Author Topic: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration  (Read 34139 times)

Simon_C

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Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« on: 05 September 2011, 01:28:24 AM »
Gah darn it! Yet another problem for my Saab to challenge me. Its a 2005 (MY06) 9-3 1.9TID [150bhp] Vector Sport.

Over the last couple of weeks I've noticed that the engine doesn't feel anywhere near as powerful as it should and used to be - in fact my girlfriends mx-5 (1.8, new style) is quicker and pulls much better (which it shouldn't be). When starting up recently, I'm often greeted by a large grey/brown cloud of smoke. Also around 2k the engine has a flat spot and when booting it from around those revs I'm rewarded with a large puff of smoke as it hesitates, picks up and then hesitates again. I know diesels are usually a bit smoky, however this, until recently, never produced noticeable clouds of smoke when accelerating+starting (that you could see from looking in the rear view mirror).

So yesterday I was getting a bit fed up with the lack of power so I decided to try and do a mini tune-up by doing a quick 60mph blast in 3rd gear (around 3-4k revs). After about 10-20seconds, the engine decided to tell me its disgust with this treatment by jolting hard and throwing the Engine Management Light up with the error code P2279-11 (MAF sensor reading low and/or intake air leak detected). However when the light came on, the engine didn't appear to resort to limp-mode and continued to accelerate 'normally' (still with the above mentioned problems).

Having a good Google about, it appears that this code could be caused by a whole multitude of problems. However I can rule out DPF trouble as it luckily doesn't have one, the EGR valve I removed and cleaned off about 5-8k miles ago (its currently the car's 3rd EGR valve its had) and I've had a look at all the intake hoses at both the bottom and the top of the engine for perished and cracked pipe work. Even though the view is limited, I did have a quick glance around the intercooler from under the car and there didn't appear to be any damage. Finally the swirl flap rods look like they are still attached - I'll do an actuator test on it tomorrow and check that they move correctly.

So where should I start looking at next?

Do I need to have the intake system pressure tested to see if there is any air leaks? I've seen a few online guides using a bung and a air-pump fitting to allow the system to be pumped up and tested. Anyone had experience with this, or am I asking for trouble by trying this?
Is it worth removing the EGR valve again to clean it (and requiring to replace the gaskets again)? I'll probably do a actuator test with my op-com tomorrow and listen for a reassuring thunk.
Or is it likely that my MAF sensor could be on the blink? What are peoples experiences with them? Are these likely to fail slowly and not throw a EML, or do they normally just fail suddenly with a invalid reading? Unfortunately at part price of around £150, its not something that can be a cheap replace to try.

I can start to see now how people find it a bit tedious with this model+engine frailness! It still has the intermittent drivers side airbag warning's, the sump plug is almost rounded off (I tried doing an oil change today, however had to abort until I get a new sump plug to replace it, thanks to the last garages slowly rounding it off every time) and not to mention the other, now fixed, problems I've already had in less than a year (ABS malfunction - chaffed wire, thermostat, air-con recirculation flap motor, cd player eject mechanism and 3rd injector wiring failure)... :(


Si.




Audax

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #1 on: 05 September 2011, 09:36:41 AM »
You need to pressure test the intake and intercooler system properly by using a bung and and air line, don't over pressure the system you pressure it up and then wait to see if it loses pressure. It's not just a visual inspection as even a very small 2-3mm hole will cause problems and is the most likely cause of your problems.

Merve84

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #2 on: 05 September 2011, 07:12:29 PM »
Possibly your egr valve needs replacing.

Simon_C

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #3 on: 06 September 2011, 07:06:07 PM »
Cheers for the help and advice.

Well I did an actuator test on the swirl flaps, and noticed that not all the flaps moved. Shone a torch down there and noticed that the rod had become detached from some of the flaps. I gave it a quick poke and with no force at all, the rod fell off :(

So that explains the cause of this problem then!

