Mondeo TDCI - flashing coil light, no turbo & limp home ... intermittently.

JustAnotherSaver

I'll try give full info in case any of it is something i think insignificant but turns out not to be. Car is a 2006 2.2 Mondeo TDCI.

Bought the car & drove it an hour home, including motorway. EML came on - fault code relating to EGR valve. Turns out valve appears to have been blanked. DTC's erased & car parked up for a couple weeks or whatever it's been.

Take the airbox lid off to measure the air filter in order to buy one. Don't screw the lid back on - leave it loose (as i was going to replace the filter before going for MOT).

Car gets driven a mile to the garage where it has fuel filter changed as well as some other jobs (tyres, stabilizer arms replaced). Car may have been taken for a test drive (or not) and  will then be driven about 2 mile to the MOT test spot and 2 mile back.

I pick up the car, drive to my mothers. All good.

An hour later i go to leave & the glow plug / coil light is flashing away. I keep stalling it through lack of power. I drive off but soon come back as it's taking forever to build revs, dangerously so.

Once back my brother notes the air box lid isn't screwed down - my bad. Fix this but it doesn't fix the issue. Engine off, on, off, on and repeat repeat repeat - still flashing away.

Drive back to the garage and catch the mechanic. He doesn't see any pipes that are off. There's no major whistling. My brothers OBD reader returned 0 faults but this guys is obviously dearer and returns 5-6 codes, 1 of which being:

One of the other codes related to the EGR valve even though it's been blanked.

Codes erased, engine started, light still flashes & code returns.

Before he's about to give up and recommend a different garage to me, he unplugs the MAF sensor. The light goes out & i have power again. I drive back the 1 mile to my mothers. Just as i'm about to turn on her drive - light returns. Engine off.

Take it for a back road drive, no light. Go to head home, light comes on. Engine off, engine back on, rev it - no light. Drive home with full power - about 5 miles.

Take it a mile to put some diesel in it as i was low - no light, drive the 1 mile back - no light.

Drive it about 5 backroad miles back to my mothers about 2 hours later - no light. Engine off. Get my brother to hop in to have a listen to something, engine on - light comes back on. Engine off, engine on and rev it - light stays off. Drive 4 miles home and the light stays off.

Clearly this is an ongoing issue.

My brother is wondering if someone has drilled a hole in the blanking plate as he's read that some people do this believing it to have benefits whereas many others tell these folk not do do this as else what's the point in blanking. He wonders this also due to how both of ours have been blanked off....

This is mine:

You can see it still has that pipe with the mesh on it and it looks like just a thin slither plate has been put between it and the EGR valve.

Little bit more of a close up:

Whereas when you look at his (mine is a 56 plate, his is a 55 plate, mine is the 2.2 155bhp whereas his is the 2.0 130bhp version in case any of that makes any difference whatsoever):

The EGR itself has been completely removed, the pipe with the mesh on it has been completely removed. He did this himself after buying a 'blanking kit' - removing the meshed pipe in my engine, the EGR itself. He inserted that tube you see and the thin blanking plate that i seem to have between the EGR and the meshed pipe he said goes towards the rear of the engine at the other end of that meshed pipe.

Whether these two differences make any difference at all i have no idea at all.

I would imagine if my turbo was goosed then it would just have no power full stop, not just no power here and there.

That's as much info as i can think to give. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this before i try and get it booked in somewhere.

Grumpy_chap

Did you contact the dealer that sold you the car?
They may be liable to resolve, or you may have grounds to reject the car.

daveyjp

IIRC 2.0 fully blanked, 2.2 hole in blanking plate as they are different designs.

However these engines do give false positives for lots of issues.  As it is intermittent check all tne wiring you can see for any fraying.

A friend spent a fortune on an X type with the same 2.0 engine (egr, injectors,  various  sensors etc), still errors a d it turned out to be a frayed wire near a pulley which the autoelectrician fixed for a few quid,

JustAnotherSaver

Grumpy_chap said:

Did you contact the dealer that sold you the car?
They may be liable to resolve, or you may have grounds to reject the car.

My brother has been there before with the rejection thing. Ended up paying fees and sending off court letters so on & so forth and got absolutely nowhere with it.

To be honest i can't be bothered to frustrate myself with that. I saw exactly what he had to do, what he had to pay, the hoops he had to jump through and all the garage had to do was ignore him, stop trading (& then likely set up under a new name) and they got away with it.

daveyjp said:

IIRC 2.0 fully blanked, 2.2 hole in blanking plate as they are different designs.

However these engines do give false positives for lots of issues.  As it is intermittent check all tne wiring you can see for any fraying.

