DI again

The dreaded DI packed up again on my 9000 CSE by sudden death. Luckily I was only 6 miles from home and not on the main road. At 185k miles, this is the third DI that has packed up. Hence 60k is about the expected lifetime for the DI.

Then I thought came into my head: I sometimes drive to London and park in an underground car park near Tottenham Court Road and Bedford Avenue. The entrance to the car park is a long, narrow and very steep tunnel going down to the car park. Using the confined slope on good days is already scary. What about DI packing up down there when you try to exit? I can't imagine that AA or RAC will be able to tow the car up from there, and staying down there for days will be hugely expensive. By the grace of....

Ideally, I should have an extra DI in the boot, but that's also an expense.

Reply to
johannes
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johannes gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

IIRC there are cheap off-brand far eastern DIs with nothing like the quality or longevity of proper ones.

They don't like kicking about. Keep 'em upright.

Reply to
Adrian

The packaging containing the DI was labelled as a Saab part. I always use a reputable supplier.

There was some very mild symptoms of occasional hesitation until engine was properly warm. Fairly normal on an old engine, I thought.

Engine was perfect when I started my journey up to the re-cycling centre. But when finished my task, the engine make some feeble attempt to start up, but didn't catch; similar to flooding the engine. So I waited and waited, but no improvement.

As it happens, I have gathered some experience about DI breakdowns:

Case 1: 60k, engine died on an uphill slope on busy road after a long outing. Case 2: 120k, engine didn't start in the morning. Case 3: 180k engine didn't catch properly after a short journey on the day after a long outing.

Seems a common pattern is that the DI died after the car had been on a long continued outing, about 200-300 miles or so.

Reply to
johannes

"johannes" skrev i meddelelsen news: snipped-for-privacy@sizefi66436263262tter.com...

This is VERY uncommon - the miles are waaaay less than what is ordinary -

150.000+ miles. Which sparkplugs do you use, and how often do you change them? As I recall, yours is a NA 9000 - right?
Reply to
Henrik B.

It's an 2.0 LPT and I use NGK BCPR7ES-11 changed regularly (annually). My theory is that it has something to do with using the car for longer trips.

Reply to
johannes

"johannes" skrev i meddelelsen news: snipped-for-privacy@sizefi66436263262tter.com...

Okay, right plugs then.... Has absolutely nothing to do with the lenght of the trips...

Reply to
Henrik B.

I think it's not that simple. Obviously the DI doesn't fail at every long trip, in fact it takes years before it fails. When it eventually fails, the failure is cased by chafing on copper windings from engine vibrations, helped by heat expansion. This causes a short in one of the coils. Cooling off the engine, and the coil recovers and gets firmer. A long trip doesn't allow for cooling pauses. It's subtle long term effect that you can't necessarily reproduce in a lab overnight. Otherwise I'm impressed by the B202 engine that everything else works at 185k miles.

Reply to
johannes

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