Berlingo engine judders and cuts out intermittently

HelenaHandbasket · Post by **HelenaHandbasket** » 12 Oct 2008, 17:58

My 2002 Berlingo has been misbehaving on and off for a couple of years, but no-one seems to be able to get to the root of the problem. She'll drive perfectly well for months on end, then all of a sudden the engine will start juddering and occasionally cutting out altogether.

Recently, the "engine diagnosis warning lamp" has come on, again intermittently. Our local Citroen garage reset it, but wasn't able to shed much light on the problem. They've suggested that it could be an "engine manifold pressure sensor fault".

Neither my husband nor I know much about cars, unfortunately, and we can't afford to keep sending the Berlingo back to the garage for costly investigations. Can anyone suggest a possible cause for the problem and a way to remedy it? My husband thinks that it must be a computer glitch, rather than a mechanical issue, because the car drives perfectly normally in between "attacks".

Thanks so much,
HelenaHandbasket

deian · Post by **deian** » 12 Oct 2008, 19:36

Hi,

Firstly, please tell us what engine you have?

When you took it to the citroen garage, did they 'look' for a fault, or just reset it (clear the memory), if they didn't find any faults stored then there was no use to reset it?

Also why would they 'suggest' the engine manifold pressure sensor without checking it for you (only takes minutes for them).

Can you tell us under what circumstances the fault appers? Is it on idle, pulling away, coming to a stop (clutch down), off the accelerator. What is the weather like, dry or humid? hot or cold?

It could be a fuel issue though, i.e poor quality fuel, try another garage, if it's a petrol try some super unleaded if you use regular unleaded.

Let us know some more details and someone will be able to make a more accurate diagnosis.

citronut · Post by **citronut** » 12 Oct 2008, 19:48

hi and welcome Helen

so were abouts are you, no i dont mean which room in the house your in either

regards malcolm

HelenaHandbasket · Post by **HelenaHandbasket** » 12 Oct 2008, 20:32

deian wrote:Hi,

Firstly, please tell us what engine you have?

When you took it to the citroen garage, did they 'look' for a fault, or just reset it (clear the memory), if they didn't find any faults stored then there was no use to reset it?

Also why would they 'suggest' the engine manifold pressure sensor without checking it for you (only takes minutes for them).

Can you tell us under what circumstances the fault appers? Is it on idle, pulling away, coming to a stop (clutch down), off the accelerator. What is the weather like, dry or humid? hot or cold?

It could be a fuel issue though, i.e poor quality fuel, try another garage, if it's a petrol try some super unleaded if you use regular unleaded.

Let us know some more details and someone will be able to make a more accurate diagnosis.

Thanks so much.

In answer to your questions...

It's a 1.6 Multispace Forte.

My husband's a bit vague about exactly what the garage did when he last took it in, but here's what he's just told me. (We've used a non-Citroen garage in the past, but they told us that we needed to take it to a Citroen specialist this time, in order to run the diagnostic tests.) Unfortunately, by the time we got the car to the garage, the engine diagnosis warning lamp had gone out. The garage hooked up to a machine which registered the engine manifold pressure sensor fault, but the engineer suggested that a more likely cause was poor quality fuel and advised us to avoid filling up at supermarket petrol stations. He said that if the light came back on again, they'd try to do something.

My husband thinks that the juddering happens when you reach a certain speed (c 65mph), but I've experienced it at all speeds. The engine judders/splutters slightly (sometimes so subtly that you wonder whether you've imagined it or it's the road surface) and almost "kangaroos" on occasion. It tends to cut out when you're slowing down or approaching a stop with the clutch down. I don't think weather conditions are a factor, although it's sometimes worse on the first drive of the day, but on warm days, too.

We'd never heard of fuel quality being an issue, so I'm afraid we ignored the engineer's advice about avoiding supermarket petrol stations. Could that really be a factor? We routinely fill up where fuel is cheapest i.e. Asda and Tesco.

Thanks again for your very helpful reply.

HelenaHandbasket · Post by **HelenaHandbasket** » 12 Oct 2008, 20:32

citronut wrote:hi and welcome Helen

so were abouts are you, no i dont mean which room in the house your in either

regards malcolm

Thanks, malcolm. We're just north of Plymouth.

TBONE · Post by **TBONE** » 12 Oct 2008, 22:55

MAF- mass airflow sensor try cleaning the contacts with break/carb cleaner spray

deian · Post by **deian** » 13 Oct 2008, 16:30

Fuel quality CAN be an issue sometimes, remember some time ago when supermarket petrol stations in the south had bad fuel and cars had to be fixed in the garage? Well that was a bad fuel issue there, the problem is, fuel does have a quality standard to meet, but sometimes water can leak into forecourt tanks or maybe you got a new batch after a fill up (filling tanks can swirl dirt at the bottom, and it can take an hour or so to settle down).

Maybe check your own fuel filter for good flow (and therefore pressure) of fuel to the engine, if the flow is not as it should be other sensors would be thrown out too.

Tbone's suggestion is one to try too. Is it petrol or diesel? There are major differences in the way the fuel systems and the engine work between petrol and diesel engines.

For now, try a different fuel station from a different manufacturer and see how it goes from there, maybe give it some injector cleaner too, then drive it hard for a few miles.

Let us know how it goes.

Deian

citronut · Post by **citronut** » 13 Oct 2008, 19:01

sounds like possibly the idle valve stepper motor is on its way out,

regards malcolm

deian · Post by **deian** » 13 Oct 2008, 20:30

It can't be the idle stepper motor, because she says it happens when she is driving too, and therefore the engine doesn't idle when driving. I think it's a fuelling problem.

Clogzz · Post by **Clogzz** » 14 Oct 2008, 13:53

1) a machine which registered the engine manifold pressure sensor fault
2) tends to cut out when you're slowing down or approaching a stop with the clutch down

Welcome to our troubles, Helena.

This reads like a vacuum leak, where the engine sucks in air, instead of a well-metered fuel/air mixture.
The air gets into the manifold through a loose hose-end or leaking gasket.
With the engine at fast idle, the air leak will cause a hissing sound.
At normal, slow idle, squirting WD40 into the leak will increase the idling speed.

The engine cuts out when approaching a stop because when you release the accelerator, the vacuum increases and the controlled fuel/air mixture is reduced, and so increasing the inflow of air from the leak.