Technical 2013 Ducato Multijet 130 hopping issue with ESP Fault

[aslenord]

Hi all,

This van has been in to 4 garages...no-one is any the wiser so I'm really hoping someone can shed some light on this.

My 2013 Ducato drives fine 95% of the time. The other 5% however, is a massive headache.

WHEN IT HAPPENS:
Most commonly it'll happen when motorway cruising on cruise control. If the road goes downhill, the cruise control will stop applying acceleration as it should. When the acceleration kicks back in, this is when the issue occurs.
It'll also happen randomly on cruise control without descending a hill first, although this is less common.
It'll happen when driving/accelerating normally, in any gear, usually after any form of engine breaking has occurred.
It happens when the van is empty or fully loaded
It happens when the fuel is at any level
It happens when it's hot or cold outside
It usually happens once the engine is up to temperature
It seems to happen more if the engine is being worked harder (i.e. driving faster while empty or when it has a heavy load)

HOW OFTEN IT HAPPENS:
Sometimes I'll get 100's if not 1000's of miles with no issues. Then I'll get a stint of issues.
Restarting the van usually clears the errors on the dash, but doesn't stop it from happening again shortly afterwards.
Leaving the van overnight doesn't affect whether it happens or not the next day.
When the van is exhibiting symptoms, it will usually be upset for the duration of the journey it's on. Sometimes the next journey will also be problematic, sometime it'll be fine.

WHAT HAPPENS:
Usual symptoms are, a noisy (airy sort of whine sound) engine with a short burst of white smoke, followed by what can only be described as a bunny hop, followed by normal operation for a period of time until it happens again.
The 'bunny hop' involves what feels like the van slamming the brakes on full for a split second before releasing them and carrying on as normal. This is accompanied by the ESP error light coming on and a warning message saying 'Hill Holder Unavailable', 'ESP Unavailable'. When this happens, the cruise control also has to be re-enabled.

DIAGNOSTICS:
There are 2 different graphs attached from the MultiECU showing different variations on the same problem. The short hops are more common, but the prolonged smoke also happens occasionally.
When the engine 'whines' and the smoke starts, the 'Desired intake air quantity' will flatline on the top of the graph at 1,600.00mg/l, the actual 'intake air quantity' will increase a little to try and keep up with the desired value. While the smoke / whining is happening, a bit of acceleration will usually cause the 'bunny hop' to occur and the van will resume driving normally. While the 'Desired intake air quantity' and 'Intake air quantity' are following each other, the van drives fine.

I cannot seem to find how the 'Desired intake air quantity' is calculated. I'm not sure whether it's an ECU fault or a sensor fault that's causing it to flat line on full randomly. All I know is that when it does that, the actual intake air quantity increases to try and match it, which causes the smoke, which results in the bunny hop which then resets and it starts again.

Any light anyone can shed on this will be a massive help, it's costing me a fortune sending it to garages for them to plug it in and say there's nothing wrong with it because it won't be acting up when then take it out for a drive, and they don't seem to take me seriously when I'm trying to explain to them that I've spent hours doing my own diagnostics because it almost certainly won't act up when you have it in your garage…

Thanks for spending the time on any answers!

 

[aslenord]

Also, just incase it helps, the engine is a Ducato (type 290) 2.3 Multijet 2013. Control is Marelli 8F3 CF5/CF5+/EOBD Diesel injection (2.3) according to MultiECUscan! Thanks!

 

[bugsymike]

Also, just incase it helps, the engine is a Ducato (type 290) 2.3 Multijet 2013. Control is Marelli 8F3 CF5/CF5+/EOBD Diesel injection (2.3) according to MultiECUscan! Thanks!

Could it be a throttle body issue or signal to it? I am guessing, but if the flap was closing at the wrong time? No codes in that direction?
Hopefully some one here has an answer.

 

[Anthony489]

Hi aslenord

I haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about this, but these are my initial thoughts:

I don't know how the desired airflow is determined. In the old days, as long as it was enough or more than enough to fully burn the injected fuel then that was OK. These days it's more closely controlled. I wouldn't expect the engine to consume more than roughly 1000 milligrams per stroke (mg/i) even at full power so something is clearly faulty. just to give some expected figures, at 1000 mg/i and 3200 RPM with the pedal to the floor the MAF will indicate 106 grams per second or 382 kg per hour, and the injection will be about 55 mg per stroke, i.e. an air/fuel ratio of 18:1.

Problems which are intermittent and come and go very suddenly are most likely due to an electrical fault (e.g. open/shorted loom wire due to chafing) rather than anything mechanical.

White smoke is unburnt diesel, which suggests either massive over-fuelling with a normal air supply OR normal fuelling with a severe lack of oxygen e.g. a big restriction in fresh air supply.

The feel of the van braking and accompanying noise could be strong engine braking (normally very little for a diesel) due to a severe restriction in both the fresh air supply and recirculated exhaust gas. This would imply that both the EGR valve and the Throttle body are fully closed at the same time.

I think the ESP, Hill Hold and Cruise effects are just a knock-on effect rather than a cause of the trouble.

The throttle body flap can be examined for contaminants which might be stopping it from opening after it has closed. To do this you need to pull off the large air hose. It may be possible to gently move the flap against its servomotor to see how free it is. However, the finger of suspicion points more towards its electrical connections. I don't know if the type fitted reverts to flap closed if it loses power or control signal.

