Throttle Position Sensor

[highlander]

Couple of Q's:

1) Do all 406s use the same part for the throttle position sensor? i.e. if I buy a brand-new-in-box one on eBay, is it likely to "just work"?
2) Are they easy to fit? Can I do it myself without taking half the car to bits, or requiring a special obscure set of tools to change it?

After spending £230 on labour charges alone for the replacement of the rear hub bearings*** (which were utterly f*cked) and the no. 2 fuel injector, I think I'd like to spend £30 on a part and fit it myself.

Damn pig bitch whore from hell decided a few days ago that the ideal idle speed should be anywhere from 600 to 2000 RPM, and then she decided she was going to cut out completely while I was sitting at a set of traffic lights. Started again at the first turn of the key, but then "BONG" - "Engine anti-pollution device defective" message. Code reader gave this message:

P0221 Throttle/Petal Position Sensor/Switch B Circuit Range/Performance Problem

It's only happened once (so far) but I know this bugger (and my luck); it'll happen again, and when I least need it to. Going on a 500 mile round-trip next week, and I'd prefer it if the car wasn't f*cked (again) before we set off.

(*** - no, I ended up not changing the rear brake back plates. The mechanic said they looked rusty as hell, but they cleaned up pretty well, and there was plenty of good metal under all the surface rust. Thanks to those who helped track some down on my behalf)

[steve_earwig]

Ah, I was wondering what had happened about the back plates, Ade put another pair on after those and I didn't know what to do about it.

At least the tps is a bit easier to spot on the diagrams They're not exactly all the same but 1920X1 seems to be common to the HDis (all, even the Semen's), your 2.2 and the ES9J4S.

Not sure what this is about:
1920 X1 - SENSOR ACCELERATOR PEDAL + UNIT 16 088 785 80(1)
I can't imagine there's something else it needs, maybe this is the Valeo part number?

Not sure about changing it but I doubt the engine has to come out

[Busman]

It's so easy that it's not true. Look for the throttle cable on top of the engine. This joins straight on to the tps which is a quarter turn rheostat type thing. You will only need a 10mm socket and it'll come off. Find a way, e.g. counting the grooves, of marking the spring clip on the end of the cable so you know where to replace it. Electrically there is just the one standard type plug to remove.

[markw]

+1 to that highlander.
I went down to Essex a while ago to help a fellow Coupe owner in distress and we tried my TPS on his car. It was off in 30 seconds!
Dead simple. 1 x M6 bolt: unhook the throttle cable: unplug the connector.
I hope it cures your trouble.

[mjb]

Try some electrical contact cleaner on the connector first... might save you some more money

[rwb]

When mine are wrong, if you take the cable off and turn the TPS then it feels gritty. I'm currently running on one that I cleaned out myself.

As for replacing them, they bolt onto a bracket. It's easiest to unbolt the bracket from the car then unbolt the sensor from the bracket.

When you replace it, it's easy to judge where the clip should go. Take up as much slack as possible, but if you take up too much then you'll get 'engine anti-polution system defective', usually when you suddenly take your foot off the throttle e.g., when changing gear.

[highlander]

I'm going to leave this alone now, something's definitely amiss electrically

I just got another "P0202" message telling me the no.2 fuel injector is faulty. This is the one I only just replaced with a brand-new-in-box valeo part. It only came up with the warning; the engine wasn't running on 3 cylinders this time, but whether it is or it isn't, I reckon something's going wrong with the ECU or (more probably) the wiring loom.

In which case I'd quite like it if some dozy bugger totals my car while it's parked, and leaves their insurance details behind.

I am seriously starting to hate the bloody thing

[Doggy]

Graeme, I can imagine how frustrating this is for you.

Don't know if your 2.2 is the same, but when we had a misfire on my daughter's 206, jasper advised swapping the suspect injector with another one. Apparently the ecu spots the change and reinitialises or something. Can't see any harm in trying?

Someone can hopefully confirm or deny this?

[highlander]

Just ordered a throttle position sensor from Ade1122 - £30 delivered.

My car was being a dick yesterday - driving home, it damn near cut out completely several times; during gear changes, when I had the clutch down, the revs would drop down to about 300 RPM. When in neutral, sat at traffic lights and with my feet off the pedals, it kept revving, like I was pushing the accelerator to take it from about 600 RPM to 1200 RPM and letting go, over and over, in rapid succession - people were looking at me as if I was a total arse, trying to race everybody off the lights (I seriously wasn't!) Sooooo embarrassing!

And then when I *did* get going, Old Unfaithful (the no. 2 fuel injector) kept cutting out, running the car on 3 cylinders. This is all during a 2 mile drive!

Also booked the car into a garage on Thursday to try and get all this sh*t sorted out. I have a 500 mile drive to do this week and I have zero confidence in the car's ability to run reliably to the end of the street, never mind to Glasgow and back.

If I were relying on it for getting me to/from work, it'd have gone by now, no question

[highlander]

TPS received last night, but didn't have time to try swapping it out.

The car is now in the garage (they'll swap the TPS too), and test the injectors and injector wiring. Fingers crossed they'll find the cause of the intermittent loss of injector 2. Cheaply.

[leestudd30]

Sounds like when the stepper motor failed on mine. It would always cut out at idle, would need throttle to keep it going. While changing gears, revs would normally go up. Even when I replaced the stepper, the idle speed was never right.