I was always under the impression that the intake manifold on it had been replaced a couple of years ago when it was under warranty (when the turbo was replaced at around ~58k). However I'm now obviously thinking that this may not be the case.

Has there been any troubles with the new design intake manifold's? Or only on the original designed units? Incidentally this car always has had a Saab service history and the last owner (my parents) always took it into a Saab main dealer to have the many problems its had fixed, so I'll be surprised if none of the Saab main dealers haven't at least checked the flaps.

The car is now at 127k, still on the same clutch (and DMF) and still has the side airbag fault (plus other niggly faults) - so I don't know if I can justify the expense of having it replaced. If the intake job costs around £600-800, and if the clutch/dmf fails (I'm doing a lot of city driving in it nowadays and its still on the original parts) in another 10k-20k time, I could easily spend nearly £2k on getting it fixed, let alone if anything else that may go wrong. I only bought the car for £2.5k so fixing this+clutch/flywheel change would almost write the thing off. :|

So I think I may do the bodge fix of using a washer stuck to the bottom of the rod to hold it attached to bring back some of the power and keep the EML away. My intention is to get it to ~150k (around 1 1/2 years time with my current annual mileage) without a major/expensive fault, I'll have covered the cost of it (as all my previous cars lost around £2-3k a year in depreciation alone). As soon as there is a major problem, I'll weighting the thing in or selling it for spares/repair!

Si.

Audax

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #4 on: 06 September 2011, 07:30:09 PM »
Don't take this the wrong way but how does spending £2.5k on the car to repair it write it off? You just said yourself that depreciation of £2-3k a year was common on your other cars. Don't think that money spent on repairs is wasted, it keeps your car running! Once those things are done then they should be good for another 127k which I will admit is unlikely for your car to get that far! Your car is probably worth £3-4k so surely you can't replace it with a better one for less money? Stop thinking that maintenance money and spending money on a car is money lost! If the DMF and clutch are OK now then don't worry about them, your water pump could seize tomorrow and be an £800 job to sort, or an injector could go faulty or any of a multitude of other problems. There is one certainty, any car as it gets older will require more repairs and will be worth less money so any replacement for the same amount or less money could come with a new set of problems and spending any more on a newer car will result in excessive depreciation again.

I've seen many a person chuck away a half decent SAAB as it needed a £1k service+mot (easily done with a couple of mot repairs and some tyres+brakes) as "its' only worth £600 when sorted" only to go out and spend £1k on a replacement that's a complete pile of rubbish and requires more than £1k spent on it to get it straight so they end up putting £2k down the drain to end up in pretty much the same car losing £1k in the process!

Simon_C

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #5 on: 07 September 2011, 12:12:05 AM »
It all makes sense and I mostly agree with what you said, however there still is a point where a car isn't economically viable to start fixing and you then start throwing good money after bad. Like you said, spending £1k to repair a £600 car is more economically sound than replacing it with another £1k car that requires more work.  Given enough money, pretty much any car that develops a fault can be fixed, however doing this every time isn't necessarily economic sense. Finding that point where its not worth fixing it is always be tricky without hindsight at the time of the decision. In effect, its a educated gamble to either fix a car or replace it. Like most gambling, the risk can vary on many factors.

In the case of my vehicle, it's past track record of reliability has been exceptionally poor. In the past 4 1/2 years of ownership by my parents (who had it from ~15k to ~113k), it has had 15 or so different faults (road springs, egr x2, turbo, injector 3 wiring, alternator, etc, etc), of which a large number of them required the services of the main dealer. In the year I've had it (just coming up to a year next month - done from ~113k to 127k), I've already had 5 different faults (ABS wiring chaffing through, air con recirc flap motor, airbag warning, thermostat, now swirl flaps). So I reckon the risk of keeping and having another major problem after another is potentially fairly high.

