OK, here's the full story
When I first got the Berlingo a year ago I was shocked how jerky the on-off throttle was. The car had very little use for several years and I figured a thorough service and an “Italian tune-up” would sort it.
Er, no it didn’t…
Despite the jerky on-off throttle the engine pulled smoothly and strongly from idle up to nearly 5,000 rpm without a hint of a misfire, so there couldn’t be anything majorly wrong with it surely? This 20 year old Berlingo has a modern common-rail fuel injection engine, electronically controlled, so there is nothing much you can adjust or fiddle with unfortunately.
The internet and forums unusually offered no suggestions, despite some owners complaining. The MAF sensor was highlighted as sometimes problematic so I disconnected it, and yes! - a smooth throttle, brilliant! So I replaced the MAF (with a good quality one), but …. absolutely no difference at all, what-the? ! But disconnect it again, and a smooth throttle, hmm. A puzzle for sure, and annoyingly leaving the MAF disconnected resulted in a slight power loss and threw up an engine light, so this was not a great solution.
OK, what about the EGR valve as they tend to clog up on older diesels. A simple vacuum operated device on this car, so I disconnected it and plugged the pipe. Yes! - the throttle was super-smooth! I was well pleased, until … a few miles up the road the car went into limp mode. Somehow the engine detected the EGR was disconnected and objected, despite no EGR sensors. How frustrating...
OK, let’s take the EGR valve off and have a look. Not the easiest thing to do, but it was completely clean and working perfectly! Doh! This car was cursed!
Right, how about a “master-reset” for the engine management system by leaving the battery disconnected for half- hour? Nope, no difference at all, not one tiny bit.
Fuel cleaner? Nope. Premium fuel? No difference.
Interestingly I found giving the engine a good rev up to at least 4000 rpm in 1st or 2nd resulted in noticeably smoother running, but after 10 minutes or so it slowly returned to its jerky self.
Eventually I had to admit defeat and accept the irritating problem was not going away and I was going to have to live with it.
It is now September 2025, a year and 10,000 miles on and the jerky throttle is just the same, and just as annoying. The engine still running perfectly otherwise, smooth, and 45-50mpg.
Here is where the story takes an unusual turn. I had recently picked up a year old Honda motorcycle with a virtually identical jerky throttle problem due to its fuel injection set very lean for emission regulations.
Some owners had performed a throttle reset / calibration procedure and resolved the jerky throttle, but nothing I tried worked. Until I added in a step that works on some VW's, and to my surprise it worked!
Which got me thinking,. What if …..what if … I tried this specific throttle reset procedure on the Berlingo? I had tried some already with no luck.
Anyway, I did, and I could not f-ing well believe it - it worked!!! I was really quite surprised, to the extent that I had to reverse-engineer the fix by doing the reset process incorrectly to confirm.
Yes, it was quite clearly fixed, or not fixed, who would have thought? But not only that there was also a noticeable power increase through the mid-range! No idea how or why, but it’s there, remarkable - what a bonus.
The procedure that worked:
Engine off.
Push throttle pedal to the floor
Hold it there
Turn on ignition, don't start the engine
Release pedal
Smoothly push pedal to the floor 3 times
Switch off
Wait at least 10 seconds
Drive off in your smooth car. It is a 20 year old car and not 100% perfect but much, much, better than before.
