What happened to my car?

therivierakid

I was driving along this afternoon and all of a sudden I lost most of the power. I had to floor the accelerator just to maintain the same speed. Same thing happened when I dropped down a gear and I was struggling to get up hills. After a couple of miles of this I pulled over and had a look under the bonnet (not that I had any idea what I was looking for!). When it happened there were no warning lights on the dash (just the headlights and the cold weather indicator) and no funny sounds coming from anywhere. Just a lack of response from the engine.

After a couple of minutes with the engine off I set off again and all was normal on the remainder of my journey home.

Does anyone know what might have happened? And more importantly what might be needed to fix it?:eek:

It's a Ford Focus diesel, 1.8TDCi, 55 reg by the way.

buxtonrabbitgreen

First off i know very little about the innards of cars, but I remember my oh having a diesel and saying that they could be very sluggish if the diesel got very cold. Possibly that is the reason if you had just started your journey? though I should ask at a garage.

mallymal

I had a Renault with similar symptoms on many occasions, but I DID used to get a warning light on the dash. Each time it was Ignition coils needing replacing.

From what little I know most modern cars like yours have a kid of self sefence mechanism, and if the car's engine management computer senses something is wrong, it goes into a low power "limp me home" mode. It does this to stop you revvving hard rec, and doing even more damage. BUT can't understand why it's repaired itself.

I'd ask a garage how much to hook it up to a laptop and run a diagnostic chck.

goldspanners

i doubt it was the diesels temperature.
it could be an engine sensor,but usually this would show a warning light.
it could be as simple as an air lock in the fuel system.
it could be a blocked fuel line or filter.
it could have been over heating and went into limp home mode.
it could be a turbo problem.
it could be a number of things.

was there more smoke than normal coming out of the exhaust,thick black stuff?

therivierakid

I didn't notice any black smoke coming out of the exhaust.

I'll get it checked into the garage. Need to go out in it tonight though...

Pobby

mallymal wrote: »

I had a Renault with similar symptoms on many occasions, but I DID used to get a warning light on the dash. Each time it was Ignition coils needing replacing.

From what little I know most modern cars like yours have a kid of self sefence mechanism, and if the car's engine management computer senses something is wrong, it goes into a low power "limp me home" mode. It does this to stop you revvving hard rec, and doing even more damage. BUT can't understand why it's repaired itself.

I'd ask a garage how much to hook it up to a laptop and run a diagnostic chck.

I bought a fairly new Omega. From what I gather they do have a habit of "limp me home" mode for no apparent reason. After start ing it over a couple of times it drove in a normal way.

goldspanners

also worth noting,i had a diesel vito that would sometimes stall and other times it would just idle even with foot to floor when engine had hit rev limiter,usually accelerating away from lights in 1st gear. it was common on the vito but have heard of it on the focus.

pianeet

it could be the cam sensor,i know transits have a similar problem cutting out

Rolandtheroadie

Our works TDCI transit had the exact same problem. It was in and out of Ford over and over again with no repair. (ERG valve I think they changed and reset some ecu).
They only found out what was causing it when the RAC had one of their transits with the same fault and fixed it themselves.
We could be doing 70 along the motorway, the note of the engine would change slightly, you'd press the accelerator further but it only maintained speed, lost it going up hill, just as you say.
Stopping and starting again also cured it.
I'll try and find out exactly what was causing it.

violetta

From Honest John's website (Daily Telegraph):

"Things to watch out for - Mysterious 'Engine System Faults' on diesel leading them to lose power and revert to limp home mode may be caused by an intercooler pipe weld fault leading to a crack in the pipe. Problem of 1.6 and 2.0 16v diesels slipping into limp home mode put down to throttle butterflies sticking or their spindles wearing prematurely causing them to stick. The throttle position sensor identifies this and sends a message to the ECU to limit the engine to limp home mode."

Rolandtheroadie

violetta wrote: »

From Honest John's website (Daily Telegraph):

"Things to watch out for - Mysterious 'Engine System Faults' on diesel leading them to lose power and revert to limp home mode may be caused by an intercooler pipe weld fault leading to a crack in the pipe. Problem of 1.6 and 2.0 16v diesels slipping into limp home mode put down to throttle butterflies sticking or their spindles wearing prematurely causing them to stick. The throttle position sensor identifies this and sends a message to the ECU to limit the engine to limp home mode."

Ours didnt go into limp home mode. I'd imaginethat would only limit the revs/speed(?) and throw up an engine management fault light.
Got hold of a guy at work, he recons it was the fuel rail they eventually changed. I've no idea on costs though.