1.6 TDCI engine cut off

[Dee_82]

Hi guys, in need of some help from the collective genius!

I think this started yesterday so ill start there.

Driving home, everything is fine, came off the motorway after driving about 60mph for 30 miles, rounded a corner when there was a loss of power, and the ABS light came on and that was it, worked fine the rest of the way home, I assumed at the time that id just taken the corner a bit fast and the car slipped a bit.

This morning, going back to work, got about 10 miles down the road when a similar thing happened, only this time it was going up a hill and I lost all power, ABS came on, battery and oil pressure, coasted over to the hard sholder, turned engine off and on and it started, attempted to pull away, cut out at about 2000RPM.  starting to think about the ABS light I disabled ESP and didn't use my cruise control, pulled away again, was fine.  a while down the road, cut, I was doing about 60 at around 2000RPM

pulled over, turned off, on and it was fine, no problem at idle, no funny noises, so I connected up my tablet with forscan

P0193-21

Gulp!

so tried again, this time keeping to 50 and well below 2000RPM, goes fine for a while, cut.  this time I just turn engine off then on again without stopping, works fine, I turn on ESP, still to problem, turn on CC, cut. turn off CC, goes for a while, cut, manage the next 10 miles without any problem (a few hills up and down and some flats), sticking to 50. coasting down a hill before my exit, cut. get back to work, gingerly without any further problems

Ive attached the trace from forscan, you will need to rename it to .FSL as this forum seems to have stopped us from uploading another other than pictures and txt files(???)

ive also attached the DTC log, the two coms ones are normally on there.

Its a little tricky trying to work out where the cut outs are as after the first couple I just kept driving and started it on the move.

So, fuel filter was changed about 2000 miles ago, yesterday I did fill up with fuel, tank was pretty much empty and was fulled to brim but other than that nothing has changed over the last week or so. it was serviced about 500 miles ago.  the DPF and EGR are not an issue, it idles absolutely fine and I can rev it to 4000RPM sitting still without any problems.

Sooo, any suggestions or ideas?

 

Fuel rail problem.fsl.txt

dtc fuel rail.txt

[Ryan_Tango]

Have you tried checking your fuel rail pressure sensor? Give the plug a bit of inspection if their is not any visible damage replace it, hopefully that's the issue and it's not the whole circuit.

[Dee_82]

yeah, that appears to be the best start, is it worth risking aftermarket or is this a case of "ford knows best"

The sensor is reading the pressure, there are a couple of spikes before the first few cut outs which take it up to 26k PSI, after those there are a couple of spikes that go up to about 20k just before the cut out but after that, there is nothing and it is more or less as it would normally be on previous traces I have.

[Dee_82]

My google fu tells me this part cant be brought from ford without the full rail being replaced. but I think Bosch sells them if I can get the part number.

My mate suggested the fuel sender unit might be worth a look as well.

It just seems odd that it just cuts out, I would have thought that if it were a fuel delivery problem it would stutter, or do you suppose the ECU cuts out when it detects something amis

 

 

 

[Ryan_Tango]

The ECU will cut out when detecting such anomaly's to protect the engine which makes sense, I'd get the Bosch part they're known to sell quality OEM parts and I trust them, I think Bosch supply a lot of parts for Ford anyhow. 

I would suggest starting at the sensor then maybe the sender unit when it starts costing more.

[Dee_82]

I'm having trouble finding the part number, I don't have any tools on me to take the car apart and it looks like a fairly big pain in the !Removed! to get to the sensor to see the number. There is shed loads of sensors in eBay but most of them appear to be Chinese parts rather than a branded one.  be a damnsite lot easier if ford sold them separately to the rest of the rail!

[iantt]

Had simular fault a month or so ago on 1.6tdci, poor connection to fuel rail sensor. Gave connector pins a clean and refitted, run engine and wiggled wiring harness to see if it was wiring harness issue, never played up after so never came to a definitive conclusion what was wrong.

[Dee_82]

thanks Ian, that suggest electrical might be plausible, ive ordered a cheap (genuine) second hand sensor just in case, I figured if the problem persists then what's the chances two sensors have exactly the same problem!?

Maybe have a wiggle of the wires tonight and give it a good clean, needs a fair amount removed to get to it which is a pain.

If that's no good ill change this sensor, failing that, the sender unit can be changed for a relatively small amount, failing that, I'm open to suggestions!? The injector fuel pump is the last thing I want to consider. 

