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Technical Sudden power loss

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Technical Sudden power loss

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JudithvO

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Dec 2, 2014
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Punto Evo 2011 diesel looses power.
On a roundabout it happened already 3 times that there is no power at all; just a sudden stop.
Driving on the highway, taking an extit, shifting from 5th to 4th; sudden power loss. Blinking 'oil' icon.
When standing at a traffic light i notice the engine is loud; as if i'm pushing full pedal to get going.
Mechanic at garage checked already, changed a sensor. Filters were changed at annual carservice moment in August. Turbo hose was renewed in July as there was a little cut in it due to wear.
I notice a smell of diesel every time this happened.
Besides that (not sure if these things are connected) it happened a few times that when driving at night with lights on, the lights blink from on to off and back on again.

Any suggestions what it might be, what to check?
 
Hi :)

A failure that is NOT unusual is the main Black colour Earth cable can fail internally ( it is many fine strands of copper wire.. water can cause corrosion)

The cable runs for @1 metre.. from battery to chassis..car body..to motor

flexing of the cable can interrupt the vehicles electrical circuit

It is a cheap and simple thing to have changed :)
 
varesecrazy said:
Hi :)

A failure that is NOT unusual is the main Black colour Earth cable can fail internally ( it is many fine strands of copper wire.. water can cause corrosion)

The cable runs for @1 metre.. from battery to chassis..car body..to motor

flexing of the cable can interrupt the vehicles electrical circuit

It is a cheap and simple thing to have changed :)
Click to expand...
Sounds like a possibility, THANK YOU!
 
No news yet. The car is at the garage since yesterday. They took some drives with it but the problem didn't occure. So today they will some more rides, hopefully it occures and they can find what causes it. Meanwhile the strut bearings at the front need replacement too.
 
Well, they drove another 70km with the car. No problem… They contacted a local Fiat mechanic and he suggested replacing the MAP sensor. So they replaced that with a new one. Picked up the car and drove home. Fingers crossed.
 
This is a diesel engine.

So it just elevates idle slightly to 1000 rpm, which is at normal range. However having unsteady idle is not normal. So could be that earth cable, bad battery. :unsure:

Blinks oil light?:eek: Could be related to bad earth or there could be an issue. So this engine has a timing chain. Has it ever been checked? It should last quite a long time with the right oil and regular oil changes.

If it starts misbehaving again, it means that ecu has re-learnt the parameters again and there was no fault with the sensors.
 
Thank you Eeeno,
Bad battery is my next guess for now, earth cable was checked last time and that was fine. The unsteady idle drives me crazy ;-)
Timing chain check; i have this car since 2018 as my previous very loved Evo was totall loss as the car parked next to it was sat on fire and burned down. I know i'm the second owner of this car. Until 2019 it was always taken care by a Fiat dealer. Car goes now annually to a mechanic to get checked and get oil changes / filter changes etc. I assume they checked it, but i'll ask him for sure as i ready stories about 'life time no issues, not true with timing chain'....
Can the timing chain be checked without taking half the engine apart?

We weren't sure to begin with to replace the MEP sensor, but as it was a cheap part we took the chance. Hoping it solved it.
 
Annual service doesn't include timing chain check. :unsure:

Let's see smell of diesel? Over-fuelling? Leaky injector? Bad fuel pressure regulator? Just guessing. :unsure:

Battery terminals were probably cleaned. The earth cables - well it WOULD be the cheapest thing to change anyway. You need to insist on changing it. If changing the earth cables didn't help, I'd take it to the qualified Fiat service center. It could be engine trouble and they should have the best knowledge.

My theory is that the car goes into limp mode intermittently. No fault codes?

However I remember an old diesel Peugeot which used to get powerloss if it was always driven on the highest gear. The exhaust became clogged with soot and to fix was to drive 3 kilometres on 3rd gear at 80 kmph. I'm afraid that short distance driving causes problems to diesels. You could make it a habit to do the clean up twice a month. On top of that it doesn't require taking the car to a mechanic and no bills to pay. 💡 Also it didn't re-appear when the mechanic was test driving it would indicate that it may be due to driving habits. ☀️ Hopefully that's all it is.
 
Thanks again for thinkinh along.
Okay, they have to check the timing chain, bsttery and change earth cable just for sure.
I ride long distances a lot (100km+) so that shouldn't be the case i think. Even after a long distance it has an unstable idle.
Driving habits, nah, don't think so as there are different people driving my car. We even tried the first 5km in 3rd gear at 80km/h or 4th/100km/h, no difference. Diesel tank cleaner added every 3rd tank as 'prescribed' for the last 4 months orso.
Someone suggested that it might be the catalyst.

Fuel pressure regulator was changed too. 2 "Fire plates" of injection system were changed.
When it does the limp mode thing no faults code at all. They even connected the reading thingie while driving; nothing.

