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Author Topic: espace 2.2dci air mas meeter issues  (Read 27265 times)
colin4255
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« on: March 01, 2010, 04:20:50 pm »

My 2002 Grand Espace 2.2 DCI seems to be suffering an intermittent fault relating to the air mass meter.

About 8 months ago, the meter stopped working properly, the car was very flat on acceleration, then you could turn off ignition, re-start ignition and it would run OK.  Renault diagnosed the sensor in the air mass matere to be the issue and replaced it.   6 months on and two weeks back it began doing same thing again. Back to dealer who did a a complete check and said the sensor in the meter had failed.

They replaced this under Renault warranty.  I got less than 250 miles in terms of driving and once again the cars acceleration goes flat, no power (but no smoke from exhaust or un-burnt fuel or anything like that).   Its definitely not an EGR valve problem - checked that out already. I have cleaned and changed them before on the espace and have a spare new on that I fitted.  Taking it back in tomorrow - they seem to think its the same issue at the dealers, but I fear they will never get beyond just swapping parts!!

Now my question is this:-

Its not likely that I have been given two bad air mass meters in succession, so something else is 'causing' them to fail.  Are there any specific relays or anything similar that the air mass meter is wired to? It seems to be an electrical issue - but has anyone had similar issues and if so how were they fixed?

Rgds
Colin
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Sommerby
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« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2010, 04:39:27 pm »

Hi Colin.
This is not a very qualified reply from my side, but I would like to mention that I at one stage had been driving 40.000 km with the Air mass meter unplugged. The car was running perfectly with the Air mass meter disconnected. I had no warning lights or any other kind of indication, but identified the issue when I had to renew the air filter.  Have you tried just to disconnect it and startup the engine? How the engine can run without input from this important measurment, I don't know? Maybe the ECU estimate a value when there is no connection?

I'm sure that you will get some more contructive replies in near future in this excellent forum :-)

Best Regards
Bo
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Best Regards
Bo
renaultbiler
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« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2010, 05:53:28 pm »

Its quite common that the computer has default sensor values to fall back on if a sensor fails, this is most probably the case with the air flow meter aswell.
It would be interesting to know the faultcode(s) on this.

The flow meter is wired to the computer, and it sounds strange that is goes faulty time after time unless it is physically damaged due to very poor airfilter letting particles in.

Have the motorised throttle ever been cleaned up ?
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1980 Alpine A-310 w/GTA 2.5 V6 Turbo
2000 Grand Espace V6 24v Initiale: http://www.renaultbiler.no/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2529
2000 Scenic RXi 2.0 16v IDE aut DP0: http://www.renaultbiler.no/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3751
1982 R20TX 2.2
Service Online: www.servicehefte.net/servdata/?cid=qqkX
colin4255
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Posts: 119



« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2010, 08:34:57 pm »

Thanks for the replies guys. I had not realised the car would run with the air mass meter unplugged. I'll try and find out the codes from the dealer, they are very helpful people, they are just struggling to understand what is going wrong.

I have had the usual issues witht he EGR valve, but now I can clean and/or change that myself if it goes wrong (stupid, stupid set-up really, wish I could by--pass or blank that off!!) , and I am fairly certain it is not the EGR valve. Likewise, injectors are all OK - it runs well and does about 38 mpg when its running properly. It does not even burn much extra fuel when the power goes away, nor does it smoke, it just goes 'flat' and has no accerleration.

No I don't think anyone has tried cleaning the throttle body system and the car has done 115,000 miles so maybe that is a good idea too. It could be sticking. The problem I find is the dealers use the clip test codes and just seem to want to swap out parts until a problem goes away. Its interesting that if the problem comes along and the car runs badly, that after switching it off and on afew times, it seems to run fine.  It does this sometimes for weeks and weeks and then the issue will surface again. I change the air filter every 6,000 miles or so - its always clean.

I had wondered if it was a wiring fault, or maybe there was a fuse or relay specific to the air mass meter - ie some other thing that could be causing it not to work properly. I'll see what they say tomorrow and let you know.
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colin4255
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Posts: 119



« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2010, 08:47:08 pm »

Renaultbiller - I should also have said, not explained very well in my first post, that I am now on my third air mass meter in less than a year. 8 months ago it 'failed;, Renault replaced it and billed me. Then it happened again inside the 12 month warranty period, so they replaced it FOC. I got it back last thursday and drove on saturday, 200 miles to see my father,  and the problem happened again - ie no acceleration, very 'flat' engine response. Like I said, I change the air filter every 6,000 miles or so to make sure the engine can breathe OK. Also, oil changes every 8,000 miles and I NEVER use cheap diesel in it only the hi-quality expensive stuff like Total Exellium, or Shell V-Power. Otherwise car is fine.
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renaultbiler
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« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2010, 07:36:29 am »

Regarding the EGR you can clean it and leave the connector unplugged. Seems to be the absolute best fix on this engine. You will then have continous error code on EGR wiring and position feedback but that will have no effect on the rest of the engine management.

The motorised throttle should be cleaned to see if that helps, very common for these to stick on all Renault's with motorised throttle after some mileage.
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1980 Alpine A-310 w/GTA 2.5 V6 Turbo
2000 Grand Espace V6 24v Initiale: http://www.renaultbiler.no/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2529
2000 Scenic RXi 2.0 16v IDE aut DP0: http://www.renaultbiler.no/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3751
1982 R20TX 2.2
Service Online: www.servicehefte.net/servdata/?cid=qqkX
colin4255
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Posts: 119



« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2010, 07:11:49 pm »

Thanks for the advice - I may give that a try, or prehaps make a blanking pate to seal off the apeture where the thin metalm pipe from top right hand side of engine, mates with the side of the EGR valve?

