A disaster to start 2023!

[jdwals]

Hi All,

A disaster of a start to 2023 motoring wise.

Our 2012 Peugeot 508 1.6hdi wouldn't start Friday evening and needed to be transported to the garage Saturday morning.

It cut out twice starting it Friday morning but third time it ran fine. I thought I had heard a bit of a knocking noise when moving off but wasn't sure.

Garage rang today to say all 4 fuel injectors are shot and need to be replaced at a cost of €250 per injector. They also need to be programmed.

We've had the car since the summer and it has 240k kms on it. Hasn't given any trouble since we got it, no unusual noises or smoke from the exhaust or anything.

It's not great at accelerating is the only thing and dropping a gear to accelerate just results in lots of rev noises and not much go which I have always put down to the engine being gutless.

Just wondering what people make of this?

Is it normal all 4 injectors would go at the same time or is it potentially pointing to an underlying issue? I don't want to spend a fortune on replacing the injectors to still have a broken car.

The garage didn't give any indication as to if there was anything else so is there anything I should be asking them - should there be fault codes or anything that would give an idea why this happened?

Also, is the price per injector reasonable, they are Lucas injectors they are fitting.

This is horrid timing as I need new tyres, pads and a second hand headlight for my e92 so the Peugeot issues as well are a killer!

[Mayo rs]

Possibly one injector dumping fuel but all 4 wouldn’t fail together unless contaminated , more likely to be an egr valve which is a common fault on these engines or possibly a completely blocked Dpf which would explain the poor performance, I’ve seen crank sensors to fail on these also or the pick up ring on the lower drive gear to get damaged. All the above should show fault codes .

[Titan]

I feel your pain.

My car had been acting ip for a while,usually when cold it wouldn't accelerate,very bad vibrations,stuttering etc.
Local place did a bench test (I think that's what it was called) on the injectors and didn't find anything.

Dropped it into local garage,he took the four injectors out and left them with the same local specialist.
4th injector was found to be at fault,cost €250 plus vat for a new one,€80 for new seals and to check the other three.

Funny thing was I never once got an engine light,even though at its worst,it felt like the engine was about to shake itself apart.

[Aontroim]

All four injectors at (presumably) the same time does seem strange.

Firstly, why do they think injectors are faulty? Have they been bench-tested (you can test them for flow etc to see how they perform/if there's any disparity between them)?

Secondly, as you say, I'd be looking for potential root causes (I'm presuming there is one). Did you get any service history with the car? What's the diesel filter like?

Also, could there be an electrical issue relating to the injectors which prevents them from working properly.

Lastly, do they definitely need to be coded? I would 100% check that with someone as I would be no expert but it's the first I'm hearing of it (again, that means nothing).

It sounds like I'm being very critical of your garage/mechanic. I don't mean to be. They could well have diagnosed perfectly with lots of data/evidence to back up diagnosis and they could be right about coding. But when there's such a big bill, it doesn't hurt to ask. Also, presuming there is another issue causing this one, you don't want to ruin a new set of injectors a few months down the line!

Sorry to hear about this stroke of bad luck man, hopefully 2023 can only get better from here.

[davkav]

It's not that they have to be coded, you just have to tell the ECU what flow rate each of the injectors are. IIRC each one comes with a HEX number stamped on them to indicate their exact flow rate.

[jdwals]

Thanks all.

I need to ask a few more questions tomorrow. I was a it shocked when I got the news.

I'm not sure on the dpf. When we got the car we got an occasional orange warning to say dpf in danger of clogging or something like that but haven't seen it in a while. Assumed our long drives that we do fairly regularly sorted that out.

[Mayo rs]

You mentioned hearing a knocking which could be a ( diesel knock )usually caused by exhaust gases not leaving the cylinders or intake restricted.

[avanzato]

Similar symptoms to my dad's 1.5 megane, turned out to be a bad fuel filter resulting in too little fuel reaching the engine.

[Jeremy Taxman]

had a '12 5008 and it dropped one injector.
Pug recommended replacing all 4,
I got a guy to replace the bad one and check the others. Was fine afterwards. As you say, at €250 a throw, i'd rather space it out a bit.

[jdwals]

Well, spoke to the mechanic in person and they confirmed the 4 injectors are shot. I asked if there were any error codes showing and they said there were some showing for the dpf but said that could have been related to the warning I was seeing on the dash before.

They said with the car unable to start, they are limited in what they can check in terms of seeing if there is an underlying issue but fully accept sticking in new injectors may get the car running but that there might be something else that caused the injector failure that might still need sorting.

So the decision is spend the bones of 2 grand on new injectors, change fuel filter and get an overall service and cross the fingers all will be good or with a budget of about 4 grand get another car that will probably be 3 - 4 years older at the prices of second hand cars these days and that may come with it's own problems.

If only crystal balls were a thing!

[Padrio]

4 injectors b0llixed simultaneously would be very strange. Did you get dodgy fuel?

[Markob1]

A Dailey investor can cause these issues and it's best practice to replace as a set to be fair doesn't mean they are all gone, the garage may only want to replace as a full set. They have all done the same amount of work so if you replace one the other three are trying to over compensate to keep up with the strong injector and will fail one by one.

[Mayo rs]

if you didn’t get bad fuel and the fuel filter is not contaminated , gravity feed the system to rule out drawing air and a leak off test on the injectors to find and replace the faulty one would be my next move , you shouldn’t have to replace all 4 unless cause is contamination and if it is than you better change and clean more than just injectors and filter.

[jdwals]

What would need doing if it was down to contaminated fuel?

[Mayo rs]

Depends on what contaminant is , bad fuel a thorough cleaning of the system, if it’s something broken up than it’s how long is a piece of string .