Engine Cutting Out

[Carlos]

Apologies, this may be a longish post!

 

To start with, I have a 2005 Hdi Estate with 62,000 miles on the clock which I have owned from new, and has a full service history (last serviced in July this year).

 

After my trip to France during the summer, the started to suffer from the occaisional hiccup. The revs would die, then instantly pick up again. No faults or warnings were present when hooked up to diagnostic machine at the garage. It could do this in any rev range without warning.

 

Finally, in October, the engine srted to hiccup, and then died completely. again no warnings or faults shown at the time. After 5 minutes, the car strted fine, and I was able to drive home normally. Put that down to a one-off. Then 2 weeks later, the same happened (this time at 70mph on the A1M). Coasted onto the hardsholuder, turned off the ignition, waited 5 mins, started up again and carried on.

 

This time, I took the car into my local independant Citroen garage (Chevronics in Hitchin - excellent people and service) and they plugged it into the diagnostics again. Still no faults or warnings reported. Drive away.

 

When it happened again a couple of days later, a fault did briefly appear on the screen in the car. Back to the garage, and it reported a fault in the anti-pollution system. Not very clear, so a decision was made to replace the diesel Particulate filter which may be blocked (and generally needs replacng between 60K and 90K depending on driving conditions). The eloys had been topped up at the service.

 

Waited 5 days for the filter to arrive, during which time the car became almost un-driveable (cut out 3 times within 45 minutes on a trip on the M20). Filter was fitted early November and, hey-presto, problem solved. Car drove like new, no more cutting out.

 

OR SO I THOUGHT.

 

Driving to Watford on Monday, car cuts out pulling away from a roundabout. Driving to work on Friday, car cuts out at speed on the A1M.

 

Has anyone got any ideas? The garage can't find any faults, and none are reported during a diagnostic check. At a loss as to where to begin. The car has been good to me up to now, and although I was hoping to replace it, I wasn't planning to until late summer next year.

 

All ideas appreciated.

 

carl

[Randombloke]

1. Crank position sensor - I've suffered this on another car and a motorcycle
   
2. Throttle pot track or connectors worn - replace? Does cruise control fix problem as this bypasses throttle pot?
   
3. Fuses and connections under ECU behind battery - suggested in another thread
   

Does it only happen when hot? That might point to it being an inductance type sensor going open circuit when it gets hot.

 

The crank position sensor has given exactly this same fault on another thread and it was fixed by replacement.

 

Should you opt to replace it, do not let them throw away the old one. Borrow a resistance meter, connect it across the old sensor then heat it with either a hair dryer or a heat shrink hot air gun. At higher temperatures, the coil that forms the sensor goes either open circuit or very high resistance, and this is what causes the fault.

 

The fact that the car runs again after a cooling period makes me confident this is a good line to pursue.

 

This will then prove the fault has been fixed and should eliminate having to wait for the car to break down again.

 

Coastline, what's your take on this?

[coastline taxis]

What fuel ststem is on the car. Just had something similar to this and it turnrd out to be injectors. Was a 55 plate c5 45k 2 litre hdi. But as random has pointed get a few things checked first as some of what hes listed wont throw up a fault code. If you trust your dealer let one of the mechanics use the car for a few days with the scanner plugged in that way when it happens theyl have some data to work with

[revittony]

had this type of problem myself.

it would cut out, with anti-pollution fault shown on the display, wait 30 seconds and it would start. it would go for 200 yards or 10 mls and then cut out again. it took me about 8 cut out and restarts to get to my dealership 1.5 mls away.

turned out to be swarf from the electric fuel pump getting into the high pressure pump. they flushed it out and it ran for over a year before i got a different problem i got the old anti-pollution fault again but this time it was due to a bad bit of rubber seal round the common rail pressure sensor plug. ripped it out and still running over a year later.

this anti-pollution fault covers so much, even the dealerships have a problem pinning it down.

hope this helps someone.