Citroen C3 1.4HDi 16V cutting out at random

[ph001]

Hi all,

I really hope you can help me, I've been having a long running problem with my 1.4HDi 16V for the past few months now and nobdoy seems to have any clue what is wrong with it:

Symptoms:

I get this problem very intermittently and seemingly randomly about 2-3 times per week:

Driving along as normal, there is a very distinct and severe loss of power (undoubtedly no fuel being injected). The car stutters badly for 1-2 secs and then resumes as normal. Sometimes it happens again within a few minutes, other times it can go for days with no re-occurance of the problem.

When this happens it will often cancel cruise (when set on the motorway), and the car occasionally stalls when coming up to junctions and the clutch is depressed.

The car does it under both light and heavy acceleration, hot or cold engine.

Whatever the problem is, it is having a bizarre effect on other systems. Last week it did the usual stutter but instead of recovering as normal, it lost all turbo boost, the power steering didn't work and the rev counter needle disappeared!!! I managed to drive it home and out of interest, when i got there I turned the ignition off and back on again and everything was back to normal!!! No fault code stored.

Yesterday, I had the same brief cut in power which lasted a second or so but then the oil pressure warning light came on and the car drove as normal. A quick pull over to the side of the road to turn ignition on and off and all is well again.

No ECU lights are lit on the dash and Citroen say they cannot find any codes stored. They (randomly it seems) changed the throttle pot assy on the pedal but this has made no difference.

I've since changed the AFM - no difference and been around all the connectors / power feeds to both ECU's next to the battery.

I'm now at my wits end with the thing - Citroen obviously have no idea what's wrong and it's so intermittent anyway they can never actually witness the problem when they test drive it.

If anybody could shed any light on this it would be most appreciated?

[c.morewood]

Cured my C2 1.4 Hdi 's engine intermittently cutting out by replacing the fuel (return?) pipe which runs from the lhs of the fuel filter behind the engine to a connector on the lhs of the engine bay. It was badly perished and was letting air into the fuel system.
Hope this helps,
Chris

[ph001]

Thanks for the reply - I'll certainly check that. The crashing of the other systems makes me think it is something ECU related - intermittent power feed perhaps, but I would expect that to happen when going over a pothole or something and that just isn't the case. I've got a new crank position sensor to fit tomorrow but I don't have high hopes - generally that sort of problem always stores an error code.

[ianckt739]

May be way off the mark here but if no fuel is getting through there could be a restriction to the fuel supply as it leaves the tank. There is no lift pump but on the fuel gauge sender unit under the rear seat is a plastic mesh basket that can get caked up. Fuel filter in the engine bay is obviously replaced periodically but I don't think the mesh filter in the tank is anywhere in the service schedule.

As I say, maybe barking up the wrong tree but worth a look if you feel that fuel supply is the issue.

While waiting for parts to arrive for another job on mine, I decided to take a look in there and was surprised to find several feathers, a few lumps of black crud and a collection of grit clogging up the mesh. Didn't really notice any problems before hand but low-end acceleration is alot smoother and more gradual since clearing it out.

[emilburzo]

Sorry for the really old thread bump, but did you ever find a fix for this problem?

I'm currently having an issue that sounds really similar (but apparently not very common on google)