I did notice a strange thing; when i have the cruise control switched on, but not actually using it the limp mode tends to appear a little less often...

The nearest qualified Fiat service center is a p*** in the a** one... In the past they made mistakes with my others Fiats so i don't have a lot of faith in them.

To be continued!
 
I believe that all of the diesel cars have problems with the emissions control system (FAP, whatever it's called) at some time. There would be a fault code for it. Probably yours is at its limits of setting a code. (very expensive to replace) The old ones had issues even if driven in highways. The exhaust pipe became clogged with soot and it was a direct pipe - no catalysts in the late 90's.

https://www.fiatforum.com/threads/intermittent-power-loss-1-4-t-jet-150.450125/

This is different model with petrol engine, but ECU started to limit power when brake light switch was faulty, thinking brake pedal was being constantly applied. :unsure:
 
Monday the Punto goes back to the garage.
Problem stays the same. Last Monday after 120km on the highway we exited to town and at the first traffic light there was total power loss again...
Last week my BF drove and after 15 minutes the same thing happened. It's always with a warm engine.
 
Well, another update. They had the car a week at the garage and found a clogged EGR valve. They show me; it was very very dirty. It's cleaned and now, knock on wood, the car works like a sunshine. The mechanic said when i wanted to pay; "take the car home, drive for a week and then let me know if the car is doing okay. We need this to be solved and then i'll give you an invoice ;-)"
 
I wonder why a garage didn't find it out earlier. They were supposed to know because it's very basic stuff. Not some exotic italian technology. :unsure: Hopefully they'll give you a good discount. Why on earth did they not want to get their hands dirty first and clean the EGR. They're just lazy and want to write you a hefty bill. That thing has been around for a very long time and it has always caused issues.

I forgot to mention that it was common practice to block the egr valves completely because it made the car lose power. Today it can't be done because ECU will throw a code.
 
eeeno said:
I wonder why a garage didn't find it out earlier. They were supposed to know because it's very basic stuff. Not some exotic italian technology. :unsure: Hopefully they'll give you a good discount. Why on earth did they not want to get their hands dirty first and clean the EGR. They're just lazy and want to write you a hefty bill. That thing has been around for a very long time and it has always caused issues.

I forgot to mention that it was common practice to block the egr valves completely because it made the car lose power. Today it can't be done because ECU will throw a code.
Click to expand...
In their defence, no one else cured it, no codes showed and they did what I would have done, at least at the end :-
"The mechanic said when i wanted to pay; "take the car home, drive for a week and then let me know if the car is doing okay. We need this to be solved and then i'll give you an invoice ;-)"
How many Fiat Dealers or any Main Dealers would have done that?
On another small point, how many times have you and other contributors solved a problem and not heard another word from the person you helped? :(
Even if the suggestion doesn't cure the problem , then feedback would help future diagnosis.
 
Thank you @bugsymike!
As Bugsymike mention: there were no error codes given by the car at ALL. So that is mainly looking for a needle in a haystack. As the problem also happened very irregular and could not be reproduced when searching. Replacing parts just because it cóúld be this or that (in other words: make as much money as possible) is not the style of this garage. And taking out the EGR valve is not like a 10 minute job, and their was a list of possible causes they wanted to check first.
Yesterday i went to the garage to tell them my Punto and me are happy again and that i think i need to pay 😊.
He gave me a discount and the week rent of the loan car was not invoiced at all. When i mentioned that he said: “the fact you are walking in here with a big smile and your car is okay again makes us happy!”Really nice.
Blocking the egr valve was not an option at allas that is giving a lot of extra pollution etc.
@eeeno, they never ever want to write a hefty bill or keep their hands clean. Then you don’t know a good garage?
And if this a common problem and you apparantly knew about it, why not mention it in the first post then?

Have a great weekend!
 
It is very common on diesels to have clogged EGRs without a code. It means the valve can still operate and ECU sees no problem with the valve itself but the passage is still clogged. I was getting at it, believe me, a 24 year old diesel Peugeot still runs happily with a blocked EGR valve with full power. It had power loss and it might have been that EGR but it was too long ago, and they also replaced MAF. Back then, mechanics had a check list to follow and it didn't take them a full week to discover, just a couple of hours. They also didn't use Twitter or Facebook or let the computer fool them. 💡

I have 1.4 FIRE petrol without EGR, so EGR is not even on my list if I suggest something here. It's up to the experts to find the fault and give a good customer experience. It appears that the garage is admitting that they should have found it out sooner. (y) That's why they're giving you a good discount. I'm happy that it was solved and you actually came back to tell us. Not too many are bothered to do so.

The garage you use appears to be honest, but believe me a lot of those see an opportunity if there's a clueless lady customer.
 
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