I had a problem recently where my diesel Vectra 2DTL wouldnt start (it was running 30 mins before ok).There was no indication on the dash of anything wrong,i.e.no imobilizer or Eng management lights on. The garage sent the injector pump to be tested,and said the ECU on the pump was faulty.Is this a common fault as there doesnt seem to be many posts on it,and the fact the Management light wasnt on makes me wonder. The cars done 105,000,and the whole episode cost me over £2000.
It's impossible to say one way or the other. Any injector pumps I know of don't have an ecu built-in. The engine ECU sends signals to the pump and then the pump sends feedback via various sensors so that the ECU knows what's going on, (called a control loop). There may well have been a fault in the pump, but it wasn't an ECU. Not that it makes much difference now, you're down 2 grand one way or the other. With electronic engine management, I've seen many people end up with bills like this due to a minor fault that wasn't diagnosed correctly. Unfortunately the customer has no way of knowing one way or the other.
Your fault was most likely to have been caused by air ingress through leaky spill-off hose at injectors. Replacement cost around £11 and one hour DIY. Take off the black plastic engine shield and feel the black hose coming from injectors. If it feels brittle, you have a problem there.
On vectras, the engine management light stays on until the engine is running, so if the pump ecu had failed, there would be no visible way of knowing. The only way to check, is using diagnostic equipment to check if any trouble codes are stored. There is every chance that the pump ecu had only partially failed, and was still quite happily communicating with the engine ecu. The other possibility is that the control solenoid within the pump had failed, possibly damaging the pump ecu. The problem with these injeciton pumps, is that the engine has to be running to test them using the diagnostic equipment.
The only way you'd know what had failed, would be to actually see what work had been done to the Injection pump, without seeing this, we can only guess.
Injection pump failures are rare, but they do happen. I haven't personally seen one fail on a vauxhall, but have seen similar pumps fail in fords ( I'm fairly sure it's the same model of pump), but these failures have been caused by ford cutting corners if the rumours are true.
The price tag of £2000 is pretty high, given a new pump from ford costs around £1200, and I would imagine vauxhalls price would be similar. Any chance of some more detail regarding the bill?
yup the spill pipes are renowned for leaking on the vauxhall deisels and my mate just did his for the 2nd time in 4 years last nite. You would think that vx would have sorted this one out by now as it seems to be down to unsuitable materials for the job,
Unfortunatly the bill was not broken down,they just told me the pump was approx £1400 and the rest was for them getting it tested and the fitting! Apparently they tried to get the ECU part to but couldnt so had to replace the whole pump.
That sounds about right. By the time you include 5 hours labour to do the job, and the cost of getting the old pump checked, the total could quite easily reach £2000.
Injection pumps are almost invariably repairable. A good repairer will be willing to repair your own pump at cost and return it to you with details of the fault. Not cheap but probably less than half the £1200 your lazy garage has cost you.
That's the case for a lot of the older (non-electronic) pumps, but there seems to be a lack of spare part availability for electronic pumps. And there's very few places with the equipment necessary to test electronic pumps.
Authorised franchise repair shops should be able to repair electronic pumps such as the Bosch VP44 with no problem. A large repairer that spring to mind is Shorts of Swansea. The electronically controlled pump is actually much simpler than a standard rotary pump in that there are a few parts that can be replaced externally but no sensitive settings like levers and thermowax, timing and idling thingies because these are all set by software.
Electronic pumps are far simpler, but you still got to have the equipment to make the electronics work. And alot of places are reluctant to buy the equipment, due to the outlay and there's not many of these pumps needing repaired yet. I doubt if this will change much, as these pumps have only been used for a relatively short period of time (10 years at the most??), and are being rapidly phased out in favour off common rail injection.
Authorised franchised repairers have no choice. Such equipment is compulsory. It is not just cars that have such pumps. They are fitted to all kinds of engines in increasing quantity. Offroad and marine engines in Europe will have them for many years yet, especially under 100hp where they have not really been introduced yet due to laxer emission standards for these as a group. Offroad engines over about 160 hp will likely have to migrate to CR or UI by the end of next year due to the gradual introduction of Euro111 to this class.
Only one of the two local Bosch agents have the equipment to do electronic pumps. And even they find it hard getting parts for the pumps. From what I gather, for already existing agents they have the choice to get the equipment or not, however somebody wanting to become an authorised repairer has to get all the equipment. The recently opened local Delphi agent has all the facilities,which cost well over 100k
Well there you go. No shortage of facilities in your area or mine. I have no knowledge of the supply situation from Robert Bosch Gmbh. There must be a slight concern at the rate of failure of both Bosch electronic pumps though. They seem particularly prone to poor bleeding technique, such as cranking to no avail, where it seems a few seconds of cranking with poor fuel supply is enough to bugger them up. This is not a fault as such but a characteristic, but vehicle handbooks should have proper bleeding instructions and warnings of the consequences of not bleeding properly.
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