Thread: Mystery fault

It looks for all intents and purposes like an intermittent electrical issue, but if it *only* happens at startup or early in the drive then that makes no sense unless it's thermally influenced. If no fault are being recorded it's even more challenging. Realistically I'd be looking at either the Engine ECU or the power sources to it and its various sensors.

Sorry, no real help but that's a "unique" fault.

I’ll suggest it’s the crankshaft position sensor that’s gone suspect. I had this behaviour too on mine until it eventually failed fully when driving and gave me a fault code. Cost me about $1k to have replaced due to where it’s located on the engine.

FWIW - My D3 had a bad idle when cold. Would start and run but would idle poorly, sometimes feeling like it would stall (be never did) at the lights. Once warm, would run perfectly. Turned out to be a dodgy injector. IIRC the theory was that it was 'leaking' and when cold the extra fuel caused the misfire. Once warm, the cylinder could combust the extra fuel. Ended up replacing three injectors (based on testing) and problem solved.

Thanks all. I'll explore the crankshaft sensor lead. My regular independent first thought it might be a fuel or injector issue but after a fuel line clean, new filter and injector clean the problem remained.

It's running great at the moment....

Originally Posted by AGJ

Thanks all. I'll explore the crankshaft sensor lead. My regular independent first thought it might be a fuel or injector issue but after a fuel line clean, new filter and injector clean the problem remained.

It's running great at the moment....

I recall mine slowly failed over about six months, getting worse and worse. It could be a red herring, but worth a look

Originally Posted by AGJ

Thanks all. I'll explore the crankshaft sensor lead. My regular independent first thought it might be a fuel or injector issue but after a fuel line clean, new filter and injector clean the problem remained.

It's running great at the moment....

An injector/s could still be leaking though. Mine has had a similar misfire, more of a hesitation since I bought it, mostly in cold weather on cold starting without actually stalling, until recently when it has stalled a couple of times, once even when warm at my mechanic and he cleared a whole lot of spurious faults which seemed to be brought on by the stalling and it has idled fine when warm after that.

I actually even signed up to the D3 forum in the UK, thinking they'd have more problems with cold weather starting, but to no avail.