Idling/Stalling Problems - Volvo 440 GLT

[barrytone]

I have a Volvo 440 GLT with a 2 litre engine that I bought in August 2002, it has 140k on the clock and to date it has given me very little trouble. It developed a problem three months ago that has baffled the garage and for which they have tried numerous solutions.

It started when I was queuing in traffic and it tried to stall then revved itself up and returned to normal idling speed. Since the first incident it has become much worse and is now causing me problems getting around.

It had a new alternator around the same time as the idling problem started. When it was fitted, it struggled to tick over afterwards, but this could just be co-incidence. Called out breakdown people who adjusted throttle idling speed. For a while it was fine then it started revving up and trying to stall then eventually idling, one day it stalled completely but it always restarts.

Garage thought it was the cylinder head gasket as it was also loosing water. They stripped the water pump down and found that had been leaking so replaced it. They also cleaned and lubricated the idle control valve that was very carboned up. It still had the problem and it was still loosing water.

Several further visits to the garage have followed, to date it has had a second hand idle control valve, didn't solve problem so have had new one fitted, still not solved problem. Several breather pipes replaced, water leak found on bottom radiator hose, clip replaced, still waiting to see if that solves water problem. The car had a cracked battery clip which the auto electrician at the garage changed with the alternator and he also fitted a thicker earth wire as the old one was very flimsy.

As of now it will start when cold then as it tries to come down to idling speed, fails to idle and stalls. It restarts and runs lovely until you come to slow down when it tries to stall, revs itself up a few times and tries to idle then stalls again. It continues in this pattern until the engine gets warm, then it runs like a dream and there's no loss of power, dropped a Porsche 911 this morning!

If it goes onto the motorway before it's warm and you slow down, it judders like mad, won't respond to the accelerator; which is how I normally stop it from stalling, stalls and then is an absolute nightmare to restart. Will only restart when accelerator is flat to the floor.

Could it be the head gasket, water leaking overnight when it's stood then in the morning affecting the compression until the water is burnt off? Last car I had that needed a head gasket, not a Volvo I hasten to add, overheated constantly, developed loads of water leaks until the gasket eventually went, the Volvo has not shown similar symptoms. Not sure that it's stopped loosing water as the water leak was only located yesterday. I love this car, I would hate to replace it when it's just flown through the MOT, been so reliable to date and is reasonably economical. I am being made redundant shortly so really could do with not having to buy another car but really need this car to be as reliable as it used to be so that I can go job hunting.

All help, advice and ideas gratefully received. Thanks

[exonn]

i had similar problem for few months... noone culd help me...
and then i started to do my own investigation...
my cars sipmtopms was:

As of now it will start when cold then as it tries to come down to idling speed, fails to idle and stalls. It restarts and runs lovely until you come to slow down when it tries to stall, revs itself up a few times and tries to idle then stalls again




same as yours...

the problem was the cord wich goes to injectors, there is a plug near the the injectors and there were no contact, one of the wires was almost pluged out of the plug. After pluging it back everything was OK.

You cant imagen how happy i was

hope it'll help you, and sorry for my poor English

[nano]

I have had similar problems since I bougth my 1.6L 460 GLE, back in '95.
Local authorized by Volvo garages had tried almost everything on the engine. Finally an expert from NedCar came (the day of warranty expiration) one year later and made some adjustments on idling (!) and cleaned the throttle. There was a technical note from Volvo, but the local garages wasn't able to apply it succesfully.

After the expert's adjustments this problem disapeared, but a new showed up. "After driving with the air cond with more than 3000 rpm and releasing the acc pedal pressing the clutch at the same time, the engine continued to run at 1800 rpm".

Well, the warranty had expired and nobody wanted to take a look on this. So I started by myself to try different schemes of idling adjustments.

I found the golden rule after a lot of effort. I still own that car. It is not perfect, but it is running quite smoothly now.

In your case, probably the battery disconented and the initial idling adjustment gone. So, I thing you need a thorough adjusment again an perhaps a cleaning of the throttle.

[PinkPig]

Check the fuel pump / fuel pressure.

Had nightmares with mine (1.8BU)

Nothing wrong with the Volvo parts. Everything wrong with the Renault parts.
Never buying another, just crap, but after replacing sensors and filters and checking and adjusting everything it turned out to be the fuel pump.

[lozisbest]

Same problem as mine (440 glt turbo)

Drives fine but let the revs drop and it will stall.

[Ambiesda]

Dust from the clutch plate can cover the flywheel sensor and end up sending wrong enging rev data to the control module. Have you tried cleaning said. Used to have to clean my F/W/S every 35k or so on the old GLTi

Regards

Malky

[Paul240480]

I've just solved symptoms like these after a long long time. I tried changing plugs, put new HTs on, cleaned all the earths I could find, changed the coil & ignition multi plug and so on.

I ended up placing a post on the 480 Europe forums. The advice (mines a 480 turbo auto by the way) was to disconnect the electric multi plug on the MAF sensor. If it runs then, you have diagnosed an air leak. Mine, with the plug disconnected ticked over as smoothly as smooth thing!

After much hunting I found that the pipe on the Turbo intake had completely perished at the join with the turbo intake itself, so was having no effect other than causing a massive air leak!I reckon that it had been deteriorating for some time as the symptoms became worse & worse until it finally snapped off and the car refused to run

I've made a temp repair to the pipe and now it is brill' everything is as it should be. I have a replacement pipe on its way....

[PinkPig]

Originally Posted by PinkPig

after replacing sensors and filters and checking and adjusting everything it turned out to be the fuel pump.

OK, I lied. Still stalling and running funny when hot even with a new fuel pump/sender unit. grrrrrrrrr!!!

[Paul240480]

PinkPig, this type of niggle really can **** you off! It took me a long, long time to solve mine (as per my previous post in this thread)
Keep plugging away. Try everything that is suggested here one by one. If that fails try putting a post of the 480 Europe site. I know yours is a 440 but the engines I think are used in various models.
It was the 480 site that came up with the suggestion that eventually lead to my
fault being fixed.
Good Luck.

[Svenska440]

Hi,
new to the forum and noticed this thread.
I have just bought a 440 and noticed that when it's cold, it take some startingwhen cold - all is perfectly well once warm.
Can anyone give me any tips and (in the absence of a manual at the moment) tell me where the flywheel sensor is located so I can check it ?
Regards,
Shaun