I've been scouring these forums for a while to see if my problems are dealt with elsewhere, but I've not really managed to find a straight answer (I'm not even sure whether people are referring to petrol or diesel engines on some of the threads). I'd appreciate any assistance, even if it's to point me to another thread I've missed!

I've just bought a 2004 X Type 2.0 diesel estate. Around 55k miles on the clock.

The problems: when cold, the car starts fine, but stalls at idle repeatedly until the engine has warmed up. There is a *lot* of smoke out of the back during this.

Once warm, it's largely ok, although there is some surging and unevenness in the 1.5 to 2k rpm range. It gets 50mpg around 60 but tails off to only about 40mpg at 70mph. Not dreadful but a bit off from what it ought be perhaps. It's smokier when accelerating than I expected too (even accounting for it being a diesel).

When we saw it at the dealers, they said there's a problem with the injectors. They fitted new ones, and we picked the car up a few days ago. I'm aware the injectors need a little time to set themselves, but we've had a couple of nice long motorway runs since then, so it's easily had 700 miles or so for that now.

There are no engine management/error lights up at any point during this, to my recollection.

 

Oh my gosh, apparently I can't cope with the passage of time. I obviously mean a 2004 model, not 1994. My subconscious is longing for my student days I think...!

 

Hey there and welcome aboard JF.

Congrats on the X type, nice car and the 2.0d is pretty good for both performance and economy usually, same engine ss the Ford Mondeo iirc.

Ok so its not exactly stellar mileage so far, but could your 02 Lambda sensors are either failing or on their way out ( if they haven't been changed they could be about to fail and not throwing any codes as yet! )

As an indication I've just changed 02 sensors on my sons Astra H that suffered from lumpy running, high fuel usage and a slight hesitation which resolved these issues.

Something to consider as they read the airflow and can cause over fuelling I believe if duff.
Have you had codes read or had a code reader on the car to see if anything is showing??
That in itself could be a very good early investment and needn't break the bank.

If it's been doing a lot of stop / start around town journeys I guess it's possible the egr valve could be clogged up too.......removal and cleaning may make a huge difference and worth considering.

The idle control valve may be part of the cause of your rough idle too.

All of the above are worth looking into.

Hope it helps

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I will definitely be picking up an OBD cable for a start. After stalling the engine management light is coming on so that might help clear that up.

I have utterly failed to get the JTIS software working on Windows 7 so far, but once I do I'll check out the EGR. No idea what kind of usage the car had before, and even though it gets long runs now, it could conceivably be too mucked up to self clean any more.

The car is under warranty from the dealer for a few months, it'd be nice to think I could persuade them to replace the lambda sensor, but without concrete proof that's the problem I suspect they'll be reluctant to do that. Is this something that will eventually start giving error codes when it deteriorates further?

It is a great car though, very happy with it even with a couple of things that need ironing out

 

Hi, I know its been a few months now but has your stalling issue been sorted? did it sort itself or did it require a mechanics intervention?

Mine too is very hesitant and stalling when cold, but when warmed up runs fine after having three injector replaced.

The garage where this was carried out has told me it takes a month to bed in, is this the case? I worry as that's about the time my warranty runs out??????

 

Always meant to put an update on here, but kept putting it off. As it happens, the dealership had it back for a while and eventually found one of the con-rods was bent, and it needed a lot of refurbishing, to undo the damage caused by running with that.

It still runs pretty smokily, which I'm not happy about, but the stalling issues are gone and mpg are higher.

As for your issues, I'm no expert but injectors should take a certain number of miles to calibrate themselves, rather than an amount of time, so you should be able to figure out whether it has solved things before the warranty runs out. I think it was 600 miles or so, that doesn't even take too long even if you have to make a trip out especially.

 

Thanks for the update.

Mine too is now running good but still rather smoky, so as it's still under warranty I have put it back in the garage. I should be picking it up later today, so we'll see what's been done.