Hi All, And happy New year.

EDIT: removing attachments, somehow gets detected as URLs

I guess its sort of obvious i have some wiring issues, but thought id check here for hopefully some good ideas.

x250 - 2008 - 2.2 (The ford engine)

TLDR - Startup issues at cold engine/cold weather, multiple codes. Wiggle injector plugs to get it starting. Low and unstable battery voltage measured at ECU, good stable voltage at battery and chassis.



Summary

• Bat Voltage at ECU fluctuate between 13.7 - 14.0
• At battery and chassis, stable 14.4
• Passenger airbag disabled (2nd time in vans history)
• U0426 – Electronic key
• P0200 – errors on several injectors
• P1601 – CAN Network (NCM)
• Only when its cold, usually only P0200, wiggle injector plugs somehow gets it going.
• Once its running warm, no issues. No on trip halts.

Hi Again, hope everyone is coping well and Happy new year!


Probably not the right forum for this, but I'll post anyway just in case someone has some good input.

Solved allot of problems with the van last year after fixing bad grounding to chassis from battery. And the Summer trip to Norway went with almost no hick-ups. But now I got problems again

Ive had a bad glow-plug and relay since last year and just now got it replaced and those codes haven't come back.

But I was also getting cold engine start issues with P200 injector circuit errors after weather became cold. Sometimes didn't start at all, until i went out and wiggled on the injector connections, then it would start and keep running, until next time it got cold. And i repeated to get it running. Garage had a look and claim they found a bad connection on the injectors. But now its gotten colder, last night i wasn't able to keep it running more than a few seconds before it died. . Today its warmer, i was eventually able to get it running.

Perhaps it seems obvious, but looks like i do have bad wiring somewhere (again). But weird its only happening when its cold. And never had a stop on long trips.

After i got it running today, i reset the below codes and they didn't reappear yet. But i bet they will once it gets cold again.

But in addition to the codes below, I noticed this:

Battery voltage inconsistency
With Multiecuscan, Battery voltage measured at the ECU is fluctuating and significantly lower than i measure at the battery and between batter and chassis.

• At the battery and chassis I see 14.4v stable on my multimeter
• At the ECU its fluctuating between 13.7 and 14.0v

Here are the other codes i got:

• U0426 – Electronic key
• P0200 – errors on several injectors
• P1601 – CAN Network (NCM)

Other:

• Passenger Airbag got disabled Happened once before when i had bad ground issues. I could re-enable it as per the manual.

Ive attached the full output from MultiEcuScan

As a side-note, I usually don't have my other car key with me, this time i did. And I've read other keys can "disturb" the fiat system. Though that seems very far fetched to me.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for any help.

tore

Are voltages stable.. and aligned..
with engine OFF ?

Great question. I will check again when it cools down.

Just took it out for a drive and connected the pc again.

When the engine is warm, battery voltage readout on the ECU is more stable at around 14.2. Still 14.4 at the actual battery and chassis.

I'm struggling to wrap my head around this. As long as its warm outside or engine is warm, no issue.

I had 1 incident this summer when leaving north Norway at the end of July, it was around 5c and had few engine halts, also code P0200. But once warm, the entire trip back to Amsterdam went without incident.

Its not so cold now, but this is how it reads on cold engine

Completely off battery 12.95 (Its almost brand new battery btw)

Ignition on, engine off:
Battery 12.37
ECU reads stable 12.125

I think that is acceptable..

If you see a big difference again.. link battery negative to engine metalwork

Forming a second earth cable..

if the readings stabilise.. you have a failing main earth cable

Hi ToreV

When you get multiple unrelated electrical issues/warnings, this can be a sign of a problem that is common to several circuits. The main examples are power feed wires, fuses and switches that have multiple "customers". Equally, ground points may serve several unrelated circuits.

The ECU to injector wiring has "flow" and "return" wires for each injector. The injectors are almost completely independently wired (Injectors 1 and 4 have one return, Injectors 2 and 3 another) so I cannot see any single connection failure that would stop them all from working properly.

The ECU is grounded by several pins, which join together in the wiring loom to a single large (6 square mm) black wire that goes to the Left Front Earth C010. I recommend you check this earth is OK, as any problems here could cause all sorts of issues. The location of this earth is on the Right of the vehicle as you look at it from the front, and low down in the engine bay. Sorry I don't have more detail, the drawing in the manual is not very good ! I also don't know if it is to the body/chassis or the engine block. This C010 earth is also used for headlamps and the glow plug module.

The earth strap from engine/gearbox to body/chassis is a known weakness. They look OK but go high resistance when corrosion starts within the crimped end lugs. A good strap is about 0.001 ohms, so ordinary test meters are nowhere near good enough for checking.


Possible links to cold weather are:

Mechanical contraction or stiffening plastic making a loose connection even looser ?

Other electrical equipment in use, the extra current increasing voltage drop in a poor connection somewhere ?

varesecrazy said:

I think that is acceptable..

If you see a big difference again.. link battery negative to engine metalwork

Forming a second earth cable..

if the reading

Click to expand...

Anthony489 said:

When you get multiple unrelated electrical issues/warnings, this can be a sign of a problem that is common to several circuits. The main examples are power feed wires, fuses and switches that have multiple "customers". Equally, ground points may serve several unrelated circuits.
=======================================================
The ECU is grounded by several pins, which join together in the wiring loom to a single large (6 square mm) black wire that goes to the Left Front Earth C010.
=======================================================
The earth strap from engine/gearbox to body/chassis is a known weakness. They look OK but go high resistance when corrosion starts within the crimped end lugs. A good strap is about 0.001 ohms, so ordinary test meters are nowhere near good enough for checking.
=======================================================

Click to expand...

As has been stated the engine/gearbox to chassis earth strap is a known weakness of the x250 Ducato.

The use of a jump lead between battery negative, and an engine lifting lug, is a possible way to eliminate the earth strap as the cause.

I am not familiar with the x250 wiring, as my vehicle is an x244. However I note that the ECU earth point C010 is in the same location on both models. On my x244 the earth point C010 is easier to see from underneath.

Thanks guys. Great responses, appreciate it.

Last year I did replace the earth strap from battery to chassis under my seat, which should be a decent job. (It was very bad) I had very bad voltage from the Alternator. Went from 13.8 to 14.4 after this.

I also added a second strap from chassis to the underside of the gearbox (35mm²), I am less confident I did that good. Obviously also very exposed.
I also did replace the original braided strap with a35mm² crimped cable. The original one was pretty bad. All crimped myself using a heavy duty crimping tool. (also used for my camper build-out)

I am reading about adding a another strap from top of engine to chassis? Is that a good idea? And any tips of where i would fit it exactly? Min cable dimensions?

I will try to inspect the ECU earth point C010 (If can find it) and perhaps a closer inspection of other wires under the headlight.

As for extra load, I do have a 30a B2B charger that charges my lifepo4 leisure battery, but ive had the main cutoff-switch engaged, so that should nor be relevant.