Injector Down ?

[Barakka]

Car not been started for about a week.

Went out this morning to the gym, about 10 miles, A roads and motorway, drove fine.

Came out of the gym and the injector light has come on, together with spluttering, jerky loss of power.

On the way home the injector light was on and off driving fine when the light was off, sh*t when it's on. Had about 10 mins of driving with no light on, thought it was fixed, put my foot down, light came on etc.

Car is 1999(T) 1.6SX with 125k

Obviously this looks to me like a faulty injector, bt with it being intermittent, would the "1/4 tank of fuel+injector cleaner and rag it" fix help ?

TIA

 

[David]

would be worth putting some injector treatment stuff in with the fuel see what that helps if not would be worth getting a diagnostic done then

www.digital-angels.co.uk bringing you what you want

Theres a bit of Bravo in all of us

 

[Tom]

Could well be, best to get a diag, or dig out your haynes and a multimeter.

Don't bother with injector cleaner as it does nothing useful and if the light is on it indicates an electrical problem which injector cleaner won't help with (assuming injector cleaner was useful in the first place, which it isn't).

 

[David]

why u say that tom about the cleaner stuff i thought it were supposed to help :s

www.digital-angels.co.uk bringing you what you want

Theres a bit of Bravo in all of us

 

[Tom]

They make you think that so you buy it.

But the reality is it does naff all, which is why anyone in the know has injectors ultrasonically cleaned.

Plus the old 1.6 injector issue is purely electrical and the ECU can only detect electrical faults with the injectors. It cannot detect a blocked injector as some people seem to think.

 

[David]

nice one cheers for that i'll refrain from buying the stuff now nice one

www.digital-angels.co.uk bringing you what you want

Theres a bit of Bravo in all of us

 

[Stuart]

Barraka,

the symptoms of your car sound exactly like what happened to my 1.6 last February.
I got a diagnostic which revealed No 4 injector was kaput.
Lots of 1.6's have injector failures. Often people have one fixed only for the others to fail soon after.
Don't mean to depress you, but if you're going to keep your car for a good while it would be favourite to replace all four first as last. It only costs a few quid more in Labour charges to do all four than just doing one.
After paying a fortune for mine I noticed a bloke on eBay selling new injectors for the 1.6 at about fifty quid apiece. Might be the way to go.

Anyway, hope you get it sorted for a damn site less than I ended up paying.

Cheers,
Stuart.

 

[Barakka]

Bingo... Injector no.4 dead

Found an independant garage with a diag machine £35 for the test.

Replacing the injector today for me, £60 for the injector, an hour to fit

 

[Barakka]

Just got my car back, injector replaced £133 for the injector, fitting, and the initial diag test

Apparently the electrical connector on the side of the injector broke off as he touched it so could have been playing up as a loose connection for a while.

Question though, the car seems fine up to about 3k but then, when the power should kick-in it doesn't, seems sluggish at 3-5k where it should be the opposite.

Is this as case of disconnect the battery for >45 mins and let the ECU start learning the new injector ?

 

[Anonymous]

he did clean the other injectors right?

Smee

 

[Barakka]

Don't know.

But he did mention that he noticed last night when he got it running and it was dark that some sparks were visible from the leads to the manifold so new HT leads may be in order. Although he said he couldn't get it to do it this morning.

But would that account for the problem now ?

 

[Anonymous]

sparks on ur manifold?

i dunno but i thought the only thing in the manifold was a lambda sensor??

check ur connections to this.. i think its unscrews (some one will say soon enough) and give that a clean too. cant remember how u clean this now. blow torch comes to mind i dunno why

smee

 

[Barakka]

Well, he said the HT leads were sparking to the metal of the manifold (as earth) and I should think about new leads soon.

 

[Anonymous]

kk thre like £15 from parts4you.co.uk or something

smee

 

[Barakka]

Well, took it back to the garage and the guy was really good. Hooked it up to the diag machine and gave it a good look over - couldn't see anything wrong.

Result was I went and got a new set of leads and left the battery disconnected for a couple of hours. Went out to pick my finacee up from work (about 20-30 mile round trip) and it seems to be getting pretty much back to normal.

Result

 

[Stuart]

Barraka,

glad you're back on the road.
You seem to have done well with your choice of garage. Very reasonable labour charges and £60 for the injector is very cheap.

Assuming that its running well now please let us know if/when the other injectors give up the ghost. Even if they do fail you've got somewhere that doesn't charge the earth to replace them.
A damn fine result.

Hope all stays well for you.