diagnostic sockett

stuart edwards

Guest
hello, could any kind soul please tell me where the diagnostic sockett to for the diesel engine is please, i have had a quick look under the dashboard but cant spot it. my alhambra has developed a strange quirk, it starts well , runs smoothly but as soon as we hit an incline she slows down , changing and moving the accelerator pedal doesnt appear to make any difference, so its 80 down hill and 50 uphill, any ideas whats going wrong? its a 1999 model AHU engine i think this is before common rail injection?

many thanks

stuart:( :( :(
 

bmsc22990

Full Member
May 20, 2004
82
0
edinburgh
sockets under the front ashtray. Sounds like the throttle sensor which means replacing the accelarator pedal. comes as complete assembly and is a 5 min job
and i think costs about £40.
 

stuart edwards

Guest
many thanks for the info, i have found the sockett, my friend has a lucas test device which plugs into it so i will see what fault it brings up

cheers

stuart
 

Fl@pper

Back older greyer and less oilier but always hope
Jun 19, 2001
12,370
26
Gloucester
try a throttle reset

usually leave the battery off for half n hour if its the same as the ibiza's
 

julian2002

Guest
i am / was having a similar problem with my 'bamma being a bit hesitant on the flats and dying going up hill - even with the throttle planted.
general internet consensus (and the opinion of a couple of specialists i've spoken to) is general glooping up of the vnt mechanism on the turbo and the intake system in general.
recently i've improved things greatly by loading the car up with 3 people's luggage, hanging 3 pushbikes on the back and driving from milton keynes to sunderland in as 'spirited' a manner as my sick engine allowed. things improved a fair bit after that (the theory being that the vnt mechanism has to work more when the car is heavy and giving it some beans heats up the exhaust gas to burn off some of the crap). i've also been using redex and some wynns oil additive to help things along.
it's not a complete fix but it's got things back to about 90% of what i remember the performance to be and costs a hell of a lot less than the £1000 that i was being quoted for a new turbo.
occasionally if i reved over 3k uphill the car would hit 'limp mode' this is signified by the car being unable to rev over 2.5k and it getting really slow with no torque at all. to cure this jsut turn off then on again (i usually just switched the ignition off and then on again to roll start it - job done). i've not hit limp mode even when booting it uphill in 6th which would usually do it so things are looking up.
next thing is to try some 10k boost so if you don;t mind the slight hi-jack can i ask the following questions...
1) is it ok to run the engine with the maf connected but not in the airflow...
2) is it ok to spray the 10k into the hole where the maf used to be (if i remeove it)
3) is there any way to reve the engine from under the bonet? or do i need a 2nd foot to rev it while i spray it in?
cheers


julian.
 

stuart edwards

Guest
alhambra TDi sorted

many thanks to all who supplied advice re my alhambra power dropping right off when it spied the slightest hill. after doing as much as possible myself i took it to ripon auto electrics where the mass air flow meter was the source of the trouble. i have a new one to fit, a bosch exchange item from Andrew Page ltd, at present the MAF is unplugged so the engine gets full air all the time instead of the 40% it was getting and it goes really well. cheers to all who helped
 

julian2002

Guest
thought i'd update what's gone on with my car...
the additives were at best a temporary fix about a month after using them my 'bamma was back to square one and getting worse, usual symptoms - unable to pull more than about 65 uphill in any gear, warp field collapse (limp mode) if i drove it enthusiastically, lumpy acceleration in low gears and none at all in high gears - absolute max speed was 90mph downhill (on a private road m'lud). finally got together the money for fixing it if it came to the worst, so took it along to jabbasport in peat-bog-horror and asked them to fix it.
first problem - knackered MAF so that got replaced.
still not going well so off came the turbo and lo and behold it's seized solid.
unfotunately my bamma has a weird turbo more commonly found on a sharan aparently ??? so it took a day to sent the one that brian had ordered back to wherever and get the correct one.
unfortuantely whipping off the turbo had revealed that my exhaust was composed mainly of rust and road grime so a new one of them had to be sourced and fitted.
at this point my credit card cried 'enough' but fortunately this seems to have done the trick. acceleration is now smooth, i have torque again and it;s still pulling at 100 (on a private road again m'lud). it doesn;t feel quite as frisky at the top end as i remember but then it's been a while and i'm guessing a lot of soot and crap has passed through (and stuck in) the intake system since then.
so in the spring it's going to be back to jabba for a service, intake cleaning, egr disable and possibly a session on the rolling road with a laptop if the insurance doesn't hit me too hard.
big thanks to brian and the guys at jabbasport for sorting me out.
 
Adrian Flux insurance services - discount for forum members.