philthespark

HI guys, I started a thread (freelander driving me mad) and have made this new post, hopefully the mods will leave it here, because I found the answer and want others to find it. I've read a few people with the same fault, everyone blames the Maf sensor, if you disconnect it the car runs fine, with it connected it runs badly up to 2000 rpm, well it's not the maf, it's the solenoid on the egr valve, it opens full bore at tickover, I was getting maximum vac across the rev range, therefore it's choking the engine, to prove it LEAVE THE MAF CONNECTED, and disconnect the vac line to the egr, remember to plug the end, and voila, the car will run as normal. since most people blank the egr anyway it doesn't really matter.

HOORAY I FOUND IT! Finally, and it was not the maf, it was a solenoid, I wasn't having it that it was the maf, I just knew it. Anyway I bought a vac gauge and started playing with it, I connected it to the egr valve vac hose and at tickover got no reading, I blipped the throttle and got 10" of vacuum, I revved the engine and the vac stayed the same right through the rev range, the only way it sropped was if you revved hard and suddenly released the accelerator. I removed the tester and plugged the end of the hose and hey presto, it ran perfect, no spluttering, no hesitation, nothing, it goes like the proverbial off the shovel! Finally I'd got there, I had to come back and tell you guys because I've searched everywhere and although others have had this problem nobody appears to have sorted it short of disconnecting the maf and thereby disabling the engine computer, basically running at default values with a resulting loss of fuel economy. Hopefully this will help someone else, I understand now why it was doing it, at low revs the egr shouldn't be open, because it is it's basically suffocating itself with the spent gasses rather than clean air.since most people blank the egr in some way then it's no great loss, I'm not going to waste money replacing the solenoid since it only controls the egr anyway, I,m just happy to see it running properly.

According to the weather forecast we'll be getting snow next week, can't wait, that'll sort the problem, there's bound to be some idiot who'll run into me and right it off, flaming sick of it now, it's taking over my life and I'm sick to death of so called 'experts' who know bugger all, the general consensus of opinion is that these were a bag of carp, and to be honest I'm begining to agree. The warranty thing can be a rip off too, I had one with my first landrover, got shut of it pretty quick, for the warranty to be valid, all work had to be done by a garage, what does that prove? My mate paid good money for his car to be serviced regularly at the local main dealer, yet he was still having issues, one time I had it brought to me the day before the service, got it on the ramp and taped all the lubrication points up with bright yellow tape, I also wrote my initials and the date on the oil filter. it came straight from it's service back to me and up on the ramps, guess what, the yellow tape was still there, and the filter still had my initials on it, boy did my mate have an interesting conversation with the service manager. lol

just a quick update, I checked and replaced the vac hose to the turbo, the actuator was sticking slightly but I got it free with some WD40, now moving it's full stroke, cleaned out the EGR valve and checked it, working fine, it seems to be getting a decent vacuum to the egr which drops off if you take engine to 2500 rpm and let the throttle go. After 2 hours under the bonnet today in the freezing cold I thought I'd cracked it, after replacing the turbo vac line, and making sure the vent pipe was clear, as well as the intercooler, I fired up the engine with the maf reconnected, it ran sweet as a nut, it revved through the full range without missing a beat, excellent! I dropped the bonnet and got back in, dropped the clutch and selected 1st gear, as I went to move off it started missing again, then stalled, aaaah! back where I started.

I do quite a bit with farms and have used quite a few diggers, the common one I see is people snapping bits off the mini diggers by thinking it's a 3CX! A small machine can did, but slowly, you have to nibble rather than try and take a mouthful, all too often I see people using a small machine and trying to take a full depth scrape with the bucket, rather than slow and steady, oh, and they aren't made for ripping out 20 foot tall trees either, and yes, I've seen it tried.

Someone said that, but mine's on the air pipe at the front, I've come up with a plan for now anyway, I'm going to rewire the damned thing! It would appear that all things point to either the maf, the air temp sensor, or the hp fuel sensor, so, having already replaced the maf, I'm going to replace all the cabling and if that doesn't work then I'll replace the other sensors. I can get rolls of tri-rated cable at a decent price and obviously with doing electrics as my day job it's not going to be an issue making up a new loom, the plan will at least then take a major part of potential faults out of the way.

