Sudden loss of power
A very strange thing happened this morning whilst on the M25.
Having had the spark plugs changed during the week, I was checking out the increased power in kickdown whilst joining the motorway and overtaking moving obstacles that were doing less than 69 MPH. I was really pleased with the power delivery and just getting used to the Wagen having only owned it for about 6 weeks.
I then had a sudden stutter and loss of power and it very much felt as if it wasn't running on all cylinders. At that moment, the petrol light came on and I limped in to Clacket services for some fuel . It was a hairy few minutes where I was concerned that this could be something serious but I was hoping that one of the ht leads had come off the spark plugs.
The fact that the petrol warning light came on at that moment was as if it went in to safe mode where i had restricted power. (That would be a great feature to avoid draining the tank empty which I frequently used do do in my C63)
So, I checked all the leads and none of them seemed loose. Filled the tank with fuel and continued on my journey and it has been fine since.
The only logical reason I thought of was that it was a bit of dirt in the tank which got in the system but the warning light had literally just come on so I shouldn't have been picking up dirt from the bottom of the tank that early?
any ideas?
I think unlikely to be a bit of dirt, modern fuel filters very efficient now. Did have fuel pump failure on a Saab which gave similar symptoms, then just failed , but could be crank sensor? List is a long one, hopefully won't repeat on you.
Some questions:
Were you motoring along, then did a kick down and THEN it went like a limp mode?
Once you have turned off the engine and re started it, was all OK?
Has it happened only once?
I have had this issue, sporadically and usually when I have been using kick down in a somewhat aggressive manner.
I have asked around and people, far more technical than me have suggest fuel pump could be going. At almost 200K miles on my G and 13 years old it could be. At all times so far, when it has happened, I have pulled over, switched off the engine, then started it again and all is OK.
HTH
Spider1V
I have experienced the dreaded loss of power a couple of times over the years with my G. Stop (230 GES) ,wait, restart and off you go until the next time........
Each time it was fuel pump - they don't seem to last for more the a few years.
Not being an expert on G500s' I would hazard a guess the persistent power loss experienced by a few of you is probably, the vehicle's ECU putting you in a 'limp home' mode to protect either your gearbox or engines from excessive stress, considering the vehicle was in kick down mode and or driven hard.
Costly as it is, try to get a fault code reading of this. If the fault resets after switching off the vehicle this may not be possible. G Singh, if you are reading - please comment.
How low can you go on fuel ? If like early 463 fuel tanks? It is possible to suffer fuel starvation below a 1/4 of tank, if the internals of fuel tank are broken, but if you can go down to reserve this is unlikely.
How low can you go on fuel ? If like early 463 fuel tanks? It is possible to suffer fuel starvation below a 1/4 of tank, if the internals of fuel tank are broken, but if you can go down to reserve this is unlikely.
Typically down to the orange light (aka Reserve?)
Spider1V
Co-incidentally, on Saturday morning, on the middle-lane of the A3,, doing a steady 50 moh, at 4:00 am, our G400 suddenly died with 'ECP' error and it took 10 minutes before it would restart.
We decided to chance it and carry on, wondering whether it might leave us stranded. But, so far so good, and we're now in the snowy Alps at 2600 m altitude.
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I was using the throttle fairly heavily at the time but because i was doing 85 ish, i don't think it actually kicked down a gear.
It did work fine after i restarted so there are some similarities with your experience.
It has only happened once but i have only down 700 miles in the car so I couldn't say with confidence if it is the first time.
Think I will have a chat with P&R to see if they have any ideas.
Cheers, Aaron