Relay 2.2. Turbo not spooling after EGR cooler fail

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Willpo99
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Relay 2.2. Turbo not spooling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Willpo99 »

At the end of my tether with this, hope someone on here can help.
My egr cooler failed two months ago.
Took the garage a while to diagnose as they thought it was head gasket then cracked block. Engine out and stripped obviously...
Realised it was the cooler so replaced it. Rebuilt engine with skimmed head, Re ground valves block X-ray etc all ok.
Now everything is back together, the turbo will not spool up. Sent that off for rebuilding as they thought the coolant going through the engine may have caused it to fail but it’s now come back, been fitted and no different.
Dpf checked - all fine. no fault codes, cannot find anything else.
Please.... any ideas? They are about to give up and I cannot afford any more experiments!
Thanks all.
Last edited by myglaren on 31 Dec 2018, 08:36, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Title spelling
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by EDC5 »

Hi and welcome.

It's very strange that there are no fault codes from that description of no turbo boost. I'd make sure all of the vacuum lines are ok as they control turbo actuation and possibly EGR operation on that engine. These might have been damaged when lifting the engine out.
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Willpo99 »

Garage have given up!
They blanked the egr to see if that did anything...it didn't. They say they have checked all pipes for leaks but found nothing.
Here is a weird thing though, they now say that when on the ramp, the turbo spools up but when you take it out on the road, it won't. I have never heard anything like this before. I thought turbos either worked or they didn't end of.
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by MikeT »

If it's a variable geometry turbo, as Ellis says, probably the actuation controls, if it's seen to be spinning but won't boost on the road. Saying it doesn't spool up on the road but will on the ramp sounds like a miscommunication imo.
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by wheeler »

I take it this is a mk 3 relay? Cant think of the turbo set up off hand on this (electric, vacuum or vacuum with electrovalve control?)
Was the turbo boosting before the engine was removed?
My money is on something silly like 2 vacuum pipes round the wrong way or crushed/damaged during the engine removal & re fitting.
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Willpo99 »

This is a late 2012 so I think it’s a mk2.
Turbo was fine before but the thinking was that the water going through it from the split egr cooler might have damaged it somehow. I’m not convinced.
The turbo repair company said it had two slightly bent vanes and a bit of a sticky wastegate. I’ve got the van back now as I didn’t believe the garage would succeed in finding the fault.
It ticks over perfectly and revs up no problem but if you go for a drive, the problem becomes obvious.
It seems to be ok initially, pulling off in 1st seems normal but as you speed up it’s evident that there is no turbo boost. It’s holding back like it’s in limp mode but with no warning lamps. There is also smoke. Not loads and no misfire but it’s obviously not burning correct.
I’ve got an ex Citroen tech coming out next week with his computer but I think I’m going to have to go to the main stealer before too long.
Not happy.
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Willpo99 »

So i'm sill no further to finding this fault than I was 6 weeks ago.
The van went to Citroen and it was diagnosed by a master tech (after a considerable amount of head scratching) that the turbo was at fault even though it was rebuilt by a specialist. He said there was too much play in the spindle so it was sent back even though my mechanic could not see any obvious play himself. They tested and said there was no play at all and it met all the tolerances set out by Citroen but did find a fault in the electronics so replaced this and sent back again with a guarantee. It was fitted and there was absolutely no difference. Van is still ticking over fine but will not boost.
Nobody seems to have any idea now and I've been without a van for 3 months.

Can anyone make any suggestions as to where i should go from here?

Thanks.
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by admiral51 »

I know i have seen it somewhere someone posted that the pressure convertor valve/sensor had a vacuum pipe disconnected/swapped that led to similar issues, not on your vehicle but i think a similar age psa car.
I would check the vacuum lines/sensor as wheeler stated previously, sorry cannot help with specifics but i understand that the way the vacuum pipes are plumbed into the sensor are very important, on my 1.6 hdi the sensor has a white spot to identify a specific pipe.
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by admiral51 »

Quick question, looking at past posts you say no fault codes, but it has been to main dealers and they say its electrical issues with Turbo,so what did they replace, what were the fault codes?
I have managed to clear some of my issues by cleaning the air doser on my C5, yet to test on the road but revs close to red line on the drive way
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Willpo99 »

admiral51 wrote: 04 Dec 2018, 21:26 Quick question, looking at past posts you say no fault codes, but it has been to main dealers and they say its electrical issues with Turbo,so what did they replace, what were the fault codes?
I have managed to clear some of my issues by cleaning the air doser on my C5, yet to test on the road but revs close to red line on the drive way



Im afraid i dont know what codes Citroen brought up as it was the garage that I'm dealing with that took it there.
Most recent attempt at rectifying this is to replace the cat. Its made no difference........
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spoiling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Zelandeth »

This makes no sense to my brain... therefore it's officially piqued my curiosity.

With the degree of electronic control and feedback on these engines a lack of boost should trigger a check engine light and log a fault code. I'm pretty sure that it knows throttle position, engine rpm, air flow, turbo vane actuator position, and manifold pressure...so clearly if there's no boost it should be complaining...it should know based on vane position, wastegate state, rpm and throttle position what amount of boost it should expect.

What I'd really want to do if I was you would be to get it connected to a laptop and see what real-time data you can get out of it. That should at least allow you to see what's going on - and hopefully what's *not* going on.

The lack of warning lights and (apparently) error codes almost has me wondering if there's an ECU issue here rather than just an actual physical component failure.

These don't have some safety feature that limits engine behaviour if it thinks the gearbox is in neutral or something does it? I know some current Merc vans won't rev over 3K in neutral...

Do we have anyone nearby who's got the kit to look at this?
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spooling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Willpo99 »

One of the most annoying things about all of this is there has never been one single check engine or any other warning lamp on the dash. Even when it spat out all of its coolant which was what started all this, there was nothing.
There is a rev limiter that comes in when you foot press the clutch and that still works. You can sit in it and rev it up while stationary and it works like nothing it wrong, its only when you take it for a drive and start to accelerate that it hesitates. well, its more like someone has attached a 10 tonne trailer to it. It will continue to accelerate, just at a very slow rate.
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spooling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Zelandeth »

That is odd and just confirms to my mind that you're kinda chasing your own tail without some realtime data from Diagbox.

Aside from anything else, that should allow you to do actuator tests on the EGR valve, wastegate (assuming on something this modern that's electronically controlled...) and I assume the vane control actuator...

The fact that there's no check engine light just seems odd here... it's not like back in the 90s where you could disconnect half the loom and still not have it throw a warning light, most stuff this age will stick the warning light on if anything is vaguely sub optimal...if it's running like a sack of spanners, the management system should be aware of that.

If this was in my driveway and I had access to Diagbox, I'd probably start out by (aside from looking for any values that are blatantly incorrect) by in turn disconnecting sensors and making sure that the value is both affected by this, and that the *correct* value is reported as changing in cas something is plugged in to the wrong sensor.

Given so much work has been done it's entirely likely that either something has been plugged in to the wrong sensor or a wire has been damaged. Though the lack of a check engine light still bothers me. I assume it appears as normal when you turn the ignition on before going out when the engine starts?
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spooling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Willpo99 »

So the problem has been solved!
New set of injectors and everything is back to normal. Apparently, the fact that the engine overheated when the egr cooler let go all of its coolant was the reason they were all faulty.
Still not sure why this didn't show on any diagnostics mind......
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Re: Relay 2.2. Turbo not spooling after EGR cooler fail

Post by Bick »

Mysterious things HDI injectors can cause all kinds of problems without being obvious.
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