Regarding the air mass meter, dealer spent quite a long time checking today, and opened up the loom from the mass metere to the ECU, but could not find any damage or broken wiring. The clip showed the same fault code, air mass metere sensor failed. They did however, try the meter on another espace 2.2dci they had in the workshop and it seemed to work fine.

Interestingly, after they re-fitted it to my car and cleared the error codes, its worked fine all day - they have been driving around in it quite a bit.

Consensus is that there is some hard to find issue with the wiring somewhere, but they cannot trace it so far. More when I know it. All other sensors seem to check out OK too.
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colin4255
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« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2010, 10:24:52 pm »

Further to my other posts, here's an interesting thing. You will see by my other post, I had trouble with the driver door not locking. I fixed it now but wonder how long it has been an issue? I spoke to the Cobra Alarm guy who checked out my alarm for my local dealer (they wondered if it had anything to do with the issues with air mass meter and called him in to check over the alarm system).  He is not sure, but thinks its quite possible a semi-broken door lock wire would make the alarm think it was being tampered with and likely cause all sorts of issues, from it not starting, ti running in get you home mode if it happened to short out whilst being driven, etc etc.

Now I have fixed the door wiring, I guess we'll see if the mass meter issue raises its head agin
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colin4255
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Posts: 119



« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2010, 01:03:32 am »

the air mass meter began playing up up earlier in the week. Flat spots, lack of power, no acceleration etc.  Dealer has now checked all they can. they cannot find the fault despite unravelling all the wiring to it back to the ECU.  Error codes all point to air mass meter.   I just unplugged the the thing. Car has been running perfectly ever since I disconnected it! better acceleration, better fuel economy. Its fine now.  Runs very well indeed. Maybe to stop  all my problems I should just unplug the EGR valve too? Then I would have a reliable properly running Espace!!  Makes you wonder why they bother with all this crap if the car runs better when you unplug it? I'm not complaining - its working fine now!!
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GrahamT
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« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2010, 01:23:27 am »

I'm no expert, particularly regarding newer Renaults but it must be OBD2 compliant so they should be able to read what the sensors are doing live, as it were, while the engine is running, even while you're driving! I have an OBD2 lead and suitable software (PWM/ISO protocols) and can do that on my old Ford! It didn't cost a fortune either.

My guess is that there is an air leak and the Mass Air Flow sensor is only reading a fraction of what the engine is using and it's fuelling accordingly. This would show up on a scan as a drop in, or permanently low MAF readings and as short term fuel trim adjustment. This seems to tie in with the air filter being clean, only a fraction of the air used is actually being filtered? The fact that you unplug the MAF means the ECU will use default values based on other sensors and fuel it closer to what it actually requires.
Or I could be way off! Grin

I'd advise going back to the garage and ask them if they can run a scan while you drive and see if they can diagnose the scan and if not then get chatting to local garages and see who is clued up on OBD2!!
I really hope this helps!!
Good luck,
Graham
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renaultbiler
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« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2010, 07:48:20 am »

Try to disconnect the EGR valve, have been a few times that the EGR valve have been faulty and pulling down the 5v feed from computer -and several other sensors have shared the same 5v -this causing running problems similar to your maf problem. Never heard of this on Espace but some other Renault's.
I will get an Avantime with G9T around soon, also flagging fault on maf sensor, will see if i can fix that one.
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1980 Alpine A-310 w/GTA 2.5 V6 Turbo
2000 Grand Espace V6 24v Initiale: http://www.renaultbiler.no/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2529
2000 Scenic RXi 2.0 16v IDE aut DP0: http://www.renaultbiler.no/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3751
1982 R20TX 2.2
Service Online: www.servicehefte.net/servdata/?cid=qqkX
george
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« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2010, 06:18:58 pm »

Renault OBD2 compliant ?
Are you having a laugh?
By law they should be but Renault ,,,,,,,,,,
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renaultbiler
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« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2010, 07:56:47 pm »

They have OBD support starting from all 16v engines with Sirius32 computer (late 99-> +/-) and dCi engines starting with Bosch EDC15 possibly starting with the C3 version (2001-> +/-) but this is only from my poor memory

But what good is OBD Huh Quite frankly its mostly rubbish and only pollution related sensor data.
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1980 Alpine A-310 w/GTA 2.5 V6 Turbo
2000 Grand Espace V6 24v Initiale: http://www.renaultbiler.no/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2529
2000 Scenic RXi 2.0 16v IDE aut DP0: http://www.renaultbiler.no/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3751
1982 R20TX 2.2
Service Online: www.servicehefte.net/servdata/?cid=qqkX
GrahamT
Jr. Member
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Posts: 46


« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2010, 11:40:37 pm »

I find that hard to believe?? I thought all cars HAD to be OBD2 compliant by 1996?? I think there were a few exceptions up until 1998. Oh well.

If the car is OBD2 compliant it allows you to be able to monitor all the sensors. Lambda switching, Air flow meter readings, throttle position, fuel trims, even simple things like being able to see what the vehicle speed sensor, coolant and air temperature sensors etc etc etc which all contrbute to the running of the engine. You can see if the engine is running open loop or closed loop and some systems allow you to monitor more obscure things such as auto gearbox solenoids, ignition advance and engine load. It's not just used to keep the emissions down.

Properly implemented and diagnosed it is really a very useful system to know.
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GrahamT
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« Reply #14 on: April 24, 2010, 11:45:28 pm »

Ha, 1996 in the US. Thought I read it somewhere  Roll Eyes
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