A friend spent a fortune on an X type with the same 2.0 engine (egr, injectors,  various  sensors etc), still errors a d it turned out to be a frayed wire near a pulley which the autoelectrician fixed for a few quid,

So you're saying the 2.2 requires a hole in the plate? Or are you just saying the 2.0 and 2.2 need a different type of kit?

Looking at these links:

http://www.egr-delete.co.uk/product/ford-mondeo-boost-gauge-egr-removal-kit-copy/

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EGR-Delete-Kit-Ford-MK3-Mondeo-Jaguar-X-Type-2-0-2-2-TDCi-ST-2-2-Stainless-Steel-/121670988448

it's actually the same kit (& therefore surely the same process?) for the 2.0 and 2.2?

I do see where you're coming from with the false positives though. Have had that recently with my wifes car. Spent a total of £180 for what was a £15 fix in the end.

forgotmyname

Sticky turbo vanes. Hope you like getting mucky and crawling under the car. 
The oil pipe is a PITA and dont lose the gasket.

Blanking plate with hole is pointless, the hole needs to be as big as the pipe to eliminate the
engine light 100%.

Grumpy_chap

OP may not want to pursue rejecting the vehicle.
Still worth asking the garage to fix, as they may agree, and can't lose anything by asking.

Goudy

There's a whole host of potential problems that cause issues like this.

The EGR system on the Euro 5 engine is different that the Euro 4 and the EGR on the Euro 5 Automatic (and methinks 2.2 manual) is different again.
The Euro 4 EGR is a simple vacuum operated device, the Euro 5 valve is motor driven and the Euro 5 auto valve is different motor driven unit.
Euro 4's can be blanked, but Euro 5's tend to give trouble if you blank them even with a hole, also when the valves clog with oily soot the Euro 5 drive motors can struggle to open and close them and burn out.
You'll need to try and log the EGR's position out on a drive.

As already mentioned, the turbo vanes can stick causing an over boost when accelerating and trip limp as it can no longer back off the boost.
Easy to check, just unclip the actuator arm and operate the vane arm manually back and forth to see if there is any resistance.

The air pipe from the intercooler to the EGR can split bleeding off boosted air.
Again it can trip limp, though you usually notice a whooshing sound, lack of power when accelerating and the pipe covered in blowby oil.

You had the fuel filter changed? They are prone to rail pressure issues.
The Duratorq can be fussy with filter type, some cheap pattern ones can restrict fuel flow, though it's often a sign of problems further along the fuel system. Delphi and Bosch filters tend to work ok.

Another common issue with the Duratorq is injectors wearing and bleeding off too much fuel.
This causes the the car to trip limp when accelerating as there's just too much fuel returning from the injectors/rail so the rail pressure drops, it's particularly noticeable under load. 
You can rig up a simple leak off test and measure what each returns, there are plenty of guides about for the Mondeo/Xtype.

Rule of thumb was to check, re calibrate/reprogram (any good injector after the check) after 80 or 90k on these.
If the engine is fitted with one of those "tuning boxes" that alter the rail pressure signal, it'll do this whatever state of the injectors are in, they just can't cope with suspect rail pressure.

JustAnotherSaver

Goudy - are you the same guy as in this thread: https://www.jaguarforum.com/showthread.php?t=65103?

Since the fuel filter is something that has been changed and i didn't have this light on beforehand, i searched "HDF924 or HDF924E for Mondeo TDCI" and got that link.

For the record, I bought a HDF924 Delphi. eBay Link

Your comments regards Euro 5 - are you just generally speaking? I ask as from Googling, my car is Euro 4 as it's 2006 whereas in my brothers case being a 55, his is Euro 3. From Googling further, apparently that's why I need a hole in my blanking plate (and the EGR programmed out) whereas he doesn't. I believe this is because the EML will come on in my case. If this is the only issue then I can live with that if a complete plate will fix the problem (but the tradeoff is the EML). The member FOCA seems pretty strong about having no hole in the blanking plate here: https://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/60479-egr-blanking-on-euro-4/. Whether what he says is correct or not (not just about the hole, but everything & how confident he is of himself) who knows - this is the internet after all. You just need to decide what advice you roll with and what you don't.

No wooshing sound that i've heard.

forgotmyname said:

Blanking plate with hole is pointless, the hole needs to be as big as the pipe to eliminate the

engine light 100%.

Is exactly what i would've thought, but apparently the hole on the Euro 4's is because the EML will come on without it (unlike the Euro 3s). Apparently it needs programming out to stop this, unlike the Euro 3s.

NOTE: I am not stating this as fact, just regurgitating what I have Googled.

The debate seems to be about the hole size. I've read 6mm, 7mm, 8mm and 10mm.

