I'll try to describe this as best possible ;
Car has been running great.....until today
Pulling away from rest,fine until I tried to accelerate in 2nd gear.Felt rough until I change to 3rd.If I tried to accelerate hard in 2nd,it was terrible.Tried again on a quite stretch of road and the emissions indicator flashed on/off (disappeared again).(this indicates an emission problem that could detroy the cat - according to the manual)
Car has covered 47K miles.Runs fine apart from this flatspot issue and also when approaching a junction and depressing the clutch,the revs drop really low then recover to 900(ish) rpm.Flat spot is noticeable in 3rd but much worse in 2nd.Fuel is from Tesco and is around 1/4 tank left. NO warning indicators while driving,all fluid levels correct.
Dirty petrol or something worse ???
Edited by Pugugly {P} on 24/12/2007 at 18:07
|
|
Petrol or diesel, I assumed it was diesel until I read the last bit.
|
|
Sorry, its the 2.2 Direct Petrol !!
|
|
normal problems with this engine are timming chain wear/jumping and fuel presure sometimes its the regulater some times pump some times both, however this is a wild guess and it realy needs the codes reading before anything else is done ,as the fault has caused the light to come on and you can replicate the fault then it should be fairly straight forward to fix
|
|
Over on vectra-c.com there is the occasional mention of flat spots with this engine and possible reasons. Fortunately it's not happened to me yet. Simplest thing to try first is a different brand of petrol. When was it last serviced, as when was the fuel filter last changed?
|
It was serviced last year.I missed this years (which will probably come back to bite me in the backside).Main reason being it was a small service and really only the oil and filter gets done,so I used 'National' for the oil and filter. The 40K service was done last year (fuel filter replaced).
I took the car for a run on a dual carriageway 30 mins ago and the car has no power through the gears.Gets to 70mph but 'nothing there' in each gear when pushing hard.Around 3000rpm gives the problems.No warning lights,just running cr4p.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 24/12/2007 at 20:04
|
Got car checked today.It's the 'high pressure fuel pump' that has failed.Even with a Vx contribution I am being quoted around £270.Is this reasonable or should i try to get it done from an 'independent' garage?
John
|
John
With such a rare type of engine; it's almost certain that the pump would have to come from the dealer anyway.
If you're getting a contribution, then I can't see there's any saving going outside the dealer network.
|
|
That's what I thought.The cost is around £490.Breakdown of cost is around £60 per hour labour (2 hours) and around £370 for the part.I need to pay £202.To be honest,it is not a huge amount for something that HAS to be fixed,its just that I thought the contribution % would have been more.I have owned the car for around 3 years and in the first 15 months,my car was in the Dealers approx 3 times a month.Faults ranged from igntion modules to timing chain.Ironically the car,up till now, has never been going better.The part can't get here until New Year anyway,so thought I'd review my options.
|
That sounds pretty typical of any type of direct petrol injection engine - every single one, post the 300SLR, has been nothing but a disaster for the poor owners and the manufacturers.
When will they learn?
|
|
|
|
i assume that the two hours labour is for diagnostic's and replacement of the pump if they are charging two hours plus the diag work then you are being turned over they are a piece of cake to change and not worth much more than 0.7 off a hours labour infact i will check the labour charge and post it on here tommorow
|
|
|
|
|
|
I had the same problem occur on the same day. Car is the Vectra C 2.2 Direct SRi as described. Had just had it serviced and thought might be a servicing issue. RAC had never heard of the problem when called. Been back to garage and fuel filter re-replaced and pipes cleaned. Told that fuel pressure is very high but may be a fuel pump problem. Car was out of warranty on 31 October and has covered 36,000 miles. Looked at various threads and this appears a very common problem with this engine. Is there nothing that can be done through Vauxhall ie recall to resolve the problem.
|
|
|
