[samsam]

Does this fix works for everyone?

I just wanted to check if Kuldip who started this thread has managed to fix this as well. If not then that would imply there may be more than one problem with the same symptoms.

Can you please give us all an update no how things are Kuldip? Does the fix described by trevstamf work for you too?

 

[kuldip S Obhi]

Hi,

Unfortunately my car is not fixed, I have the wires under the battery checked and have removed the plug from the throttlebody it looked quite clean. I have taken the car to another mechanic who again say that the diagnosic box is showing throttlebody problem. Whenever I take the car for repair they reset the error code and the car runs fine for few days.

I live in Crewe Cheshire, does anyone knows a mechanic who is capable of fixing this problem and is located reasonble distance from me.

Kuldip

 

[samsam]

Thanks Kuldip,
At first I thought I have found a solution. But now after seeing your reply I am not so sure. It seems the car goes into 'limp mode'(with throttle control lost and revving around 2000 - 3000 by itself - just to take you home) is a common symptom for a multitude of problems. God knows which one we have.

But the problem you and I are having (and that of mzhao) have one more interesting thing in common - The fact that we have to drive a bit, then stop for a short while and then start to trigger this problem. It is not clear if trevstamf or any of the others in this thread have had this particular pattern. Could trevstamf please let us know if you have noticed this kind of behavior in your case? Anyone else who have seen this?

I am beginning to think may be buying a Renault Laguna is not such a smart decision after all!

But I am not going to give up on this car without a fight! I will let everyone know what the dealer says on Thursday.

 

[kuldip S Obhi]

Thanks Samsam,

Apart from Renault dealer my car has been to two other mechanics and has cost me another £70. The mechanics are keen to replace the trottlebody as their diagnostic tool says that throttlebody has a problem. Each time the error code is cleared ie reinitialised the car is ok for a Week and again starts showing the problem.

The other thing is that when it goes into fault mode if I switch the engine off straight away it does goes back to normal for few more miles. The longer I keep it driving in the fault mode the longer it takes for the car to go back to normal when I switch the engine off and on again.

So my friend I am ****** off with the car, pardon my blanks.

Kuldip

 

[samsam]

While my car was with renault dealer for the second time, I told them how to recreate the problem. I told them they have to drive for an hour and then leave it for half an hour or so.

Later they said they successfully re created the problem after trying 3 times. They said it is the throttle position sensor this time. Good bye to another 100 pounds (although I can claim 75 pounds from AA)

So what about last time when then replaced the throttle body? Well, they keep saying it was a different problem last time and that was really necessary. I claimed that from AA as well.

I really don't know if they have identified the problem. I did give them a print out of a forum page where the 'Hardening gel and ECU pin corrosion issue was mentioned.I mentioned it to them and they said they will check it as well.

Yesterday I got the car back. To be honest I am really not sure if this is fixed. I can tell only after another month I think.

If that happens again I won't take it to Renault again. I will have to try an independent specialist around here. I will continue to post my story with the hope that it will help others.

I think the title of this thread should be changed, the work 'Fixed' should be removed as it is still not fixed for Kuldip who started the Thread. And what is described as 'Throttle problem' is the limp mode all renault cars go into when they have a problem.
So it is only the common symptom of a number of problems.

By the way, I have noticed that every time I mentioned the dealers name my post gets censored in this forum. The name gets replaced by '#####'! I wonder why? I have seen a notice somewhere that says offensive language will be censored but why cut off a dealers name? Can someone explain what is going on? Maybe there is a bug in the software that thinks 'Maidenhead' is a bad word?

 

[Asterix]

you should also see in the rules of the forum that you are not allowed to name and shame dealers, due to possible legal action against the forum...when a moderator sees the thread they will edit out the name of the dealer.

 

[samsam]

Thanks for explaining that rule about naming dealers Astrix!

To see if my car is really fixed, I will have to take my car out for an hour long drive , stop it and start again after about an hour.

I think I will do it a few times this week. If it is still not fixed, I should know it soon. I will come back with more news later.

