Are GDI's crap? HELP!!!

[mengland]

Maybe they just put in some sort of coke-resistant injectors.

Also, guess they advise min 97 ron fuel.

just a slight whiff,otherwise ok

You guessed it the light is back on.

No change in performance or idle so I will have to take it back to the garage and check the fault code........again.

[bluntyboy]

Hi.I am new to the club and one of the main reasons for joining was to shed some light on my S40's 1.8gdi noisy engine which I can see by the previous comments I'm unfortunately not alone.Just come back from a 300 hundred mile trip in the volvo and the tappets are noisier than ever.On tickover its particularly bad.Thought the journey would quieten the engine but seems to have made it worse.Is it possible that the long run cleaned the engine of its coking up thus making the tappets "looser"?Someone mentioned that you could buy replacement tappets with a larger oil hole which would help.Any ideas where I could get these if they exist.By the way the car is a 2000 model and has done 87000 miles.The engine had a top end rebuild at 80000 miles but to be honest it never really improved things.As it was on warranty I never chased it up.Also the exhaust fumes always smell strongly of burning oil,does anyone else experience this.Anyway thanks for your time in reading this and any help would be greatly appreciated.Nick.

Hi
I joined the volvo group as many of you share a GDI engine manufactured by Mitsubishi and which all have the same basic problems.
The engine was designed to run on low/zero sulpher fuel which is mandatory in Japan and a lot of redesign had to be done to the engine particulary the catalytic convertors to enable it to run on European fuel. This why you are advised to run any GDI engine on a 97 octane low sulpher fuel such as BP Ultimate. The sulpher content blogs up the injectors which is why fuels that contain cleaning agents are recommended.
However this is not all - the main problem with the engine lies in its name GDI (Gasoline Direct Injection) The fuel is directly injected into the cylinders and does not go through the inlet tract. Only air goes throught the inlet tract and valves and this is where the problem lies - no amount of fuel line cleaners will do any good as they don't go into the inlet tract. Modern engines rely on EGR valves to recycle exhaust and crancase gases (which include oil mist) back into the inlet tract. On a normal engine this presents no problem as the fuel air mix combines with this and does not allow any build up of carbon on the back of the inlet valves or throttle body. In the GDI engine there is no fuel going through the inlet tract just air and all the crap from the EGR valve which builds up as carbon deposits in the throttle body and on the back of the inlet valves and this causes all the problems with poor running / idling and engine management lights coming on.
The only cure is a decoke and a remanufactured throttle body and run on premium fuel and use the recommended synthetic oil in the sump.
Recon. throttle bodies can be purchased for £250 (see e-bay) and it is not necessary to remove the cylinder head at £1-£2k - take off the inlet manifold and soak the inlet valves with a chemical carbon remover which will remove a lot of the deposits.
To sum up this engine was designed to run low sulpher fuels and the compromises Mitsubishi had in getting the engine to run on european fuels led it to be significantly inferior in performance and efficiency to their Japanese counterparts.
Oh and by the way the VW Audi FSI engines suffer the same problems

[jamie28]

The high sulphur in UK fuel during the 90: s also affected the nicalsil jaguar v8 engines causing the nicalsil lining to wear away from the bores causing low compression. Jaguar replaced affected engines under warranty. Bmw also had similar issues .
ive been told the uk had high sulphur fuel due to the expense of removing it during the production process.

[Bicnarok]

I bought a V40 GDI did 111,000 KM, on the test drive it was ok made no noise.

The Volvo dealer then serviced it before I picked it up and two weeks later the Hydraulic Valve Lifters started pinking. I took it back and they replaced them and said its a mitsubishi engine and it probably won´t solve the problem which is common with the GDI engine. The noise came back of course but aparently it wont affect the engine, its just annoying?

Theres no access fuel consumption or oil burning, it accelerates perfectly so Im not worried.

Apart from that its done 146,000 since and the following problems have occured which can be expected by a second hand car.

Suspension spring broke, top suspension bearing damaged, managed to get two complete suspensions truts through ebay for 120 quid and now alls ok.

The front headlight plastic bit broke inside, probably because my wife hit a metal pole, managed to glue that.

The Airbag warning light came on lately, im going to get a code reader and fix that myself hopefully.

[TomCi]

Did You try with HYDRAULIC LIFTER Additivs from Liquie Moly or any other oil company?

[patriotboy]

My V40 GDI has just been to a reputable national chain for a new clutch. Ran fine before the change, stalled occasionally pulling away on hills... it needed a few more revs than you would expect.

On collecting the car it won't idle at all. The second you lift off the motor dies. No hunting or anything.

So I managed to get it 100 yards to the local main dealer who to their credit managed to take a look at it. Computer aparently says no problem, so they have disconnected the battery to 'reboot' the system, but apparently this hasn't really fixed anything (I didn't drive the car at this point).

Now the garage says they need to de-coke the throttle body (150 quid) and if that doesn't work I'm looking at 3 grand to decoke the whole engine.

This seems weird to me for a number of reasons:

1. The fault just started out of the blue with no warning.
2. When driving the car is absolutelly fine, except it stalls everytime I let off the gas and come to a stop.
3. As far as I can tell this only happens when the engine is warm. When it's cold it seems to be fine.
4. It passed it emissions test with flying colours about 3 months ago.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on? I can't afford a big bill and I really need the car back for transport. At the moment I'm having a major panic...

[DavidMarron]

I can't comment on the cause of the stall apart from are you sure that the clutch is seated correctly?

Are you firing an all cylinders?

£3K is about right for a decoke at full volvo prices. Mine was about £2.5k but paid for by the retailer that sold me the car. There are loads of Volvo specialists who probably charge half the dealer's price (mine was £99 + VAT per hour). I had the belts done at my expense while they were taking it all to bits (£250)

In the end I needed new injectors as well (£1k)