406oc.co.uk

Im posting on behalf of a 406 estate, turbo, owner.
His 52 plate is having starting problems. On hearing you would believe this is due to the starter motor, so the starter motor was replaced. It worked fine for a short while then the same problem reaccured.
The fueling has been flushed and topped up - the light saying it was low did come on, but is now gone off.
When starting up it will take quite a few attemps and after a while it will start. From then on it runs fine. If I doesnt start you can always bump it. However this weekend it wouldnt even start on a bump on a 200m downhill stretch. It was also showing erratic warning lights. He disconnected the battery, reconnected and everything was fine, and it started first time.

Im not sure if this should have been posted in electrical its just that he doesnt know where the problem lies!!

Any ideas are greatfully recieved.

I'm assuming this is an Hdi engine; the most common failure is the lift pump, fairly common fault. Let us know exactly what engine!

Edit: I've just had a re-read, are you saying that the engine isn't even turning over intermittently?

Thanks for your reply.

The engine is a 2.2 hdi 136 8E4HX.--8E4HXF.

That is correct, there are occasions when the motor does not engage, some times two or three times in a row, then off it goes and with luck we are running. I understand your theory, dont understand why the motor throws out so quickly and easily.
The engine always starts more easily when its cold, and when its very cold there is no problem at all.

Appreciate you helping.

Strange one! May be worth checking the engine earth & wiring to the starter motor, I've heard cases of these being pretty corroded.
I'm no expert on the Hdi but one of the others will be along with more advice!

I've altered the thread title for some more interest

Sounds a weird problem, I thought about the lift pump but then it seems like there's some electrical problem - maybe the ignition switch is playing up??

To the OP - it is generally regarded as a bad thing to continually 'try to start' or otherwise turn-over a HDi engine if there's no fuel there (the high pressure pump doesn't like it). Generally speaking if a HDi doesn't fire within a couple of rotations of the starter motor then you need to stop and investigate further.

I hope another member will be able to add something to help here.........

Thanks for that, I,l chech that out, but the lights stay bright, so I had sort of passed that one over. I,m told that these cars suffer with electronic probs, I wonder if thats my problem here and the starting is being affected by wrong messages. I took it to Peugeot recently to have them diagnose the trouble and they said starter, but would not admit that there was an electrinic problem with this model. I would like to get a diagnostic tool to do my own checks, but cannot find a tool that is compatible. The tool I have does my 2.0l and 3.0l models OK, but not this one.

Help on this would be greatly appreciated.

This is an odd one! Can I just clarify what I understand to be the case:

1. Sometimes the starter does nothing
2. Bump-starting fails
3. Erratic warning lights
4. Solved by disconnecting the battery

I think there's going to be a problem with the power supply, and I suspect you'll find your problem is either the battery itself (a bad cell inside it?) or the earth lead coming from the battery. I don't know about diesels, but on mine the earth terminal has two wires coming from it. One is bolted to the body just underneath the battery box and the other is bolted to the front of the gearbox. These points can corrode quite badly, so it may be worth spending a bit of time with a wire brush. Not a difficult job at all

Agree with all of the above.

Earth connections, dodgy battery / battery connections most likley.

Be good if you could be a little more specific about whether the starter fails to turn the engine over, engine turns over but doesn't start, or are you getting both?

If the battery is on its way out, the ecu will occasionally have a brain fart from low voltage, and the new starter was probably just easier to turn until it settles in and I reckon you either have a dodgy earth cable, engine earth strap, battery, or positive 12v cable connection problem near the battery.

During cranking, the battery should hold 10v, if it does not, then it is faulty. Starting a diesel engine requires 300 to 400 amps of current at a steady 10v minimum and a good battery will supply that easily.

Make sure all battery cables and clamps are clean and secure, that the earth strap to the body from the engine, and the battery neg cable are good connections to the shell, and clean and tight. These can and will cause the same effect as a bad battery.

Measure the voltage on the bat terminals with a meter, crank the engine, should stay at 10-11v, then when cranking is stopped (if it didnt fire) the battery should quickly return to around 12v, if it starts, 14.5v. A slow crawl back to 11.5 etc indicates a bad battery. Could be as simple as 1 dry cell.