 

[mzhao]

As mentioned in the previous post, I tried myself to fix the "elctrical fault" problem but finally gave up. I took my car to the local dealer (I am in the Netherlands), paid 550 euros to finally get it fixed. They invited me to watch the whole procedure. My car is a LPG one, therefore there is an extra computer for the LPG system installed. Many many extra wires are connected from the LPG system to the main ECU. Unfortunately, some the wires are not well connected. The guy has to cut all the wires, reconnect them one by one. After this is done, they found actually a connector that feed all those wires to the main ECU is broken. They repeated the work with a new connector.

I have been driving my Laguna for one month after all these are done, the problem never comes back again. I hope my experience will help anyone has the similar problem.

 

[mkcannon]

Hi,

I've got a similar problem with a 1999 1.9dTi Laguna Alize. Whenever we drive in very heavy rain with lots of water on the highway the injector light comes on and the car goes to limp home mode.

The computer diagnosis is a fault with the potiemeter (which the Renault Dealer was quick to replace). This of course didn't solve our problem!! On one instance it stopped raining and the road dried out - the car appeared to dry out and continued a long 200 mile drive home without a problem.

Since then all the wiring has been checked, a plate was put under the ECU the protect it against water coming up from the road and the oringal battery has been replaced. The fault reoccured under the same wet conditions but the car was quicker to recover and drove though it. Again it stopped raining and it was fine. Today we started the car (no rain at all) and the problem occured immediately. This is the first time it has occured off a motorway and in the dry, however the January air is quite damp.

We sprayed WD40 on the battery terminals and revved the car a couple of times. It seemed to work fine after that.

Do you think this problem might be occuring because the battery is not sending enough power when you try to accelerate?? Could this be a similar problem?

mk.

 

[Bubs]

Mu 02 1.6 also has this problem, fairly infrequent but identical symptoms. So with dad and mechanic friend decided to take out the ecu and give the terminals a clean as suggested, all went well, neither the ecu pins or the connectors looked too bad although we did find some blue gunky stuff on a couple of them ( felt like silicone). Anyway put it all back together and - nothing- car won't start, checked connections again and all seem in place and ok, any ideas what we've done wrong?

Sorted! Don't know what we did but we realised we couldn't hear the fuel pump when we switched the igntion back on, wiggled & pulled relays and fuses, put them back and she started first time.
I took some photos of the ecu and connectors, if it would help anyone thinking of doing this I'll happily put them up but might need guidance as to where on the forum they should be.

 

[Bubs]

Hmm.
Well the day after I did all the above I had the warning light and limp home mode activate 4 times in quick succession, the day we did the work was really wet as was the following day and I do wonder if we had let damp into the wiring loom, with the better weather the car has only done it once so may be drying out?
Conclusion has to be that the problem does indeed lie with the loom connectors/ecu as we did nothing else, didn't touch throttle body or disturb any other system parts and I can't believe the 4 times activation was a coincidence.

 

[Bubs]

OK just an update but hopefully a useful one for others with this problem.
We waited for a nice dry day and repeated the ecu clean leaving the open ends of the connectors in the sun for a few hours, replaced and all was well for 24 hrs then the fault re-occurred.
We have now removed and cleaned the throttle body (it was just a bit black inside, no 'bits' to speak of) and the car if anything is now worse!
Managed to get into our local garage who had the car for 2 days and couldn't get the fault to re-occur but cleared the fault and all was well for 3 days before backcame the fault (they said that would probably happen) took the car back to them today with the fault warning showing and the car in 'limp home' and they put it straight onto their diagnostic machine, their experienced mechanic is 98% sure that this is an ECU fault as he was able to send the correct signal to the throttle and get the throttle to respond correctly, as we were watching ther display he was telling us that the 2 signals did not correspond (was above my head by now!) having switched off and cleared the fault we could see the correct 'box' shaped signal.
Options at the moment are
repalcement ECU from Renault £700 odd quid
replacement reprogrammed ECU about £200
send off have tested and repaired my ECU about £180 ish
still not good but not the £700 that Renault want!
Watch this space.

 

[theaton56]

Samsam, further to your last post about 6 months ago, anything further to report ? Did it work for you ?

My Y Reg Lag has just started to play silly beggars, did the reboot procedure but that failed to clear it. Disconnected battery for 2 minutes, reconnected then rebooted. That cleared it for about 10 days but happened again to me this evening. Repeated the procedure to get into "normal mode".

