Just wondering if anybody’s experienced similar as this has left me and the recovery guy completely stumped. Probably not an Edge specific issue but diesel engine maybe.

Was driving up the M23 last night accelerating from approx 65-75mph, I think it just changed from 5th to 6th gear (Auto DCT) and I had a massive bang with a jolt throughout the car, I genuinely thought the timing chain had gone.

- All sorts of symbols/errors up on the dash.
- Pushing the throttle did nothing. Car was in drive, engine still approx 1500RPM coasting along motorway.
- Put it into Neutral, revs dropped to 0RPM.
- No significant deceleration, no grinding, no noises. Simply coasting.

Got onto the hard shoulder and coasted slightly downhill for around 1/4 mile looking for a safer place to stop. Eventually had to stop.

Had a look under the bonnet and under the car. Nothing looks out of place. No liquids. No smells. No damage to front bumper/undertray so definitely not a thud from hitting something. Decided to try and start the engine. It would turn over fine but absolutely no sign of firing. Just continuous starter turning over for 10 seconds. Tried it another couple times and nothing so called AA.

Recovery truck turned up around an hour later. He got into the car, started it and it started up perfectly fine and ran as smooth as normal. Couldn’t believe it. He even drove it up onto that ramp of the truck with no issues.

Took me to a services to wait for an AA technician to come out. Turns out he marked the callout as completed so nobody was coming out. So after phoning them and their ETA getting later and later, I gave up after about 3 hours and drove round the local area and car seemed fine then carried on my journey.

Have driven another 100 miles yesterday and today since then and it has been completely normal.

I’m at a loss as to what it was. Can diesel’s backfire? Just interested to see if anybody’s heard of similar? Had engine management light on 6-8 months ago which came back as DPF blockage on Forscan so did a static regen which cleared that. But had the engine management on twice for that and both times after a long motorway journey. Maybe unrelated.

As an aside, myself (and Jimmy) don't recommend forced regens as they can overheat and crack the DPF but that's up to you.
Always better to find and fix the problem that is causing the DPF to clog but if it happens AFTER long motorway drives, that is unusual as I would expect active regeneration to be taking place due to the high speed/engine load? (Note my question marks on everything!)
His site (useful) is here:
https://www.youtube.com/@ORileysAutos/videos

My only suggestion is to look for any pending or old fault codes with Forscan to see if there's anything relevant, otherwise if this happens again, read any codes immediately before switching off?

1 hour ago, Trent Edge said:

Was driving up the M23 last night accelerating from approx 65-75mph, I think it just changed from 5th to 6th gear (Auto DCT) and I had a massive bang with a jolt throughout the car, I genuinely thought the timing chain had gone.

- All sorts of symbols/errors up on the dash.
- Pushing the throttle did nothing. Car was in drive, engine still approx 1500RPM coasting along motorway.
- Put it into Neutral, revs dropped to 0RPM.
- No significant deceleration, no grinding, no noises. Simply coasting.

Possible cause might be the failure of the alternator clutch.

If this seizes up, it can monetary stall the engine (similar can happen with the AC clutch). You get an almighty bang, engine stalls but because it is an automatic it appears to still be running. All ignition lights will appear on the instrument cluster.

1 hour ago, Shearers said:

As an aside, myself (and Jimmy) don't recommend forced regens as they can overheat and crack the DPF but that's up to you.
Always better to find and fix the problem that is causing the DPF to clog but if it happens AFTER long motorway drives, that is unusual as I would expect active regeneration to be taking place due to the high speed/engine load? (Note my question marks on everything!)
His site (useful) is here:
https://www.youtube.com/@ORileysAutos/videos

My only suggestion is to look for any pending or old fault codes with Forscan to see if there's anything relevant, otherwise if this happens again, read any codes immediately before switching off?

Wasn’t aware of that but good to know thanks. Yeh, that’s what I found unusual as would expect regens to take place on long motorway drives. Will have a look at that thanks

47 minutes ago, unofix said:

Possible cause might be the failure of the alternator clutch.

If this seizes up, it can monetary stall the engine (similar can happen with the AC clutch). You get an almighty bang, engine stalls but because it is an automatic it appears to still be running. All ignition lights will appear on the instrument cluster.

This is interesting as what you describe is near enough what I experienced expect I’m assuming it isn’t the alternator clutch if this effects the operation of the alternator as I’ve driven another 2 days with no low voltage issues. However, I haven’t tried the AC as been switched off. Will try that later. Thanks for the help

28 minutes ago, Trent Edge said:

I’m assuming it isn’t the alternator clutch if this effects the operation of the alternator

Oddly enough, in many cases the alternator can continue to work, just not as it was intended.

I did have the AC compressor seize up on a 2001 Galaxy 2.3 petrol and it stalled the engine (only doing around 15mph at the time). The car refused to restart until the AC system was fully turned off.

My son had the exact same fault with a vw passat..took us both weeks to find as it rarely happened...loud bang..loss of power but didn't die..all lights on dash but turned themselves off with no fault on a scan.

Turned out to be the poss from the battery to the starter motor had been rubbing on the chassis and would short when it wanted to..made a heck of a noise but no damage..

Replaced power cable and secured..never had the fault again

Dan

Interesting to hear there’s other things this could be. Thanks for the info.

Well it was fine for another 50 miles. I’m away from home on a training course for a month (and this happened at end of day 1 of courses!!!) so can’t get Forscan plugged in so will have to see how it goes.

Alternator seems to be working ok. The start/stop worked within 5 mins of leaving the hotel this morning and AC is working, I think - hard to tell with outside temp being 10-14.

3 minutes ago, Trent Edge said:

Well it was fine for another 50 miles. I’m away from home on a training course for a month (and this happened at end of day 1 of courses!!!) so can’t get Forscan plugged in so will have to see how it goes.

If you've got a laptop or smartphone there, just buy another Forscan adapter to be delivered to your current location?

2 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

If you've got a laptop or smartphone there, just buy another Forscan adapter to be delivered to your current location?

Glad somebody’s got a brain. May just get the wife to post mine down to me. Thanks

No help now, but for the future, I keep my Forscan adaptor in my laptop bag, if I've got the laptop with me then the adaptor is also with me.

The wireless Forscan adaptor for the phone lives in the car.

 

Yeh just said to the wife I’ll keep the adapter in my car

Bought a vLinker FD+ off Amazon in the end and had it delivered to the hotel. Had a few fault codes from the exact date and time of the issue but they all state no fault display on the dash so guessing there's other faults from the time that have since cleared. 

Anybody know much about these faults at all?...

Have cleared the faults and nothing has come back after a long couple drives.

Looking at those codes, I reckon the butterfly plate is loose inside the throttle body.  Initially got stuck closed so not enough air intake.  Then opened again to run normally ever since...

Ok, gives me an idea at least. Thanks. Can't really find much on youtube in terms of accessing the throttle body and any work on it. Is there anything you think I could take a look at or is it hidden away on back of the engine?

1 hour ago, Trent Edge said:

Ok, gives me an idea at least. Thanks. Can't really find much on youtube in terms of accessing the throttle body and any work on it. Is there anything you think I could take a look at or is it hidden away on back of the engine?

I don't know much about Edge specs.  If it's just the same 2.0 TDCI engine as fitted to Mondeo & Galaxy then the throttle body is right at the front.  Just below the plastic intake manifold where it joins all 4 intake tracts into one.

No prob, thanks anyway. Will have a look under the bonnet when I get chance