Lost my ooomph!

Irony is i had the car booked in at the alfa garage for tomorrow anyway to look at the lack of power problem, guess it wanted to go in today instead

hopefully will be covered under the AA mechanical warranty i got when i bought the car, although there are so many exclusions and exemptions in there i'm worried.

No i haven't jet washed or cleaned under the bonnet whatsoever since i've had the car.

I killed several more people with plumes of thick smelly black smoke again on the way home this evening. I think the engine is starting to whine/whistle a bit when revved hard too.

Stoneacre Fiat/Alfa service centre Doncaster (does anyone have any experience of this garage) have the car. This is the first full day they've had it and they have "not found any errors present in the computer". dunno if this is good or bad, if it was something major would they spot it straight away? i'm assuming they've started the car and observed the problem (havent' actually spoken to anyone, they left a message on my phone).

They're waiting for a local specialist to come in and have a look at it on Thursday, he's not there tomorrow apparently.

Sad state of affairs if garages can now only diagnose what's wrong with cars if the computer tells them what it is. I would have thought they could track down what the problem is by starting the car and working from there!!!

quite frustrated at the moment, i'll give them a ring tomorrow to see if i can get some more info. I'm screwed without a car so every day they have it is really inconvenient for me, especially if it's going to sit there tomorrow with no-one looking at it.

When i took it in they said it also needed an ECU recall doing. is it possible they've done the recall and it's wiped whatever the fault was off it??

I know what you mean about "no fault found". I had the same thing last time mine was in for the problem. "The computer says it is fine so there's nothing we can do." The fact you can barely drive the car doesn't seem to make any difference. Well annoying. My engine warning light did come on for a bit the other day so hopefully Friday when it is back in they can narrow down the fault(s).

Mine has definately improved but is by no means back to where it should be....still very little pull under 2k revs expecially when cold.

garage have diagnosed it as a faulty EGR valve, replacement part will be in on tuesday, £240 all in.

What does EGR stand for ?

it's the exhaust gas recirculator. the symptoms i've had do match what will apparently happen with a faulty EGR, so hopefully the car will be tip top again once it's fixed. fingers crossed!!!

Exhaust gas recirculation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by fiorentina

When i took it in they said it also needed an ECU recall doing. is it possible they've done the recall and it's wiped whatever the fault was off it??

There was a recall on the brake ECU, they said it was a campain. About a year ago.
It seems faults are almost impossible to trace without an error code. You could replace about 6 expensive sensors and still miss the fault.
"Nothing wrong with the computer, but the car still won't go"

Mine was back in the garage on Friday. They still think I have a faulty injector and want to charge £244 to get it tested, but they are now also replacing the EGR valve and air flow sensor under warranty. I'll see if that improves things when it is done next Friday. Incidentally since it was in on Friday for diagnosis I've had one or two power loss moments but the rest of the time it has been absolutely fine!

got the car back yesterday, EGR valve replacement seems to have totally fixed the problem, no more sluggish acceleration or flatspots under 2000rpm.

Here hoping... Mine is in tomorrow for the replacement EGR and MAF.

Spookily, I started experiencing the same symptoms to me at the end of last week and it's still going on. Thanks to this discussion I am pretty sure what is wrong now. the car is in warranty so I shall suggest the EGR valve. For information to others, the car is 14 months old and has 18000 on the clock. Maybe there is a pattern here. I wondered if all the recent rain had corroded a connection somewhere.

Car went in the garage today and they have confirmed the EGR valve failure. Bad news is the replacement is on back order from Germany so I'll have to have the car back 'til next week

Does this indocate a common failure resulting in 'out of stock' or is it as rare as the man at the dealer says? Who out there has had this happen?

Ditto Bish - mine's coming from Italy !

...here next week somwetime....definately a common fault on the GT......

Are Alfa changing the design to make the more robust from now on ???

...it's far from rare !!

From FIo's link :-
EGR in diesel engines
In modern diesel engines, the EGR gas is cooled through a heat exchanger to allow the introduction of a greater mass of recirculated gas. Unlike SI engines, diesels are not limited by the need for a contiguous flamefront; furthermore, since diesels always operate with excess air, they benefit from EGR rates as high as 50% (at idle, where there is otherwise a very large amount of excess air) in controlling NOx emissions.

Since diesel engines are unthrottled, EGR does not lower throttling losses in the way that it does for SI engines (see above). However, exhaust gas (largely carbon dioxide and water vapor) has a higher specific heat than air, and so it still serves to lower peak combustion temperatures; this aids the diesel engine's efficiency by reduced heat rejection and dissociation. There are trade offs however. Adding EGR to a diesel reduces the specific heat ratio of the combustion gases in the power stroke. This reduces the amount of power that can be extracted by the piston. EGR also tends to reduce the amount of fuel burned in the power stroke. This is evident by the increase in particulate emissions that corresponds to an increase in EGR. Particulate matter (mainly carbon) that is not burned in the power stroke is wasted energy. Stricter regulations on particulate matter(PM) call for further emission controls to be introduced to compensate for the PM emissions introduced by EGR. The most common is particulate filters in the exhaust system that result in reduce fuel efficiency. Since EGR increases the amount of PM that must be dealt with and reduces the exhaust gas temperatures and available oxygen these filters need to function properly to burn off soot, automakers have had to consider injecting fuel and air directly into the exhaust system to keep these filters from plugging up.

In essence it would appear to effect car's cosumption as well as power delivery.........any low mpgers out their get your EGR valve checked !!

Still waiting for the EGR valve after over a week. I'll keep you posted

Bish - kick some rear......the difference is incredible....it's costing you money in extra fuel as well !!

So yours has arrived? I spoke to them late last week so I'll get back again. My wife has a theory that they're stringing me along because it's an import.

Went on the car a week ago mate. Let your dealer know mine arrived in 4 days.

I had my EGR valve and MAF sensor replaced under warranty last week. The car seems to be fine now The garage do still think there is a problem with an injector, and a different garage report a leaking injector too following my 72,000 mile service a few days ago.
Does anyone know if injectors are covered under the 3rd year warranty? What is the consequence of having a leaking injector? Will it just burn more fuel or could something far more major happen?

Mine's going in Friday for similar sounding problem

Be warned, I just heard from tony Purslow in Basingstoke that Alfa are quoting a March delivery for this part now.

What's the inside story? this is obviously fairly common on these and on the SAABs by all accounts. Are they in the process of re-sourcing this part or have they just been caught out?

Luckily I have a mainly A road journey to work so I can cope, aside from the possible fuel economy issues. If I were driving in town it would be a nightmare. I do not really want a courtesy car as it will not be the same.

Do any of you techies out there have any thoughts on whether i am risking any engine damage by continuing to drive it like this? I have had a couple of instances of what I would describe as 'safe' mode where the turbo boost was restricted and it would top out at 3K revs, but these seemed to be self-curing. Maybe I should push for a MAF sensor as part of the fix.

I'm thinking that it was my EGR valve that was playing up when I started this thread. Is it possible for it to 'self clean' the gunk that builds up in it. It's been a few months now, and the symptoms haven't returned. No loss of power (it was low down, so I'm guessing EGR, not MAF) and no black smoke, very odd. It will be due it's next service in a couple of thousand