Would like to have a permanent fix for this PITA.



Tony

 

[ijls]

Another piece of experience to throw in the pot.
2 years ago, I started having 2000rpm sticking problems with the associated electical fault light occuring. It was easily fixed by disconnecting the battery for a second. The problem got more and more frequent until recently when it became virtually permanent. The local garage cleaned the throttle body to no benefit. The Renault garage, after about an hour and a half work, advised it was almost certainly due to a throttle body fault. Other possibilities were fuel injection computer (very expensive). The new throttle body seems to have fixed the problem (2 weeks and no repeat) and cost about £250 for parts and labour for diagnosing and fixing the problem. Surprisingly reasonable for Renault!

 

[mik]

Hi guys, I am experiencing the same symptoms as you with the car going into limp mode etc, was just wondering how everyone has got on, is there a definitive answer? I've only had the car a couple of weeks and when I take it back to the dealer who sold it to me I would like to be able to tell them exactly what the problem is. Looking at the service history it's already had a new throttle body etc. Really would like to get this fixed as I really like the car and don't want to get rid of it if at all possible.

 

[Bubs]

Mik
I'm still battling along with this, my car's ecu is presently away to be either fixed or exchanged (sagem s2000, one of the most difficult to work on apparently )
When it returns I'll post the results and my experiences so far!
Bubs

 

[mik]

:crazy: just checked my cars service history more carefully, it appears that as well as a new throttle body it has had the engine management system replaced (assume this is ECU) so I'm not sure what to do now, Bub, how did you get at your ECU I can't figure out how to get the battery box out?

 

[jazzmondasine]

Open throttle on 1.8 16v Laguna Sport Tourer

Thought i would share my experience of this subject with you. I too, have had the sticking throttle problem, fuel injection system faulty etc. I was told it was the ECU as the voltage readings to the throttle body were incorrect and hence why it was constantly revving at over 2000rpm. After a new one was fitted and programmed by Renault dealer it did not fix it. This meant that it could only be the wiring loom on the basis that they tried a new throttle body but it still gave the problem and as mentioned above the ECU was replaced. When i picked the car up the technician showed me the contacts in the plug on the wiring loom that mates in the ECU....and you could tell by inserting a small test probe that some of the contacts had lost there ability to spring together, when mated into the ECU connector, and therefore was creating an open circuit...that goes to the throttle body! The new loom was fitted and the car now runs fine....the cost of all this was >£1,000....hope this may help someone.

 

[Gepito]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the info. Please let me know if your car problem is fixed after the replacement of the potentiometres, then perhaps let me know where this mechanic is so that I can get it fixed of him if he is in my area (Cheshire).

Thanks again.

Kuldip

Hi Kuldip

Have you got your car sorted yet? I've got a simmilar problem with my 2002 1.6 laguna but feel even more helpless than most of you guys as my car is in St Lucia (Caribbean) wher we have no renault dealers and only 2 other renaults on the entire island! I've done the throttle body replacement thing which did not work but while I am awaiting a ¤¤¤¤ion I've notice by quickly disconnecting then reconecting the + battery pole it appears to clear the error allowing me to continue my journey without the usual wait to allow the engine to cool down....considering installing a "flick" switch from the battery to inside the car ;-)

Will try cleaning the ECU conectors and let you all know if that make a diffrence

 

[davenkirsty]

Hi, really hope someone can help with this issue as its been frustrating me now for about 3 months. Bought this car just over 12 months ago, within the first month the car would stall if i was idling in traffic, but only after i had been driving for half hour or more. I took the car to my local garage who didi a diag test and it came back the crank sensor. This was replaced and it worked fine. It then started again 6 months later and again i had the sensor replaced. Again it fixed the prob. About 3 months ago i started getting starting issues where it could sometimes take me up to 8 attempts to start the car but this is a very intermittent problem. My garage tried all sorts but it is still there, then last week the stalling issue started again except now i have to leave the car to cool down b4 it will start again.....aaarrggghhh.... Any ideas greatly appreciated, i am back in the garage 2mora with it so ill see what happens.

It is a laguna II 1.8 16v expression 2001 'Y'