well its happened. in the time ive owned my zed its broken down officially for the first time was driving down a hwy, normal, suddenly the car starts sputtering, coughing, and chuggin.... never happend before and i thought wtf, pulled into a service lane... chuggin, and coughing coming to a stop and then stalls and turns off... (auto)... try to start it again and the car wont start, just keeps cranking trying to start.... ive never ever had to use the accelerator to start the car before as i turn the key it normally and always starts at that first click... this time i had to use the accelerator, pumpt it and it starts but struggles and goes to stall again... i accelerate more and it revs up, coughing along the way.... was hard to keep on and when let go of revs it will idle but very roughly.... then will eventualy stall and turn off.... thinking its a vacuum leak or something, open the hood see if i can see anything out of the norm, or hear anything, check all hoses i could, checked coil pack connectors, ptu connectors, tps connectors.... shook them, wiggled them, took them off reconnected etc... now funny thing was that for some reason my fuel gauge level was acting funni... at one stage it was reading 3/4tank which was correct. then the next second it was reading emtpy. then jump up again to 3/4tank then next minute reads empty..... being able to start but struggle to keep on and rev up freely/nicely i thought i think it must be that my fuel pump has died. ive never changed it before so i dont know how old it is.... gave up as it was dark at night and got a tow truck home... ...so today i do a boost leak test. absolutly no leaks at all... ...no error codes on diagnostics ...tps was reading 0.48 or so, so i tweaked it to 0.45~ ...it starts fine, runs fine, no coughing, no splutting, no chuggin... ...fuel pump makes the loading noise when ignition turns on ...no problems at alll as per normal ...liike wtf how are u suppose to diagnose a problem if it doesnt happen when you go to check it out... really pissed off now.... went for a drive, ran as per normal, no problems at all... didnt go far though just few streets up, down etc incase it happens again.... tried multiple times today and it wouldnt do it. did not have any problems at all... now im scared to go for a drive in my car incase it happens again ... done a bit of searching here and ive thought of a few different things it could be. i could be wrong aswell and its annoying me trying to find out wat is wrong now since it didnt do it aagain today 1. fuel pump dying 2. fuel reg stuffed/dying 3. injectors or injector o-rings. 4. ???? 5. ???? now i dont think its the third one as i cannot smell any fuel whatssoever... even putting my nose and smelling right above the injectors no smell of fuel... one point i also realised is that my fuel pressure gauge just after the fuel filter read normal 40~psi at idle.... it did when it broke down. and it does today as per normal... im thinking its fuel related but i dont know. im usually good with diagnosing something on my car if it happens but this has got my puzzled... went for a drive today and logged the injector and injector duty cycle. looks normal to me. if it were my injectors or o-rings i would see a problem would the duty cycle wouldnt it ?? but then again it ran normal today... throw ideas at me
id almost bet my left nut that you have a s1 PTU.. get a s2 ASAP should sort your problems out.. also check/change injector connectors and coil pack connectors!! and if your feeling coined up do your spark plugs aswell
Series 1 still? I agree with Steve. When I fixed up Leonie's car it had similar symptons, hard to start, wanted to stall etc. Was dodgy PTU connections, so could be a dying one. That fuel gauge thing is weird though... Maybe a dirty sender in the tank?
mmm ye i forgot to mention i still run the s1 ptu. ive always known one day it will die on me so i have already bought a s2 ptu and its sitting here for the day the s1 dies. well hopefully this is my problem i thought the ptu will give different problems to what i desribed? for example not starting at all etc etc... coil pack connectors, injector connectors etc have all been changed ye its strange, its never done that before... ...hence i was thinking it was a fuel problem. would the ptu if dying affect the fuel level reading
When it happened did your dash lights dim at all?? Another thing to add to your list could be the Alternator.