If it (complete steel plate without a hole) just throws up the EML then that's one thing - and something i could live with (& just change again in time for MOT) but if it throws up EML and also has the car running crap then that's different.

I've read about some water drain hole that apparently gets blocked in the EGR valve & people talking of drilling it to make it bigger. Not so sure about that one. I'd probably cause more damage.

And at this moment in time i don't even know what the cause of the glow plug coil light flashing (& therefore the limp mode / no turbo) is. Whether it is due to the EGR or separate from it. Whether P132B is a false positive or whether it is additional to the EGR.

I imagine you could look up absolutely any car and find a catalogue of common faults. There'll be plenty of diesel Mondeo's that are going about perfectly fine just as there will be those with issues like and worse than mine.

After having a reliable car for the past 12 years, at the moment i feel like i've just chucked a few grand straight in the bin at the moment. Yep it's the chances you take with second hand but here we are.

JustAnotherSaver

Also just a couple questions I forgot to ask:

1) this intermittent thing, is this normal for this fault or would you expect it to be all the time? For example I just drove 2-3 miles to the gym this morning and then an hour later made the return trip. No light, no problems. Who knows, maybe if I start it now the light will come on, maybe not. Maybe i could do a 10 mile journey perfectly fine and then turn it off and back on again without the light, maybe not. 
Point is (at the moment) it's not on 100% of the time (granted I've only done short journeys since I picked it up).

2) the car came with a 6 month warranty. Would you expect something like this to be covered under warranty or are them things not worth the paper they're written on? I do remember the guy saying something at the time about how I'd need to contact another company and claim (or do something at least) through them. 

Oh and I don't think it has a tuning box on or that it's been remapped. My brother has taken it for a spin and says it's not massively different from his 2ltr 130bhp Mondeo. Quicker yes but not massively so. 

Goudy

That's me, though a long time ago and my experiences with the Jag are scars I thought I'd left a long time ago.
 
I might have screwed up the Euros, but the earlier Euro cars will have a basic spring/vacuum EGR.
There will be no wiring to it, just a vacuum pipe as at the time there wasn't a specific regulation stating EGR operation should be linked to the engine management warning system.

I seem to think that reg changed around 2005 or 2006 and EGR operation had to be linked to the EML.
From then the EGR valve changed to one with a sensor on it. It's a similar looking device with a vacuum pipe but now has a wiring connector for a sensor.
Even though you might blank it (large washer plate in between the EGR and the EGR cooler- webbed covered pipe), it will detect there's little no flow and flag up a EML.
I has been written in a lot of places that a hole of a certain diameter may stop the EML. but the soot from the EGR feed and oil that's feed into the air intake from the crank breather soon clogs up the hole.

Later car which I seem to think are the auto's and DPF equipped cars had a different, motor driven EGR valve with sensor/wiring and no vacuum pipe and the motor is attached in a cylinder off to one side.

I am under the impression EGR faults with the above valves only cause an EML and not trip into limp.
The EML is triggered by the sensor not detecting flow so many times (three?) in the same drive cycle, so tends to be a while in a trip for it to trigger.

If there's a blank in there and you're worried about it causing the issue, remove it, but I think there's bigger issues with the car.
The flashing glow plug light is a fuel system warning and along with the limp mode suggests there's something else going on apart from the EGR valve.

I can't see your images in the original post as work don't supply me with an up to date browser so can't see if you posted any other images of codes, but it sounds like it might be tripping limp when accelerating which again backs up a fueling/air intake problem.
Common code that goes along with the symptoms are P0251 (basically the pump complaining it can't meter out enough fuel to maintain rail pressure), due to leaks, buggered HP pump or excessive injector leak off.

Over boost codes P132A and/or P132B are also other common codes with limp/flashing glow plug symptoms.
Earlier Turbos were straight vacuum operated to adjust the vanes, later ones had a motor driving the actuator (a black box and wiring connector)
These motor driven turbos with the "black boxes" are prone to failing, the soldered joints inside the box fail and the won't actuate the vane arm anymore, it's very common on these.

The vanes themselves can carbon up and stick which neither the vacuum or motor can over come.
I described how to test the vanes, they should be fairly loose.

To test the actuator is a bit harder, but I seem to think the vanes/actuator without the engine running will be open/retracted (at one end of it's travel).
Start the car and the actuator should move to advance the vanes instantly so it's ready to give full boost (to the other end of it's travel)
As the engine load increases the actuator should start to slowly retract the vanes.
Turn the engine off and the actuator should return back to the other end of it's travel.

Goudy

Motor driven actuators look like this
https://www.turbovanes.com/mondeo-turbo-actuator-31-c.asp
https://www.ecutesting.com/common-faults/ford/ford-mondeo-tdci-turbo-actuator-problem/