Lack of power and judder.

[peter.ling24@gmail.com]

Hello everyone,

Have returned today from Yorkshire towing a caravan. The car is a 2005 2.2 D4D T spirit with 79,000 miles and has regular annual oil changes and filters by Toyota. I cleaned the ERG valve less than a 1,000 miles ago. There was very little carbon deposit.

I am experiencing judder when I press the accelerator down or when on an incline when towing. I have to change down a gear at 2000 RPM. If I were not to change gear but just press the accelerator pedal the engine would judder/hesitate and not give anymore power.

It sounds like one cylinder is not working within the rest. I am very light on the accelerator when driving and sympathetic to this now an older car, however the indicated MPG steadily goes down over the miles as much as 10 MPG. Regardless of how I drive it continues to decrease.

I know these figures are just a guide but the indicated MPG over the years are generally commensurate with my driving style.

This problem occures when towing the caravan. The gross weight of the caravan is about 1100 kilos, and the car has towed this caravan for years without any loss power of judder/hesitation.

I looked under the bonnet this evening and there are no obvious signs of anything loose. No coolant loss or any other fluid.

On our last caravan outing this happen once at idle speed with the air conditioning on. I turned off the air conditioning and the hesitation stopped. Abviously, the engine was under a load when the air conditioning was on turning it off unloaded the engine.

At idle speed 800 RPM it is smooth without problem or warning light indication.

I appreciate this is like a needle in a haystack request but any ideas as what I could check first would be most appreciated.

Regards

Peter

[peter.ling24@gmail.com]

Hi again,

Had a good look around engine compartment. Again nothing obvious out of place.

MAF sensor looks very clean. Took of the large plastic pipe linking the airbox to the turbo. Removed the small breathed pipe. What I discovered was a small amount of pooled engine oil in the large bore aluminium pipe. It's clearly coming from the breather pipe. The turbo pipe inside was very clean except from the pooled oil.

Reconnected everything back together again and started the engine. Took of the breather pipe. No dynamic pressure, just a little puff.

I doubt if this has anything to do with the towing issue.

Peter

[paul9]

If you have a bidirectional scan tool such as Toyota Techstream and someone to run the tests whilst another person drives, you can turn off individual cylinders. If you turn off a cylinder while you are recreating the problem, then it should get worse and possibly stall the engine if you turn off a working cylinder. If you turn off a cylinder and that one makes no difference to the problem, then that would indicate it was a noncontributing cylinder and probably the cause of your problem.

Personally, I would be wondering if my clutch or gearbox needed some attention, though. And running a bottle or two of injector cleaner such as Redex, Dipetane or whatever through your next tank or two of fuel may help and wouldn't harm it.

[peter.ling24@gmail.com]

Hi Paul9

I appreciate your knowledge.

Can I ask please why you suggest it could be clutch or gearbox? I never thought it may be a factor regarding this problem. I'll enquire about the scan tool.

Thanks again Paul

Peter

[paul9]

Just that I have had clutch judder myself before, so I am personally biased to suspect something similar. So I added that as a possibility to be considered. Also, I initially missed where you said it SOUNDED like a cylinder wasn't contributing, and read it that you felt it was the case. I often don't pay the attention to details that I should, and skip ahead, sorry.;)

[peter.ling24@gmail.com]

Hi Paul9,

Don't worry Paul.

I do it all the time so the wife says. 

Appreciate your input anyway.

Peter