(T) 1.6 Loose Connection Fun (not)

Hi,

OK, this story starts with my Stilo 1.6 Active suffering from the now infamous wobbly idle. So I decided I'd clean the air inlet valve. I mean, how hard can it be right?

This morning I whipped the top of the air hose off where is connects to the inlet valve and gave around the valve a good old clean for 10 minutes and yes it was pretty grubby.

On putting everything back together and feeling all happy with myself I turned the car over for the first time. I bet you know what's coming next now don't you?! ....

....the car turned over pretty much straight away but then a warning appeared on the dash. I think it started bitching about the coolant level, then the next time it would be a fuel level sensor and then it finally seemed to "stabilise" on just "Loose Connection" with the spanner icon displayed.

Oh dear I thought. After checking as many connections as I could find I decided on calling Mr RAC out to take a look. Once he arrived and after umming and arrring a bit he plugged his laptop into the ECU to check the error codes.

It reported errors P0335 (Crankshaft position sensor) and P0460 (Fuel level sensor). I took him up on his offer of clearing them but, not surprisingly it didn't make any difference. Incidentally the fuel level seems to be being reported OK.

Anyway, he disappeared after telling me it was a garage job and I decided I'd take a look at the D4 connector. I found it OK and it seemed to be connected OK but I reseated it for the hell of it anyway. However, I also noticed another connector in the same area as the D4 (i.e. under the fuse box) not connected to anything. It was a similar size and shape to the D4 but with only around 4 wires connected up through it. I couldn't for the life of me find anything to connect it up too and thought I better seek help here!

The car drives but it's down on power. I assumed this was a special mode just to get you home and nothing more.

Thanks in advance. Cheers,

Nik

Stone me, what a hodge podge of unrelated errors.
Ok let's go down the easy ones

P0460 (Fuel level sensor).
won't be anything related to what you did or any of your problem

P0335 (Crankshaft position sensor)
this could well be the "loose connection" but it's nowhere near where you were working

Trace back and find the connector going to your Crankshaft Position Sensor and give it a clean out. Very cold and damp today so lots of vehicles struggling with damp connections

Reset the ECU and see what happens
So it starts ok, ticks over ok but runs in what you think is "limp home mode" yes?

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Two questions for you, where do I find the crankshaft (!) and secondly, how do carry out a reset of the ECU? Disconnect the batter perhaps?

Cheers,

Nik

Ok. The crankshaft pulley is what's shown in the diagram and the sensor is a magnetic pick up which notices a couple of notches in the pulley and signals where the crank is like this


You don't need to get right up close and nasty to it, just find the wires that lead back from the sensor. You can find the pulley pretty easily on the driver's side of the engine. It has a drive belt going around it, is one of the biggest of the bunch and looks just the the drawing above

Resetting the ECU then just disconnect the battery for an hour or so by the disconnecting the negative lead

Thanks again for the reply Deckchair5.

I'll tackle this tomorrow and post back on what happens.

Cheers,

Nik

Oh, and that connector which only has 4 wires; that is D4B, which is the cruise control feed from the engine node .

Arrrrr, I thought it might be for something my lonely Active didn't come equipped with! Cheers

Nik

So I finally got round to checking the crankshaft sensor connector and as many other connectors I could find whilst I was at it today. I also reset the ECU by way of disconnecting the battery for an hour.....

....suffice to say it's booked into the garage tomorrow!

Cheers,

Nik

Remember it may take 3 starts before any stored error may be cleared. I've had "loose connection" but then it clears after the next few starts.
What's wrong with it at the moment apart from the "loose connection" warning which could be a purple herring in this weather?

Purple herring is a fish suffering from hypothermia

Sorry for the delay.

It's generally having a hard time starting. Like it just doesn't want to fire up but after a few tries it normally will start.

Also, when I was attempting to turn it over this morning it also bitched about a high coolant temperature.....whilst I was starting it! Now I know it's cold and everything but I have a hard time believing it when it says the coolant is too hot, the crankshaft and fuel level sensors aren't working (according to the error codes remember, the dash just reports loose connection).

Cheers,

Nik

The crackshaft sensor will certainly give you starting one moment and not the next fault. Those are classic symptoms for the crankshaft sensor. They should find and fix that pretty fast.

High temperature warning is most likely a voltage spike during engine cranking

Write down the fault codes you've experienced if they've been erased and leave it for the tech /mechanics to see. Let us know how you get on.

It took Mr RAC around 45 minutes to get the car started this morning....just so that I could drive it 5 minutes to the garage! I was thinking it was going to end up getting towed.

Still, it's with the garage now. Me thinks they'll be looking at it tomorrow so I'll post back later on with more news.

Cheers,

Nik

New battery. New battery. New battery.

Morten.