I could be totally off but i was reading about the same kind of problems a mate had and what he did was when you take out the fuel pump that?s in the so called boot there is a pipe that connects the pump to the fuel gauge reading and this pipe can split and might cause the coughing. It?s a bitch to get out but its a small fix if that?s the problem. Try having a look in the boot there is the panel that?s just behind the seats that screwed down, take that off and there will be a small piece of metal with 4 screws in it. if you look under there you will be able to see if any of the pipes have come off or split. Good luck Chad
nah i havnt chucked the s2 in yet as the problems didnt persist today so i really was puzzled on what the problem would be hrmmmm its actually never ever happened before. nor did it happen today. only happened when it broke down last night ... ill keep an eye out on it and see if it happens again.... nah they didnt at all... i was waiting for the tow truck, still with lights on and stereo on... started fine today so im guessing the alternator is charging the batt up welll... etc... ill keep this one in mind though interesting. ill keep this one in mind too. if the pipe was split though wouldnt i smelll fuel ?
Not likely. There is a mecanical sender within the tank which sends an electrical signal to the cluster. Busted fuel lines shouldn't effect this. Busted fuel lines causing the above problems will however effect the fuel pressure (which is stable), so most likely not the problem.
Diagnostic... Since you already have a replacement PTU I would install it and see if it fixes the problem as it does sound PTU related. However, it also sounds fuel related, in particular the Fuel Pump. If the PTU doesn't fix the problem, I would be looking at borrowing a fuel pump off a friend, installing that and seeing if it fixes it. Just remember that 2 seater and 2+2 fuel pumps are different. P.S. How many KM's does your car have now? Good luck. Cheers Rob.
My zed is doing exactly what you have mentioned.... cra-Z- boy came and tweeked something two days later and it seemed fine .... but now my zed is spluttering and stalling again , needing towing home. I have ordered a series 2 ptu from caz which should come later this week... if you find out what the f@%* is going on with yours... please let me in on the news just incase its something else... cheers.
Hey Chad, I had a similar problem a while back now..everyone said it was the PTU..but we figured out the connector/wires to the CAS were dodgy..I never got it fixed or anything though.. We diagnosed it by starting the car, and then with the slightest poke with a finger at the connector it made the zed stall..only reason I had this issue was because Craig had taped a bit of tape around the connector the day before which had slightly moved the connector/wires..so we got rid of the tape and its been fine ever since..but if it happens again I know where to look.. Just test and see if it stalls with the "poke test"..lol, if not, maybe it is the PTU
ye what i think the best thing for me to do, is im going to borrow a working ptu from a friend and leave it in the car. if the veh dies again i can change the ptu over and see exactly if thats my problem. if i just remove my s1 now and replace with the s2 and it doesnt happen again then i wont know 100% if it were the ptu. either way im going to install the s2 as thats why i bought it... cars done 120kms on the clock. although it had been rebuilt in 05 which had 89kms on the clock at the time. i dont actually know if my fuel pump was changed then or not. it is on my to do list however even if its not my problem... no sweat man. u too thanx ren ill have a look at that again...i did try shake all the connectors incl that one when it happened. poked, shook, stabbed lol.... but ill have a look again
if its fuel related, i've got a spare fuel pump and fpr if you wanna borrow them. it actually sounds more like the ptu has shat itself.
i had a similar problem with a daewoo i used to own. I found that if I let the fuel go under half a tank the fuel pump would overheat and stop pumping properly (causing the car to run like crap and stall). Once i let it cool down it would run fine. Eventually I replaced the pump and never had a problem afterwards.
install your s2 and be done with it... the ptu controls all the spark and distribution of it to both the injectors and the coil packs. s1 has a 100% failure rate!!
Fuel Gauge... Also Chad, The Fuel Pump has a built in mechanism which tells the fuel gauge the fuel level. This might not be functioning correctly which is why you're getting weird readings. If you remove the fuel pump it's easy to identify...it looks like a float. It could also just be a bad connection on the wiring. I replaced my fuel pump as a precautionary measure. They are an unpredicatable item which tend to fail at the worst of times. They fail randomly as well. Some from age, others from use or stress. When they fail you get the same symptoms you mentioned... Cheers Rob.
Could also be FPCU. Can you hear the pump building pressure when you turn the ignition on? Friend at work's 300 would drive for a certain amount of time and then just die! After a cool down it would be OK. Turned out to be the FPCU, easily by passed as a temporary fix. Don