Even worse, the swirl flap rod has a date code stamp of 03/07, which means they have been replaced at least once since the car was made! Its not good when common faults that have been fixed with supposedly uprated parts start failing again. I was hoping that the car would be at a point soon where nearly every common fault it could have had, has been fixed - thus limiting the amount of repair time+money needed. So this latest fault happening again has dented my confidence in that.

The risk of changing also depends to what I change it too. I know any car has/can have trouble, however some models still have particularly less problems (or cheaper to repair problems) than others. The other factor in the cost of repairs, for me, is the ease of repair. For example if something in the fuel injection system fails on a n/a petrol, generally I would be happy to fix that myself with my average DIY repair skills, thus making it a very cheap repair. However if a common rail f/i diesel system fails, with the pressures, tolerances and complexity involved, its something I wouldn't want to attempt to repair myself. So thus, as an broad example, changing to a N/A petrol would be less risk than potentially keeping my car.

I really don't know how long I will keep this car. I like the car a lot and want to keep it as long as possible, however the intention is still to run it until its not worth repairing - I certainly don't have an emotional attachment to cars any more and wouldn't have a problem to take it to be chopped/broken up if needs be. The timing all depends on what faults happen when. If the DMF/clutch fails and is replaced then shortly after have a road spring go, then I would be fairly happy to replace the spring.

However as another example, if I have a water pump seizure (which has already happened once, so I hope it doesn't happen again! ;D), which is repaired and then shortly after the turbo blows again, I would find it hard to justify replacing the turbo, knowing that the DMF/clutch is coming to the end of its life shortly too. At this point the vehicle is pretty much an economic write-off - as it would still be worth at least around £1-2k as a spare/repair car on eBay.

Incidentally I reattached the swirl flap rod by letting gravity and oily muck hold it together, and the car runs great again. Have you had any incidences where the swirl flaps have failed twice on the same vehicle? I guess this may be a tricky question to ask, as I suspect generally the car's ownership has changed and is many years apart before it could happen again. I'm tempted to contact the dealer to find out when the manifold was changed last to see how long it really has lasted - and also if possible, to see if it is an 'uprated part'.

Cheers,
Si.

Simon_C

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #6 on: 07 September 2011, 12:32:26 AM »
Also to add to my above, rather large, ramblings. The covering the cost of the car part is that with my last car, an RX-8 which I had for a year, I spent:
 - £3k on fuel. Which took me 7k miles at 09/10 fuel prices - in the Saab, with current fuel prices @~40mpg, it'd take me nearly 20k.
 - £3k in deprecation. Admittedly I paid extra for it from a dealership as I wanted/it needed the extended warranty.
 - £300 odd in servicing
 - £220 odd in RFL.

So far the Saab has cost me:
 - £0k in deprecation - ok this doesn't really count as I haven't sold it. However I should get more than £2.5k back for it.
 - £80 in servicing - this will go up as I'll need to have a garage to remove, thanks to previous mechanics not replacing it ever, the almost rounded sump plug.
 - £5 in parts to fix ABS. (fixed myself)
 - £0 in parts to fix the Aircon recirculation. (fixed myself, by removing the white output shaft and turning the cog inside 180degrees to an unused part with a full set of teeth still)
 - £40 in parts to fix the thermostat. (fixed myself)
 - ~£160'ish on RFL (can't remember the exact amount, but still cheaper than the Rx8)
 - Airbag warning on going. This could cost a lot, but I'm ignoring it for now - especially as its kept quiet this last month.
 - £0 on the cd player. (fixed myself)
 - I haven't factored in fuel, but its probably going to be around the same, as I've travelled much further.

So all in, I've spent much less on motoring this year than last. So I can't grumble too much about how much the Saab has cost me so far. Especially as I've had a friend who's RX8 engine has had the all-too-common loss of compression on his engine, with a repair bill of £6k for a replacement unit. Its a 55-plate that has only done 40k on the clock! Or I could also refer to colleague who earlier in the year has had his 3-series diesel do the BMW's all too common trick of swallowing its swirl flaps, writing-off the engine...

