[wounded horse]

I'm hoping that someone can shed light on this. The car is getting worse. It starts fine every time. When fully warmed up the tickover is 850 ish. It can drop to 400-500 without warning and then go up to 1100. At a steady 70 you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with it. But, say, approaching a roundabout, as foot is taken off throttle, the tickover will drop and there is a lumpiness present. On getting back on the throttle, say in 2nd gear, there is a holding back as if power has been cut by 30% and, after a couple of seconds, it will come back. Two or three times aday the car will stall completely although it will restart easily. The car, though, just does not feel as powerful as it should bearing in mind its not a turbo. The urban fuel consumption drops to 18-19mpg which I feel is bad. Away from the lights I take on no-one - not even scooters as the car just does not seem up to it. If I set the car at 15mph in second with clutch fully engaged and then nail it the pick up is leisurely to say the least.
I have had a new trionic red rail. I had a long time Ex Saab guy with the diagnostic proper Saab computer check it out and the only thing he can find is that the vaccuum is low at 16 instead of 19 - whatever the units of measurement are. Fuel delivery looks OK. Compressions OK and no induction leaks. The car does consume a touch of water though but only about half a litre a month. Apparently this should be none
Are the fuel pumps on these cars reliable. What about the ECU? Anyone have any ideas? If I knew what it was I would have it changed but some of these parts are expensive and at £223 lighter for a DI rail, I could do to get this sorted as I have a long drive in it soon.
Thanks for reading

 

[Brock]

Have you cleaned the Idle Air control valve recently? My 9000i was stalling at round a bouts, that little valve was the cause. 5 minutes to take it off then give it a good clean with carb cleaner from your local Halfords. Stick it back on and you'll be amazed at the difference.

 

[mark e]

If your car, as I suspect, is LH/DI and has an air mass meter, then I'd say the symptoms point towards a possible problem with the AMM.

It might respond well to being cleaned with carb cleaner.

 

[gilbert]

Wounded
From my own personal experiances i have found that the Fuel pumps ethier work or dont and rarely cause problems when actaully running,the DI unit i had to replace was missing on one cylinder most of time,so i checked the plugs (which should be NGKs btw) and found one differntly "coated" from the rest which sort of gave the game away on that one.Could be worth a glance on yours,even if it is a new rail.
BTW on some Bosch air flow/mass meters you can sometimes get a replacement filiment rather than a complete meter...
G.

 

[jp11]

I had the same problem and cured it with a new distributor cap. Got to be worth a try, not expensive.

 

[anarkietown]

Is it an automatic? If it is, then it very well could be a small problem with the transmission. I experienced similar problems a while ago, and it turned out to be bad governor seals. The result was that the transmission didn't "know" when to shift, and would attempt to upshift while idling, which sometimes stalled the engine.

 

[anarkietown]

Oops, my bad... I just noticed you were talking about the clutch... Well, maybe someone else with an automatic will read this and find it helpful!

 

[Pussyfoot]

I agree with Bubbles it sounds an awful lot like when my Air Mass meter went on my 9000i. When i dipped the clutch at a junction it would just die. I believe their is a way to test one with a volt meter, but im not entirely sure how. Best bet would probably be to try and find a second hand one
Good luck