Engine Malfunction
Well this post is for amusment at my expense
Last weekend I returned from my annual pilgrimage to Italy, Dolomite mountains to be precise, where numpty me broken my Croma.
Whilst pulling off, up hill, into a layby on a hairpin bend I beached then car on a very will disguised and raising slope faced rock the same white colour as the surrounding compacted dolomite compacted stones/chippings/gravel.
What a horrible sound. My heart sank. The annoying thing is that as every year there were pricks on motorbikes acting like lunatics (every year another roadside memorial of flowers and stones appears) and also a gaggle of 6 German Lotus Elise burning up the tarmac. Being beached in the hairpin I was really concerned that my car would be collected by one of these sensless drivers so I took the decision to promptly reverse out.
Well more grating noise followed by "PING", "Engine Malfuction" and the good old Engine light coming on.
A quick inspection revealed that the rock had grated its way along the central tunnel. Fortuneately the sills and bodywork were not involved.
Drove slowy back to the caravan (which we tow to Italy every year with the Croma) and set about sorting out exactly what damage I had done.
Always prepared
Fired up my laptop PC, plugging my scantool (Gendan EngineCheckPro) in and revealed "P2085" error code "Exhaust gas temperature sensor intermittand (Bank1 Sensor 2)". BUM!
Found a place to park the car over an incline and large drain to crawl underneath to find:
Ripped the aluminium heat shield towards the rear, ripped out the rear fixing stud from the floor pan and bending another. Exhaust temperature sensor 2 cable was sliced in half and the DFP filter was slightly dented. Also scraped and dented the central hollow tunnel box section where the heatshield mounts.
Had to reroute the sensor wire to gain some end overlap. Removed sensor, striped back insulation and applied two (crappy but very useful) Scotchlock connectors to rejoin the wires. Wrapped in tape, wrapped in aluminium foil (this was the hard part as the campsite owner's English was not very good and my Italian is worse) and then wrapped it another layer of tape. The reason for the aluminium foil is that the DPF filter gets to over 600deg.C during a cleaning recycle and the plastic tape and Scotchlocks would be the first to melt.
Reset the fault code. Yipeee we were back on the road.
Called dealer in UK, (parts manager John Banks at SGM in Southampton who I have known for many years as we have both moved around the dealerships and have a great mutual working relationship) and asked him to order the sensor, heatshield, diffuser vane and fixings for me ready for my return to the UK.
I actually had the Workshop Manual and Parts CD with me in Italy which made life a little easier. At first I thought I had dented the CAT and was concerned that I could have damaged the honeycomb and would possibly get an MOT emissions failure in the future. When I found it was the DPF filter costing £1000 my heart really sank. Further technical reading on the CD/DVD helped me come to the conclusion that a slightly dented DP filter would possibly affect the pressure differential across the filter box and at worst stop the recylce (very very highly unlikely) or possible cause the recyle to occur more frequently which at worst would affect fuel consumption and oil service interval.
Well 1500 miles later everything was still working fine. My Croma is perched on ramps on my drive, exhaust lowered and old heatshield removed. I've antirust primed the scratches through the PVC undershield coating and waiting to this to dry. Tomorrow the new shield, sensor and diffuser go in and I'll be just over £100 lighter in my wallet.
So. If nothing else you have learnt
1) Taking tools, schotchlocks, fuses, wire, hoses, nuts, bolts, hose clips etc. on holiday takes room in the car, puzzles the other half but saves your bacon and stops your holiday being ruined. (I now have some cooking foil in my tool box
)
2) Cheap Scantools do have a use, even if it is only to reset the engine management light
3) The Croma is lower than you think!
This last point is worth noting. The Croma does have a long wheel base and is quite low. Couple this with road surface cambers, small steps in tarmac level and entry on/off the road whilst on hard steering lock can damage your Croma's health.
Enjoy
Nick /////