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

JustAnotherSaver

Goudy said:

https://www.ecutesting.com/common-faults/ford/ford-mondeo-tdci-turbo-actuator-problem/

Thanks, that link there seems promising. It's what mine looks like at any rate.

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.

I did this and it does move. Whether it moves as it should do is another matter. I started it up and that arm moves forwards. I rev it and it moves a bit. Now my bit and your bit and the next mans bit may be 3 totally different bits if you get me? But to me it didn't move excessively so. I turned the car off and it retracted fully.

I took the car for more of a drive this afternoon. Needed to pick up some stuff from the far end of town so it was say a 15 minute drive ish. Hopped back in after 30mins and was no flashing light.

As this was all town-tootling a couple miles here and there i then hopped on the motorway for some within the speed limit driving. This is about an 8 mile journey.

No problems. Pull up at my mothers, engine off, engine on and still no flashing light. 20mins later we leave & still no flashing light.

Which on the one hand is good but also annoying because it's going to happen again and reading the link you provided that i quoted that's exactly what it says - it starts off intermittently before becoming more permanent. It must have literally just started happening then.

And yes, i know we were covering the EGR valve a bit to begin with in the thread but there are likely issues beyond that as you say. Makes you wonder if this is why it was sold in the first place. Also makes me consider buying a little put-put town-car on finance. Something new or fairly new. I hate the idea of finance and even more than that i hate the idea of a lowly powered thing and while i don't really have the money to be doing that kind of thing (or would rather not), i certainly don't have the money to throw at "this may fix it but if it doesn't then we'll try that".

MinuteNoodles

P132B is the turbo actuator. The was completely reliable never broke down sold it to my parents MK4 Mondeo I replaced last year came up with a similar fault a few weeks ago, slightly different fault code but same message and also went into limp home with no boost and clearing it sorted it for a couple of days. In their case all it was was that the actuator arm was fouled up with 160,000 miles of crap and a good clean sorted it out. 

JustAnotherSaver

MinuteNoodles said:

P132B is the turbo actuator. The was completely reliable never broke down sold it to my parents MK4 Mondeo I replaced last year came up with a similar fault a few weeks ago, slightly different fault code but same message and also went into limp home with no boost and clearing it sorted it for a couple of days. In their case all it was was that the actuator arm was fouled up with 160,000 miles of crap and a good clean sorted it out. 

Sorry, i'm not too sure what you're saying. Not your fault, i'm just not the most mechanically minded.

So you're saying you had a MK4 Mondeo which had no issues whatsoever, sold it to your parents & then they suddenly developed the same problem as me and it was the 'actuator arm' that needed a clean? Not the EGR, not the turbo but the arm itself?

Looking at mine, i don't see how the arm gets dirty in any way?

Or are you talking about the turbo like this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFDMd8eVVXo&t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsYK97DwZ2Y

??

He does a bit of waffling on, like me I suppose, but he gets there in the end. Seems to drill a hole on his turbo and squirts oven cleaner in there. From what i've read, a few people have done this & reported success.

For the record, my car has done 145k miles.

forgotmyname

No the fault is not normal, your turbo vanes are sticking and it needs fixing sooner rather than later because its only going
to get worse and just wait until your accelerating and it drops to limp mode see how dangerous that can be.

JustAnotherSaver

forgotmyname said:

No the fault is not normal, your turbo vanes are sticking and it needs fixing sooner rather than later because its only going
to get worse and just wait until your accelerating and it drops to limp mode see how dangerous that can be.

I'm not sure you understood my question of is it normal.

I wasn't meaning is it ok to have a fault or can i just ignore this and carry on.

I was asking if it's normal (when presented with this fault) for it to be as intermittent as i am describing? This is all new to me so i don't know if this is usually an always or not at all thing, a 90% of the time thing or whether my 10% of the time description (actually less than that at the moment) is exactly how 'the majority' start out before it progresses or whether what i am describing is actually pretty unusual and that it is often more frequent.

That's what i meant when i asked if it's normal.

On a side note and for something i can bear in mind for future purchases - is this kind of issue specific to diesel turbo's or is it just turbo's full stop - including petrol?

Goudy

I managed to get a look at your original post with images, your EGR is the later motor driven unit with a blanking plate in between the valve and the exhaust feed/cooler.
The other car's EGR image appears to have had an EGR delete kit fitted which has replaced the valve and removed the feed pipe/cooler completely, depending on what the original set up was (plain vacuum or vacuum with sensor valve), this may or may not cause EML issues.

Your car will complain with an EML with the blank and that valve sooner or later, but it's also possible the valve has failed. It's not the most reliable of systems as the soot from the exhaust/EGR and the oil from the crank breather mix in the EGR and clog it up with nasty crud.
The trick was to tap them a little if they were slightly clogged, but if it's motor has been working against the crud it can burn out the motor or the plastic gears can jump/strip.
But this shouldn't cause the car to trip into limp.

The P132B code is the likely culprit for that.
The MAP sensor is reading outside it's tolerance, it obviously won't do this all the time as it's tolerances are spread due to how a turbo works, boost isn't constant which is why turbos are fitted with wastegates or variable vanes to try and control the boost to usable levels under all loads and conditions.
So as an example in a drive cycle it might expect to see anywhere between 1 and 9 from the map, then suddenly at a point in the cycle if reads 12, it fail safes with a trip into limp mode. 

