Engine cutting out

Any help would be really appreciated. I have a 2.0 litre petrol (8 valve) Ulysse 1998 which I have owned since 9 months old. It has suffered from engine misfire, cutting out, and stalling pretty well all the time I have owned it. Sometime it goes for months and is OK. Other times it plays up. Biggest problem is on the motorway when the engine completely cuts out and then goes again. I can fix it by removing the connector from the ECU and reconnecting it. It works fine for a while and fails again. So far it has only stopped completely once. But it is a bit unnerving in the roadworks on the M6! I spotted the thread about the throttle valve so am looking at that but no-one else seems to have noted the cutting out. Any ideas?

It has done 130,000 and if I can fix this I hope to get it to 200,000 as otherwise it is a great car.

John

I'd be temped to remove the ECU and properly clean and polish up all the connectors (and clean any gunk around them.
The carefully reove the pins in the loom connector and clean and tighten these. It maybe that movement of the loom has caused the connectors to loose their hard grip and it's getting a breakdown. Woudl explain why re-seating cures.

Hi john
I have not had the problem of cutting out whilst on the move it is when you come to a stop it will not idle. I was having a fifth gear stuttering fault which was cured by disconnecting the ecu as you do. I found that some of the pins needed cleaned and some of the mini spring sockets on the loom needed closing. Which when done has not given that problem since. I am currently waiting for a replacement idle valve from someone scrapping a ulysse and I will see if that works. One test for the idle value/ stepper motor is to test the resistance there is basically two coils one being the two outer pins and the other the two inner pins both should read between 52-58omns. mine reads 51.6omns which I think does not make any differance, but being tempermental maybe the valve is just sticking in the closed position now and again?


Best of luck.

Donald

With help from various replies, I decided to see how difficult the throttle valve was to remove.. Pulled the electrical connections and put them back one evening thinking I would do the full job later and we have now done 500 miles with only a couple of coughs. Fixed? No I don't think so, not sure how this could "part fix" the problem but it is good enough for a while until it get worse again.

John

Maybe those said same connectors have got dirty. Maybe a good clean up of just the connectors would make it even better?
Worth a shot.

Hi,
I had a similar problem of the car cutting out. I found that it was only happening when going over about 2500 rpm. After having two workshops spend weeks on the car, it ended up being the fuel pump. (Removed and tested ECU, cleaned every contact imaginable etc) This was replaced by the same pump used on an Audi A6 (At about the third of the price) So far so good, if I can just sort out the idling!
Regards,
Stephan