Here is a link for a story about a later Ducato that had a hard-to-find problem with one of the 12 volt supplies to the ECU (due to loom chafing), which in turn affected the control of the turbo. Maybe not relevant but it illustrates the sort of thing that can happen: https://pmmonline.co.uk/technical/turbo-boost-air-flow-meter-drift/

 

[bugsymike]

Largely agree with Anthony 489, apart from smoke colour, white smoke unburnt fuel as seen on worn low compression diesels trying to start on a cold morning and black smoke excess fuel as in tractor pullers, boy racers and worn high mileage taxis.
I increased the power of the 2.8 TDi Sofim engine from a 1998 Ducato I put in a boat by adjusting the Bosch injector pump until black smoke then adjusting the turbo boost to give more air until the smoke stopped. Pre ECU of course.

 

[aslenord]

Hi aslenord

I haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about this, but these are my initial thoughts:

I don't know how the desired airflow is determined. In the old days, as long as it was enough or more than enough to fully burn the injected fuel then that was OK. These days it's more closely controlled. I wouldn't expect the engine to consume more than roughly 1000 milligrams per stroke (mg/i) even at full power so something is clearly faulty. just to give some expected figures, at 1000 mg/i and 3200 RPM with the pedal to the floor the MAF will indicate 106 grams per second or 382 kg per hour, and the injection will be about 55 mg per stroke, i.e. an air/fuel ratio of 18:1.

Problems which are intermittent and come and go very suddenly are most likely due to an electrical fault (e.g. open/shorted loom wire due to chafing) rather than anything mechanical.

White smoke is unburnt diesel, which suggests either massive over-fuelling with a normal air supply OR normal fuelling with a severe lack of oxygen e.g. a big restriction in fresh air supply.

The feel of the van braking and accompanying noise could be strong engine braking (normally very little for a diesel) due to a severe restriction in both the fresh air supply and recirculated exhaust gas. This would imply that both the EGR valve and the Throttle body are fully closed at the same time.

I think the ESP, Hill Hold and Cruise effects are just a knock-on effect rather than a cause of the trouble.

The throttle body flap can be examined for contaminants which might be stopping it from opening after it has closed. To do this you need to pull off the large air hose. It may be possible to gently move the flap against its servomotor to see how free it is. However, the finger of suspicion points more towards its electrical connections. I don't know if the type fitted reverts to flap closed if it loses power or control signal.

Here is a link for a story about a later Ducato that had a hard-to-find problem with one of the 12 volt supplies to the ECU (due to loom chafing), which in turn affected the control of the turbo. Maybe not relevant but it illustrates the sort of thing that can happen: https://pmmonline.co.uk/technical/turbo-boost-air-flow-meter-drift/

Hi Anthony489,

Thanks for this, very informative, and far more help that I've had anywhere else so far. The van has always had some electrical quirks, never really got to the bottom of them all but it does funky things every now and again, so if this is the root cause, it would explain a lot.

The white smoke, unburnt diesel makes sense but is difficult to explain on the graphs, the desired fuel intake and actual fuel intake remain largely on target as expected. If you look at the prolonged smoke image, it's a good 6 minutes that it was acting up. Granted not loads and loads of smoke throughout this but the engine noise was there for the whole time and there was some smoke.

I don't seem to be getting particularly poor economy, so more inclined towards lack of oxygen (hence why it's trying to compensate with flat lining the desired intake air) over it's chucking excess fuel in.

I will have a look at graphs for throttle body and EGR position as you have brought these up, but I seem to remeber plotting EGR and not seeing any issue with actual vs desired. It seemed to be behaving but will check they're not both fully closed at the same time.

Thanks for the link too, I'll get the meter out and start having a look if there's anything I can see afoot. Which sensors would you recommend checking?

Thanks!

 

[aslenord]

Could it be a throttle body issue or signal to it? I am guessing, but if the flap was closing at the wrong time? No codes in that direction?
Hopefully some one here has an answer.

I have once or twice seen the error come up that it's intermittently had the accelerator and brake pressed simultaniously (which I don't think I've done manually) could this be linked to what you're describing?

Thanks!

 

[aslenord]

@Anthony489 I've put a bit more time in to different diagnostics. The EGR seems to be flatlining on 0 when the smoke is happening too. But the Throttle Valve opening seems normal...Is it possible the ECU is just having a splat moment and then resetting? 1675 and 1770 is where the smoke is happening on these graphs. Does this steer you closer to any of your previous theories? Thanks.

 

[bugsymike]

@Anthony489 I've put a bit more time in to different diagnostics. The EGR seems to be flatlining on 0 when the smoke is happening too. But the Throttle Valve opening seems normal...Is it possible the ECU is just having a splat moment and then resetting? 1675 and 1770 is where the smoke is happening on these graphs. Does this steer you closer to any of your previous theories? Thanks.

No unexplained breaks in your readings? Like a break in a wire or connection just touching? Fiats are not alone in rubbish wiring these days.

 

[judjules]

Sounds like what had been happening to my ducato throwing white smoke, hill assist esc turning off, bunny hop limp mode injector knock leak back. After spending over £1000 dpf clean and terraclean on mechanics recommendations and failing to cure it and £60 each time for diagnostics , I found out previous owner had it remapped so had it done back to stock as 14% extra turbo boost is stupid. This cured knock but not smoke. Told it was egr so new valve and cooler another £700, it was the egr valve pipe that had split £30 off ebay or £200 from fiat. No white smoke but bunny hopped and esc once. Yesterday Limp mode going to check the code and then set fire to it in a field

 

[123max]

I have this same issue with my Fiat Ducato 2013 130 MultiJet.

Is this issue dangerous potentially dangerous? What are the long terms implications of not addressing the issue?