You could be driving along gently, then accelerate and the PCM detects the odd boost pressure signal over/below what is expects to see and trips into limp.
The PCM expects to see X amount of inlet pressure at certain points but it's now higher or lower than expected which causes the limp mode to protect the engine. It didn't see a problem driving gently, only when the expected pressure rose beyond/fell below expected does it fail safe.
More often than not the system will reset it's self after a restart or two as it doesn't see the fault again for a while (until it over/under boosts again) this is why the fault is so intermittent.

Depending on what odd boost reading the MAP is picking up (high or low) and when will point to the issue.
Under boost problems tend to be leaks in the system, pipes splitting and hose clips rusting away, particularly the hose under the EGR and the clips to the intercooler. Exhaust leaks near the turbo can also bleed of gasses that turn the vanes on the turbo and cause similar issues.

Over boost tend to be because of sticking wastegates/vanes or actuator problems.
The part that's most suspect to fail and cause P132B on these engines is the electronic actuator, if it can no longer operate the vanes properly so it can't control the boost, but it's worth checking the vanes are free first as if the electronic actuator has failed due to sticking vanes a new or repaired actuator will fail as well.

Some have opened these electronic actuators up and found the problems with dry solder joints.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x-type-x400-14/30-minute-home-repair-limp-mode-p132a-p132b-codes-133428/
Back in the day I didn't have to worry about might (just the rest of the crappy fuel system) as the actuator wasn't electronic, mine was an earlier version with just a vacuum operated actuator.

JustAnotherSaver

Thanks. I don't know whether i've understood your post because it actually feels like i do which makes me think something isn't right as i usually get lost. lol. From reading more, yeah my brothers Mondeo seems to be Euro 3 whereas mine is Euro 4 - his seems to be 'simpler'. Here was me looking for one of the later Mondeo's where it would probably have been better i went for one a year or so older.

What i don't get is you talk about being under load - as in the car having a hissy fit once i put the foot down. This hasn't been the case though. For example - i brought it from the garage to my mothers which is only a mile. I didn't gun it down the A road. Yeah the turbo kicked in but i wasn't going hell for leather. I just put my foot down as i pulled out of the junction and then coasted - doing 50 in a 50 (honestly this time) in 5th. The light didn't come on.

I parked up at my mothers, an hour later i started it up and upon startup - that's when i got the flashing coil light. As far as i can remember the flashing coil light has always come on upon startup, never after putting my foot down. I can't remember now if it's ever come on mid drive. I feel like it hasn't although in the back of my mind when i brought it back from the garage the second time, i think as i was slowly turning in to my mothers it might've come on. I've done that much starting and stopping and trying this and that that i can't 100% remember. If it did do that then all the other times were just on startup.

JustAnotherSaver

I have a 6 month warranty with this car. I'm not sure if this sort of thing would be covered as i often get the wrong end of the stick reading these legal things, thinking XYZ doesn't apply when it does or does apply when it doesn't.

This is the cover I have on the car:

My cover is middle of the road. Above this is Platinum Plus. Below this is Secure which is:

I THINK it may be covered, although i'm not 100% sure. It depends on what the issue actually is as until it's looked at we're just sort of guessing, even if for some it's actually an educated guess.

So i went on to the claiming part:

If i understood it correctly then basically i need to phone this company, tell them i've developed a fault - although a light on the dash doesn't qualify as being a fault it seems.

I then have 7 days to get it booked in somewhere & diagnosed. Not really a huge timeframe depending on what other work the garage has on already.

This is not to forget the fact that at the moment the glowplug light (& therefore the lack of turbo / power) hasn't happened since 2 days ago. I went on a fair drive today again and while the glowplug light didn't come on - the EML did (probably relating to the EGR again), although the car didn't drive any differently.

So i (supposed i) can't really phone this company to say, hey this light is on but it makes sod all difference to the way the car drives, yet a couple days ago a different light came on and i had naff all power which was a !!!!!!. Can you sort it out based on symptoms that applied 2 days ago but aren't there right now and probably wont be there once you have the car but almost certainly will be once you return it back to me.

forgotmyname

Covered against breakdown but the turbo vanes have not broken down they are dirty and need cleaning.

JustAnotherSaver

Could be a while before I can get the car in to a garage now. At least one that comes recommended. Guy is snowed under and basically turned me away for the time being. I know the cynics will be out & say i'll forever get turned away by this chap and maybe so but he's been spot on with us in the past for jobs so i'll do as he says and try in a months time.

In the meantime i'll clean out the EGR. Not that i expect it to fix this glow plug light issue.

Here's a couple vids of this actuator arm...

https://streamable.com/t09xul

https://streamable.com/tgvkny

I uploaded to streamable as i didn't want to upload to my personal YouTube channel. First time i've ever used it. Seemed to work.

I don't know if

a) I should disconnect the arm/part of it and wiggle it while the engine isn't running as i'm sure i've read

b) whether this is fine but i'm not revving it hard enough.

c) Whether this shows anything or nothing at all.

Oh and i seem to have another issue that appears to be common - passenger door will sometimes open and sometimes not from the outside. When it doesn't, it needs to be opened from the inside.

Bit of a change from 12 years trouble-free motoring.