I only got the Saab as it was going cheap and intend it for a cheap run about. If it does pack-up, I'll probably replace it with something newer and around the £8-9k mark. Ok, economically speaking I'll probably loose more than keeping my current vehicle and repairing it, however its always nice to have a change every so often to something fresher and different. I do quite fancy a petrol 9-3 sportswagon at the moment. :)

Si.
« Last Edit: 07 September 2011, 12:34:21 AM by Simon_C »

Audax

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #7 on: 07 September 2011, 12:33:51 AM »
I'm not personally aware of any cars where the swirl flaps have failed twice, although I do work in a specialists and not the main dealer so it's entirely possible that with some cars where we have replaced the manifold that they had already got one replaced under warranty. It is perhaps a matter of time now we're seeing many more cars with 100k+ on them that we will find one that has had more than one swirl flap failure while in our care but like you say they tend to change hands so such a failure when it is in the hands of an individual owner is unlikely as most cars seem to change owner roughly every 2 years.

Anyhow we've not had to replace any of the usual suspect parts on a diesel car twice yet due to the replacement wearing out apart from a single intercooler and a single egr valve (I do know of several cars that have had 2 EGR valves in their lifetime). It's also worth pointing out that some jobs that the main dealer does we've never seen (these will be items that have failed within the warranty period and where the replacement part is modified to avoid problems) but then there are jobs that we do that the main dealer has never/rarely done as they are failures that happen when the car is out of warranty at 5 years old or more.

Guyver1

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #8 on: 10 September 2011, 02:47:44 PM »
I used to own a VX Signum 3.0 TDI

VERY powerful and VERY fast

I spent nearly £2000 having a "suction control valve" replaced

it drove better afterwards but didnt feel right, when I part ex'd it for the 93 Aero, the guy called me a few days later to say it had conked out on him and a fault light was on

he took it to a back street diesel specialist, took them 20 mins to find out that a diesel valve ??? was shot, cost £120 to supply and fit and the car was back to being a licence killer

so first port of call, try a diesel specialist, you might be surprised

Simon_C

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #9 on: 13 September 2011, 12:59:26 AM »
I ended up fixing it using the number plate cap trick. The number plate caps are ideal for this repair, as they not only fit perfectly over the bottom of the swirl flap, they also fit nice and snug over the flap control arms. The plastic around the hole is a lot thicker than mirror cap screws/etc from B&Q, and looks like it would take a good long while to wear down. Its almost as if they are design for it!

The rod is attached to the control flaps in the way of a ball and socket joint. Over time, the socket wears out (presumably through vibration, from the flap bearings wearing out and causing excess movement) and no longer grabs the ball properly. The idea of this repair is to provide a new 'socket' that is just slightly too small to fit over the ball joint, to stop the bar falling off.

