Td5 Defender zero power when it's cold...

[toby]

Hi guys,

My TD5 Defender has an annoying habit of not having any power when it's cold...

When the engine is cold (outside temp 25C) and I drive up a hill near my place I need to be doing 60k's + or I won't have enough momentum to get up the hill (yes the hill is steep but nothing it can’t do in 3rd or 4th when it’s warm). Sometimes if traffic is following me I’ll put the indicators on and pretend I’m pulling off the road to save the embarrassment of people thinking my mighty Defender has no grunt!

I've been living with this issue for 2yrs now and I’ve kind of got used to it because it usually only lasts for 1-2mins… However sometimes it will drive "normally" when it's cold which is what makes me want to fix it!

Any ideas on what could be the problem?

It's got a BD chip/intercooler and EGR bypass…

[Yorkshire_Jon]

Dont suppose you have spent many years driving TDi's have you and never changed your driving style to meet the different characteristics of a TD5?


TD5's do have less power when they are cold and you may need to be in a gear lower. If its proper flat though something is a miss.

When you had it chipped / remapped did you replace the paper filter with a K&N / ITG type? If so, my money would be on a dead air flow meter.

The oil in the filters coats and kills the air flow meters and that would give you crap performance as the car will be working on standard / fail safe values. We see it all the time over here.

[justinc]

Try a MAF sensor. You can either clean yours with CO contact cleaner and try it, or best thing to do is to try a known working example from another Vehicle.

This can be the source of quite a few performance issues with these.

JC

[scarry]

Mine was surging at 3000rpm & over been doing it for a fair while......replaced MAP sensor,fixed it.Used an after market one,MR auto did it dont know where they get them from.

[toby]

Thanks guys,

I’m still using the paper filter for that reason thanks Yorksire Jon… and yeah I did have a tdi before this but it’s not a case of different driving characteristics unfortunately…

I'll try cleaning the MAF sensor and see how I go… if that fails I’ll give the guys at M.R a call and pick up a replacement... can’t hurt having a spare lying around anyhow.

Keep you posted…

[Yorkshire_Jon]

To check air flow meter...

pin 1 GND
pin2 signal out
pin3 12V+.

At idle 2v about = 60kg/hr of air. If you arent getting approx 2v at tickover then its worth changing it.