards on becasue i had cars on my tail wondering what i was doing sittting on a hill bend intersection going no where fast. i had already gone into limp mode after i stuck the left blinker on.
i would think that the blinker was triggering the misfire had it not happened to me numerous times when going on a straight road. thats not to say that the blinker isnt helping it misfire on those corners though. i cant say for sure yet if the car begins its misfiring before i hit the blinker or only after on those occasions. but the day that first happened my car had been misfirirng a thousand times anyway, blinkers on or not.

are you thinking off the flashing lights problem?

if i happen to be coming up to a corner, i stick on my blinker and then i get a misfire the car will lose its revs back to idle speed and have no accellerator.
but that may not be going to happen next time for all i know now that the acclerator pot is new.
i could try pull my fuse out for the blinkers if im pretty quick when it misfires but then i would likely just get a misfire and no error code.

i think your chicken thread would tell us if its the same thing for sure.
ill go back and check the other link now. thanks.

[runger]

were you suggesting to pull out my fuse and see if i dont get a misfire for the next few thousand ks? my last misfire i had was leaving the service department and i was on a straight run on the pacific hwy.

[350RRC]

Hi Runger,

If you pull the fuse you won't have blinkers. I was more suggesting that when it went into limp mode then pull the fuse and see what happens.

I would be pressing the reset button on the inertia switch first and having a look at the contacts on that, etc.

HTH

[350RRC]

Hi,

Chicken thread is here:

friends problem - Pirate4x4.Com Bulletin Board (http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php't=596445)

I wish you well with this and I really don't know how all you guys put up with gremlins like this and the 3 amigos, EAS, MAF's, ACE..................

[runger]

next time if it goes to limp mode i will try it and let you know, till then i wonder if you can do that chicken thing using a gander and grass clippings as a substitute. thanks for the link and your help.

[BradM]

long Shot......check where the wiring loom from the MAF and AAP that goes over the air cond compressor. The black plastic loom tube discinterates and the wires slowly melt onto the compressor causing intermittant shorts, stuffing up the signal to the ECU and causing what feels like a missfire on a petrol engine from your TD5.

Worth Checking..

BradM

[runger]

thanks for that, ill check the integrity of all the wiring before i go away. i redid my main earth, thanks for that blk knight. ill see how she goes on the trip, am doing near abouts a coupla thousand ks,..its been driving great just this week. fingers crossed i dont need a tow truck.

[runger]

just an update for anyone that was interested in this- i took the car for a 1400 odd kilomtere drive and had ZERO misses in the engine. the car drove and performed beautifully.
incidentally i got 390 ks from 37 litres fully loaded with camping gear, which i was happy enough with.

id checked for soot from the intercoler hoses and had none. i did not let the tank go below halfway seeing as i was far from home and i didnt want to test the "less than a quarter tank can give problems theory"
but i will give that a try later on. also i used the same fuel that had given me no problems before, which was claytex, they have so many servos these days its hard not to get one really.. i dont know if the fuel types had anything to do with it and still think that maybe by chance the problems just never occurred when using this fuel. after all when i had wiring and accelerator pot problems i had by chance been using other brand fuel types, one my mechanic said to stay away from, and also possibly i was running lower tank levels sometimes without knowing the pump would not be covered fully at that depth. however before i went away i had run it below a quarter to the point of hearing the pump whining a bit as i pulled into the servo and it still never gave me any misses that time.

so im not really much further to identifying what was giving me the misses but am happy just the same.

thanks very muchly for everyone that posted suggestions and comments and helped me with this. i intend to come back if and when the problem comes back and hopefully i may have a theory or a fix by then to help advise anyone else that may encounter a similar fault one day. cheers!

[boggo]

I regularly run my tank to almost empty(73 litre fills) and have never had any probs.