If anyone is reading this and wants to do similar (probably will start to be more likely as these cars get older and people are less likely to want to spend £1k to fix it), this is how I did it: (I'd give this a 2/5 complication rating - using Haynes manual type rating)
1. Buy the caps. I got mine from the Range, as they were cheapest (~£1). They came in that standard motor-factor type red and white striped packet you see (autoparts or something like that) and I've seen similar in Euro Car Parts/Halfrauds/etc. I chose black ones to match the existing rod plastic.
2. Remove the plastic top engine cover
3. Remove the glow plug leads (I found this a lot easier to do this when the engine is warm). They are push fittings, so pull them straight off vertically. If you try bending to get them to come off, you risk snapping a glow plug (not good, as they aren't that cheap).
4. Remove the control bar. I did this from the left hand side (from flap number 1) using a pair of long nosed pliers to grab the bar and pull it up high enough to grab it with my fingers. As you wiggle it out, you'll need to negotiate it between the obstruction between flaps 3 and 4 (right hand side flaps). If the engine is still warm, be careful as the top of the engine block will be damn hot!
5. Clean off all oil and dirt off the rod.
6. Lightly sand the plastic parts down to provide a good keyed surface for the glue to grab hold of.
7. Glue the caps on. I used super glue and super glue accelerator (also known as kicker), as I didn't want the glue seeping to the bottom of the cap and blocking the hole. You can get super glue accelerator from any good model shop and/or probably eBay too. If your prepared to wait and/or need fiddling time, epoxy resin (Araldite) will probably do the job just as well.
8. Wait for glue to fully dry and harden.
9. Put the bar back in. This is one of the most fiddliest parts, however don't despair, if you got the bar out, then it has to go back in again somehow! I did this by going in from the left hand side (from flap number 1).
10. Push the bar onto the flap control arms. With the new caps on, it should go on with a nice firm push and pop back on. I got the bar into the rough place with my end of my fingers in between glow plugs 2 and 3 (I have medium sized hands, those with larger hands may need to enlist a smaller hand). Then, while holding the rod in one hand, used a screwdriver to give the rod a good firm push to pop it into place onto flap control arm 3. I also had to use a flap headed screwdriver to move the other control arms to the correct location to match the bars location, while using my fingers to tilt the bar to fit over. The control arms have a nasty habit of moving as you try to fit the rod on.
The flaps should be nice and easy to move, if they are not, then they are likely to have jammed with soot and its probably likely you'll need a new intake manifold, as the actuator will struggle to move them. Note, flap number 3 won't be movable and don't try to force it to move! This one is directly connected to the actuator, and hence trying to force it to move will break the actuator and require a replacement manifold + actuator. I found that attaching flap 3 first, then 4 (right hand side), 2 and 1 was the easiest order.
11. Push the glow plug connectors back on.
12. If you have an OP-COM (or even a Tech2 !), you can do an actuator test in the engine menu to check that it works properly and at good speed. Make sure you select a Z19DTH in the OP-COM menu - you may have to choose a Vectra-C model to find it. This is entirely optional, as you'll probably notice it working properly when you go for a drive. 
13. Put the engine cover back on.
14. Go drive the car and be surprised at how much power you had actually lost!

Note: This is bit of a bodge fix, as it doesn't solve the problem that the flap bearings have probably worn out a lot (which would cause the movement+vibration to wear out the existing rod). It could mean that your flaps eventually come detached and eaten up in the engine, causing the engine to be damaged. I've not seen any reports of this happening to this engine on any forum, however flaps have become detached on other engine brands (such as bmw's 2l diesel and ford's 1.8l/2l petrol lumps) and cause disastrous internal engine damage. Its very unlikely to happen, however if it does - don't hold me responsible! If you have a low mileage example and intend to keep the car for a long, long while, I'd probably recommend to get the job done properly and have the intake replaced. My car probably (realistically) only has a good 40-70k of life left, so something else serious is likely to fail on mine before this fails again.

Si.

Max Headroom

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #10 on: 13 September 2011, 05:29:18 AM »
Very well written Simon - the only thing missing is a few pics! Watch out Mr Haynes!

K. Bonds

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Re: Lazy acceleration and smoky under heavy acceleration
« Reply #11 on: 30 May 2013, 11:04:16 PM »
I used to own a VX Signum 3.0 TDI

VERY powerful and VERY fast

I spent nearly £2000 having a "suction control valve" replaced

it drove better afterwards but didnt feel right, when I part ex'd it for the 93 Aero, the guy called me a few days later to say it had conked out on him and a fault flashlight was on

he took it to a back street diesel specialist, took them 20 mins to find out that a diesel valve ??? was shot, cost £120 to supply and fit and the car was back to being a licence killer

so first port of call, try a diesel specialist, you might be surprised


Yes i had one and that was quite as the time concern.
« Last Edit: 31 May 2013, 04:36:30 AM by K. Bonds »