[Dee_82]

Made it home, incident free!

I disabled DDS and gave the fuel in the tank a good thrashing from some pretty hard start stops in the carpark, drove home fairly gingerly, 2000rpm, 55mph, got home and did a couple of hard accelerations and it was fine.

 

ive attached the trace if anyone is interested.  Fuel rail pressure is fairly calm, no spikes at all until I turn on CC about 1/3 of the way through, it gets a bit erratic after that.

I'm at a loss what todo now

 

fuel rail problem return leg.fsl.txt

[Dee_82]

Update, so it has stopped cutting out, at least for the time being anyway, but ive noticed some hesitation now.  If you look at the picture youll see pressure at the top, RPM, torque, speed, fuel temp, fuel pump activity and desired fuel.

if you look at the start and towards the end youll see a fairly steep increase in RPM, at about 2000RPM  you see the fuel pressure go a bit mad, this totally matches a series of hesitations on acceleration.  you can also see the fuel pump activity go a little crazy during the whole period of acceleration.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Also ive looked at Haynes and it says a couple of times, DO NOT replace the pressure sensor alone, replace the whole rail.  anyone have any thoughts on this?

[James S]

I had a very similar problem, try changing the fuel filter. Simple enough job and my car has been fine for months now. Was happening daily before I changed it!

[Dee_82]

Cut out again, at around 1599.44 youll see the fuel pressure go mental, just before that was a heavy acceleration followed by a left and coast, speed and RPM drops off, PSI goes mental and engine cuts out, PSI drops to about 300, if you look at the 4th trace, the fuel pump %, youll see 3 little sets of 2 spikes, the first two were failed restarts, the 3rd got it going again.

My first thought would be the fuel filter but it was a brand new replacement only about 5000 miles ago, tbh I thought it was a lot sooner than that, if I picked up a !Removed! batch of diesel whats the chances a fuel filter would pack in at 5k?

 

[S40Un]

I had the same issue on mine, fuel pressure sensor was to blame !

changed the fuel filter at the same time.  

Ford wouldn't sell me the sensor on its own & wanted 300 odd for the rail complete.

bought a cheap one on eBay for £20 ish but it fell apart when tightening it up. 

The genuine sensors on eBay were about £40 upwards.

in the end I went to peugoet & bought a genuine one there for £40 

problem solved

[Dee_82]

what did you torque it up to? cant find anything in Haynes or etis for whats needed to remove it

[Dee_82]

Can anyone answer this, is the fuel sender in the fuel tank of the 1.6 TDCI also a low pressure fuel pump? its sold as having a built in pump, however there seems to be some confusion if it does or does not have /  use it?

If its not a pump then unless it blocked its not really worth changing? if it were blocked or even restricted then it would surely not work at all rather than crappy random fuel delivery perhaps associated with a failing pump, the fuel levels are reported fine btw. 

It kinda makes sense that its not a pump since priming it requires the hand pump but hopefully one of you chaps will know for sure!

Haynes even says theres an electric pump in the tank

[iantt]

no pump in tank

[Dee_82]

ok, ill take your word on that, its as clear as mud from everything ive seen elsewhere!

so there's nothing in there that can intermittently cause a restriction to fuel pressure under medium / hard acceleration?

[iantt]

theres only 2 wires on diesel tank unit, 4 on petrol.

inlet metering valve can relief pressure at the wrong time giving your symptoms

[S40Un]

23 hours ago, Dee_82 said:

what did you torque it up to? cant find anything in Haynes or etis for whats needed to remove it

Me either. I just Did , hand tight then nip up with spanner 

[Dee_82]

Did a leak off test on the injectors, just to be sure they are not causing the  pressure fluctuations.  All 4 normal and almost identical

4 min at idle - 20ml,

a further 1 min at 2600RPM - 28ml

a further 1 min idle and another min at 2600RPM, - 45ml

drove to work again today, no cut outs, but the PSI and FP did go mental a few times, on a flat road with a steady speed. kept RPM below 2000

[Dee_82]

haha, so started with the simple stuff, fuel filter, thinking to myself, its been like 4000 miles, theres no way it can be blocked so changed the filter. 

No more problems

which leads me to think that I either picked up a really crap, load of diesel the last time I filled up, (I did run it down to extremely empty which I never normally do)

Or the filter was screwed to start with, it was a ford braded UFI filter

in any case, panic over! thanks for all the support