[highlander]

Righty.

Garage got the TPS swapped out, no bother. Job jobbed.

Unfortunately, sh*t happens - it looks like the garage swapped out the wrong injector the last time ... If I clear the error codes, pull out one injector cable, start the engine, wait for the "beep" and EML, turn off the engine, reconnect the injector and read the codes, the injector order appears to be:

Code: Select all

             (exhaust manifold)
(Timing belt) - 2 - 4 - 3 - 1 - (Gearbox)
              (inlet manifold)
               (front of car)

(actually, 4 and 3 might be the other way around, I can't remember at the moment - bad day - just know that 1 and 2 are listed as shown above)

So I get code P0202 if I pull out the left-most injector lead out, which is the code I get when the EML comes on after a 3-cylinder episode. The last time the car was in to this garage for fault P0202, their mechanic instead replaced the 2nd cylinder from the right (which is either 3 or 4, not 2).

Apparently, this layout is very unusual. Bloody weird. Unfortunately I can't say if that's how it's meant to be or not, or if someone at Pug screwed up with wiring the sensors, or what, because I can't seem to find any kind of diagram showing the cylinder layout / injector order / spark order of the EW12J4 engine. Because it's a rare old lump. Sigh.

Since they couldn't lay their hands on another injector today, and I need the car tomorrow, I got them to swap the no 2 with the no 1. If the fault follows the injector and I get code P0201, then I know the injector is knackered; if the fault stays P0202 then I know the wiring is knackered.

I know this is one test I'd said I was going to perform myself, but I wimped out - I know I'd end up making it worse

Thankfully I didn't get charged for today's garage visit. I'd have asked them to knock £50 off the bill if they did bill me, as that's what a brand new boxed Valeo part 348005 cost me when I bought it off eBay.

The car behaved exactly as it should on the way home from the garage, but this isn't unusual due to the intermittent nature of the problem. I should know by tomorrow afternoon if the problem is with wiring or with injector. If it's injector, I'll buy one myself off eBay and will ask to watch him swap it out (that way I know exactly what he's done, and make sure he replaces the injector seals with new ones, etc).

At least today I'm not out of pocket, which is nice, because tomorrow I need to fill up the tank

[markw]

Hi Graeme.
According to Autodata the firing order is 1-3-4-2. Sorry, pic is a bit small...

Cylinders are always numbered consecutively (usually) from the front...as in 1 (nearest cams), 2, 3, 4 (nearest g/box.) It could be the other way round of course but as yet I've found nothing to confirm either way. I've never come across a cylinder numbering sequence like you've found there. It's always been sequential.
How long is each piece of loom that goes to each individual injector? Surely not long enough for them to have been incorrectly replaced. Anyway, the engine wouldn't even run with connectors going to wrong injectors...would it?

EDIT:
According to Haynes, the XU, EW(2.0) and the DW engines have no.1 cylinder at "the transmission end" of the block. I can see no valid reason why Peugeot would alter this convention for the 2.2!
So perhaps the mechanic did go to the right location for no 2 injector after all....

[highlander]

Back from holidays.

On my way down to Glasgow for our flight, the car kept on running on 3 cylinders, most of the way. Upon arrival, I checked the code reader and since the garage swapped the left-most and right-most injectors around, the code has now changed to P0201, meaning the injector now in cylinder 1 is faulty. I am so glad it's an injector fault rather than a wiring fault. I'm going to phone the garage and try to angle the conversation such that they replace the injector for me for free, considering I bought a replacement injector to solve this problem and they threw away a working injector and left the faulty one in place.

I really want this to be the end of the troubles, because I'm sick of this crap, and the only reason right now that I still have this car is that I can't afford to buy a replacement. I will likely be replacing the car next year, whether I get the love back for the Coupe or not.

[highlander]

Fuel injector replaced last week, and it looks like the problem is fixed!

The garage presented me with a bill for £187 though, which included the part and the labour, plus the swap-out of the throttle position sensor that was replaced the last time I was in the garage. So I complained and asked to see the owner.

The guy comes out and I tell him that the only reason the car was back in the garage this time at all was that when the fuel injector failed the last time, I supplied an injector and their guy promptly replaced the wrong one. It isn't my fault that the guy did this, and to be fair to the guy, the numbering of the injectors just seems weird, but it's still not my fault. I had already paid for the replacement of the injector the previous time (when they botched it). I said they did a good job replacing the TPS (a part I supplied), so I'd pay for the labour for that fix.

So the guy says "fair enough" and I get the bill reduced to £67. A nice saving of £120.

I know there's some other stuff needs doing on the car - it's due a service in the next 3,000 miles, the suspension top-mount bearings will need replaced, and I reckon the springs/shocks themselves could do with renewing (not urgent yet), and I am guessing it won't be long before I need new front tyres. But the car now starts, goes, and stops properly, and with that, I'm growing fond of it again.

To that end, Grasmere was very kind and sent me a PM telling me he'd spotted a set of white clocks for a 1.8 petrol from 2003 on eBay, and I bought 'em. Best of all, they've got lower mileage on them than my car has (I passed the 90,000 mile mark at the weekend!) so they should just be a straight swap. Just got to find my Torx bit set for my screwdriver, and will get them swapped over. I think if the car wasn't running properly at that point, I'd have just said "f*ck it" and not bothered with the clocks.