2000 HSE chugging and stuttering while towing

**glenhendry** · 27th July 2011, 10:42 AM

On a recent camping trip towing a caravan I experience some disturbing chugging and spluttering of the engine. The trip was only ~100km and it is winter. The RR pulled the medium sized caravan and the family without trouble on the way there, but about half way home I was pulling into a fuel station I noticed that it was chugging and failing and spluttering. I swtiched from LPG to petrol and back with no change. It was so bad I thought it was going to stall.

I made it to the bowser, but I was very worried about getting home. I filled up and started again to get out of the petrol station, it was still misfiring and it felt sick. I used a handheld OBDII diagnostic device to check eng temp and it was normal.

I looked under the bonnet and under the car and all seemed normal. It -felt- like spark to me, and the only engine code out of the ordinary (my second MAF has recently crapped itself from an LPG backfire) was p1319 which "http://www.aulro.com/afvb/p38a-range-rover/126206-obd-fault-codes.html" says means "Misfire with Low/Empty Fuel Drive cycle C:Signal out of range - above maximum", but I cant understand that particular message.

I thought it might mean that one of my coil packs were crapping out. I rested her on the side of the road for 15 minutes wondering what to do, with SWMBO and kids getting restless. Upon restart it was still chugging, but interestingly, after driving on (very gently) for a few kilometers to get to a better place to pull over, she was driving fine, and so I coaxed her home, dreading every hill, with no further troubles. Since then it has been starting and driving normally for 6 weeks.

**Keithy P38** · 27th July 2011, 12:18 PM

Bad fuel maybe??

The only other thing I'd be thinking straight off the bat would be a couple of cracked spark plugs or buggered spark plug leads. I'm no expert when it comes to injection so fuel pump/ecu issues are out of my league.

Maybe a voltage related issue even? Mine "died" but i still managed to limp it to Paul's place (only just) on very low battery, and it was very spluttery by that stage!

Hope you find the issue before it re-emerges!

Cheers
Keithy

**RR P38** · 27th July 2011, 02:04 PM

Fuel pump is your problem i would say.
If you can drive at very small throttle openings this indicates to me the fuel pump filters are blocked up or the pump has died.
Change your fuel filter as well.
Changing the fuel pump is a bit of a bugger, drain the tank completely otherwise it is heavy getting it back in.
You could get your fuel rail pressure tested to confirm that it is the pump.
My pump went on me 4-5 years ago while i was going up the hill at the Spit bridge here in Sydney, Low range got me home ok with very small throttle openings.
If your tank is full you will keep running, hitting the tank will kick the pump over/clear the filter on the bottom of the pump.
I was unpleasantly suprised at all the crap on the filter and in the tank!

**bee utey** · 27th July 2011, 02:20 PM

Gas converter frozen up? Water in the crank sensor?

**RR P38** · 27th July 2011, 03:07 PM

I wasnt paying much attention to the LPG side of things in my last post, so it is mostly waffle............im good at that

**Hoges** · 27th July 2011, 05:39 PM

Hi Glen

try RangeRovers.net • View topic - What does error code P1319 mean on a 1999 RR 4.6?

seems problems from low fuel levels and maybe tank debris...

how low was the fuel level ?

cheers

**glenhendry** · 5th December 2011, 01:47 PM

This has not re-occurred, so I can only assume (since I was pulling into a petrol station) that I was low on fuel and the pump got contaminated with grit or vapour.

However, I do get similar symptoms sometimes when I am 4wding and the intake pops off the throttle body because of the less-than-perfect LPG install from the PO.

**jsp** · 5th December 2011, 03:14 PM

have you ever had the situation where the engine cuts out and all the electrics have reset on the car as if the battery has just been connected? Even just once in the past few months?

**glenhendry** · 6th December 2011, 07:34 AM

Originally Posted by jsp

have you ever had the situation where the engine cuts out and all the electrics have reset on the car as if the battery has just been connected? Even just once in the past few months?

No. My electrics -seem- pretty tight. One of the first things I did was bought an ayers rock sized new battery and redid all the earth points and BeCM connectors.

**jsp** · 6th December 2011, 10:40 AM

my reason for asking about the eletric cut out was my car did it once every few months for about 2 years, and every time it did it I had the loss of top end power missfire/stuttering type symptom on gas and petrol.

turned out to be an arcing spark plug lead which I only found on the side of the road in the dark, and only did it unless heavy load and while the lead was in a certain spot.

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