Thereby stands the problem, most people haven't got a clue, other than to suggest throwing megabucks at it, and that winds me up. In my job I do tests and with my experience I have a good idea whats happening right off the bat, for example, I was sat at home the other night after a stressfull day and had a couple of JD's to unwind, then the phone rang, one of the lads had lost all his electric while changing a pull switch, "can't understand it, everything's turned off, but the breaker won't stay in on the main" he moaned, "hmm right, probably the rcd" I replied, and it was, "in that case you've a neutral and earth touching somewhere" I told him. H e checked and yes he had, now for those who don't know an RCD will trip out on a neutral-earth fault as well as a live-earth fault! ok he had the breaker for the circuit off, so it wasn't getting power, but it could still trip out on a neutral -earth fault, I knew this from experience and I was right. The problem with most 'car people' is I genuinely believe they haven't a clue, and mention a 'cascade fault' and watch their eyes glaze over. suppose I get called out to a motor that's not running, well here's how I roll, 1, check it's actually switched on, 2, check if there's power to the controller, 3, check power at motor terminals. If I have power at motor, then obviously the motor is faulty, so we replace/repair it. but it may be a switch, or a breaker, or a fuse, hence the tests. How long would I last if I went out to that fault and without testing told the customer he needed a new motor at say £400, only to find that after replacement it didn't run, ok so we need a new controller, £200, oops, still doesn't run, must be the wiring, another £200, then, oh look, the breaker had tripped, oh well, at least the machine's running again.. There is the problem, I don't mind spending money, but not on replacing parts for the sake of it, going down that route why not start by replacing the whole engine, followed by the ECU , oh and possibly the battery while we're at it. I am certain I CANNOT, be the first person to have this fault, but no matter how nice the car is, it's still an 05 plate, and if I followed the advice I appear to be getting from the 'professionals' so far, well I'd probably be into it for several thousand pounds by now.

Hi Guys, sorry for not coming back sooner, busy at work, anyhow I got hold of the code reader again yesterday, and did a full read which I'll post up later . Anyhow I got 2 codes, 0100, air flow meter, and 0110, air temp sensor, these were with maf unplugged, the only thing was I thought I'd written down the info with the maff plugged in, but can't find it, typical. Well doing a bit of digging in here and there was a guy in 2017 with same problem, apparently he'd tried fitting 'the box', and it didn't work, neither did mine! then he'd tried a Pierburg maf, that didn't work either, so he was going to try a new Bosch one, but in typical fashion he didn't come back with the results. It's a pita at the minute, on my days off it's either freezing cold or raining, not conducive to working when you've got arthritis in your hands, lol. so I'm taking it to one of my friends who has a farm, I'm going to stick it in the workshop 0ne day next week and have a really good look at it, maybe something will leap out if I'm not frozen stiff or getting pee'd on with icy rain.

I have a cheap scanner, it didn't find any codes, so I went to a mate who has a Foxwell, paid about 400 quid for it, that didn't find any codes either! If I could get hold of one cheap I'd have a marina or a maxi in a heartbeat, I'd sooner spend all day welding a new floor in and know I've acheived something than spend a day poking about and acheiving nothing, which is what I,m doing at the minute. on the subject of car safety, if I had my way I'd replace the steering wheel airbag with a bloody great spike, that would drastically cut the accident figures. People these days are so convinced that if they have an accident they'll be ok because they've got airbags. sips, etc etc, that they still drive like idiots even in really bad weather, just look at 90% of Audi drivers. lol. I don't mind anybody killing themselves, it's when they take others with them that I object, I've seen far too many people seriously injured as a result of idiot drivers. Incidentally the box arrived today, it didn't make a grain of difference, so that's going back, I've got a busy few days at work now, and it's in a bit of a rough area, you never know I may be lucky enough that someone nicks the damned thing. lol

Thanks, that's very kind of you,I've already got the bit to get the thing out, I just wish they'd bring back proper cars, what was wrong with the old engines where you didn't need a few grands worth of test gear and a degree in astrophysics to keep them running. lol That's not to say I've not got a few grands worth of test gear, it's just none of it's any good in this case, I just can't get my head around why they have to make problems so hard to diagnose, in my job you simply apply logic and you find the fault, these car designers seem to build things in such a way that almost anything can show up as anything else. Incidentally, there was a guy on the radio yesterday when they were on about banning diesel and petrol cars, he said he'd got an old landrover from the 1970's and ran it on vegetable oil, he reckons he gets good mileage and the oil brand new is only about a quid a litre. He made a good point that you can't do that with a modern engine because there's too many sensors.

Penetration is key, just ask the wife, lol. Seriously though you are quite right, I'd rather do without a tool than have to make do with a cheap nasty one. Trouble is, it gets bloody dangerous when people don't realise, just because something is 'stuck' to something when it's lying on the floor doesn't mean it's going to stay 'stuck' when you get a bit of stress on it. I remember many many years ago, back in the Marina and Escort days, I became an expert at body repairs with an arc welder, ok it took time to learn, but the results were far better than using one of those cheap nasty mig sets, buy cheap buy twice, as they say

Yes it's had an mot, guy ssaid it was fine, unfortunately I don't have the old one that came with it when I bought it though to compare figures.

Oh dear, I've ordered one of those boxes, I did loads of reading and got the idea they were a good idea, oops, I can't seem to find any leaking hoses, but one thing about what you say confuses me, now lets suppose there was a leak in a pipe and hence the vnt was inoperable, why would disconnecting the maf cure the rough running below 2K RPM? I am begining to detest these car electronics, if it was some bloody great industrial distribution system pulling a few thousand amps I'd have an idea of what I was playing with.

I,ve had a recip since they very first became available in the uk, the only blades to use are made by Lennox tools and are called a rescue blade, you won't find them in the shops,they're special order, but you can literally bend them double and they spring back. when I got my first one, blades were rarer than hens teeth, I think the first people to use them was the fire service as a replacement for the air powered Cengar saw. A mate of mine owned a large breakers yard and the local fire brigade used to go down and practice their extrication training on his old cars, I got talking to them and managed to cadge a few blades, they were great. anyway, I was at a large tool show about 5 years ago and mentioned these to a guy on the Lennox tools stand, he knew exactly what they were and ordered me some from the states, they lasted ages and because he got them sent to their uk base and then posted them out to me I didn't get hit with any nasty import duties. I have bought several bits of emergency services kit over the last few years, another good one is the rescue diamond blade, most diamond discs are designed for masonary, the rescue blade goes through all kinds of stuff, concrete, brick, stone, steel, wood, plastic, granted it,s not quite as fast through steel as an Inox disc, but its a handy thing to have in the van, especially for those emergency jobs.

At least they're not advertising it as makita, I remember about 10 years ago they were knocking stuff out as Makita, DeWalt and Hilti, it wasn't, a mate of mine was a builder, a proper skinflint, he rang me bragging he'd just bought 3 Hilti's for a ton, and they came with spare brushes! He was gutted when I told him they were Chinese carp. It was the same with the DeWalt and makita, people who obviously didn't know better were buying these things and some were getting hurt as the machines broke up under load, you still see the drills advertised, for about £25, but not badged as something they aren't.I've been using the Makita stuff for about 40 years now and know nearly every piece of kit they make, I could tell this chinese tat a mile off. We traced a lot of it back to a place in Ireland, when it was raided it was unbelievable, they'd literally thousands of these cheap drills, red for Hilti, yellow for DeWalt, and blue for makita, along with boxes of dodgy labels to stick on them, apparently, so I was reliably informed, there's nothing to stop anyone importing a fake copy of something into the uk, it's when you stick the badge on it becomes illegal.so theoretically, you could open a plant in China making landrover lookalikes and import them no problem, so long as they met our safety regs, the only problem would be if you stuck the badge on one, totally stupid if you ask me, why produce a cheap version of something unless you're trying to rip someone off.