Factory diesel Jimnys (DDiS) - all info about them

best advice I can give is to buy an OBD read out tool, they aren't hugely expensive (£20-30), and can give you a live readout of the data stream off the engine, including hopefully what is going wrong (or not as may be the case).

Depending on the year of your machine will denote whether it is OBD 1 or OBD 2 compliant, or non OBD compliant (and so a read out plug made by Suzuki in that case).

EOBD or OBD 2 (OBD II) became mandatory for petrol passenger cars after 1st January 2001, and diesel cars from 1st January 2004 onwards.

Paul.

Hi Bosanek, sorry to hear about your troubles.

I had something similar happen to me once, it was the first problem i had with it.
was driving along in low gear on a dirt trail, pretty much coasting in gear, no throtle, and started hearing a hiss. like a puncture on an air line. the resistance light lit up, and i stopped, engine on while i had a look at the manual. after a while it started shaking and the revs climbed on their own. turned off the engine, and after a few minutes i set off again and all was fine.
ran it for a couple of months with no issues while i looked for some information.
when i went to the mechanic, it turned out i had 2 cloged injectors and a dead fuel filter.
got that fixed, and eventually it happened again in the same circumstances, in a very hot day. turned out the alternator pulley was gone, changed it and never happened again.

as far as buzzing sounds go... i heard it every winter morning. the car as an aux fuel pump. when it's very cold and the fuel is thicker, it kicks in to help the main pump. you can hear some clicking sounds and the car warms up and the aux pump eventually cuts out. the buzzing i belive came from a fuel line that returned the excess fuel from the rail to the tank. it passes thru a crappy plastic pipe and makes some noise.

but you where coasting and warm... i would check the alt pulley first, and if not, maybe you do have a problem with the injection system.
have the errors checked out, if nothing shows up, have a look at the alternator, if not it's probably a clogged injector that is not allowing fuel to pass at low feed, causing the stutter and the buzzing from the fuel return.

Thank you both for constructive replies!

My car was made in 2006, so it has OBD2 and special Suzuki protocols in ECU.

I connected my car to a generic (Chinese) ELM327-compatible diagnostic tool yesterday, and it showed me three generic OBD2 errors.

Error 1:
P0016
Explanation: www.obd-codes.com/p0016

Error 2:
P0340
Explanation: www.obd-codes.com/p0340

Error 3:
P0089
Explanation: www.obd-codes.com/p0089


I believe that Errors 1 and 2 are related to another issue (I had sporadic problems starting the car recently), while I believe that Error 3 is related to this problem which I described yesterday.

Regarding Errors 1 and 2 - I could not start the car on two recent occasions. When I turned the ignition key, it behaved like it had no fuel at all (the electric starter "moved" the engine just fine, but the engine did not even attempt to "take off" - just like there is zero fuel present). I held the key for at least 5 seconds. After my second or third attempt, the engine turned on normally.
This issue happened to me once in January, and twice in a single week in March, but it did not occur after that.
I believe that Errors 1 and 2 are related to it.
Any ideas about this issue?

---

Regarding the possible issue with injectors (which I described yesterday), I believe that Error 3 is related to it.
Any comments on that?

I went to my local Renault service garage, and they drove the car with me and listened to it while I was provoking the issue. They said, based on observation, that the issue is probably a typical dCi engine problem - clogged one or more injectors, and possibly also "nasty" fuel pump, which is producing metal particle debris and sending it through fuel system.

They said that they have to inspect the injectors first with some measurement equipment (pending arrival soon). If they find one or more injectors clogged, then they have to take off the fuel tank and inspect it for debris. If no debris, only injector(s) need replacement. If they find debris, they say I'm totally screwed, as it means total engine rebuild (typical notorious 1.5 dCi engine issue) (1000+ EUR cost).

But they said that I should first go to Suzuki dealer and have them read the issues with Suzuki's genuine diagnostic tool, and then bring the results over (I'm going to do that).

I am of course quite worried, but I personally suspect that the issue with clogged injectors and fuel pump debris might not be true. I personally suspect on some throttle control valve (if such device is present). As far as I know, DDiS Jimnys have a "return" fuel delivery system.

Any ideas before they start with injectors' inspection?

Bosanek wrote: Thank you both for constructive replies!

My car was made in 2006, so it has OBD2 and special Suzuki protocols in ECU.

I connected my car to a generic (Chinese) ELM327-compatible diagnostic tool yesterday, and it showed me three generic OBD2 errors.

Error 1:
P0016
Explanation: www.obd-codes.com/p0016

Error 2:
P0340
Explanation: www.obd-codes.com/p0340

Error 3:
P0089
Explanation: www.obd-codes.com/p0089


I believe that Errors 1 and 2 are related to another issue (I had sporadic problems starting the car recently), while I believe that Error 3 is related to this problem which I described yesterday.

Regarding Errors 1 and 2 - I could not start the car on two recent occasions. When I turned the ignition key, it behaved like it had no fuel at all (the electric starter "moved" the engine just fine, but the engine did not even attempt to "take off" - just like there is zero fuel present). I held the key for at least 5 seconds. After my second or third attempt, the engine turned on normally.
This issue happened to me once in January, and twice in a single week in March, but it did not occur after that.
I believe that Errors 1 and 2 are related to it.
Any ideas about this issue?

---

Regarding the possible issue with injectors (which I described yesterday), I believe that Error 3 is related to it.
Any comments on that?

I went to my local Renault service garage, and they drove the car with me and listened to it while I was provoking the issue. They said, based on observation, that the issue is probably a typical dCi engine problem - clogged one or more injectors, and possibly also "nasty" fuel pump, which is producing metal particle debris and sending it through fuel system.

They said that they have to inspect the injectors first with some measurement equipment (pending arrival soon). If they find one or more injectors clogged, then they have to take off the fuel tank and inspect it for debris. If no debris, only injector(s) need replacement. If they find debris, they say I'm totally screwed, as it means total engine rebuild (typical notorious 1.5 dCi engine issue) (1000+ EUR cost).

But they said that I should first go to Suzuki dealer and have them read the issues with Suzuki's genuine diagnostic tool, and then bring the results over (I'm going to do that).

I am of course quite worried, but I personally suspect that the issue with clogged injectors and fuel pump debris might not be true. I personally suspect on some throttle control valve (if such device is present). As far as I know, DDiS Jimnys have a "return" fuel delivery system.

Any ideas before they start with injectors' inspection?

to be honest, I think all three issues could generate what you are seeing. I used to design engines for Cummins, and you would be surprised what causes what :laugh:

Injection timing innacuracy caused by rogue crank position signals can generate some very rough running (if this has a tone wheel on the front of the crank, is that tight?) in fact I've seen one engine destroy itself because of a loose tone wheel and damper causing crank resonance and ultimately crank snap :woohoo:

Re the clogged injectors, get some high quality injector cleaner and run it at a high concentration (and repeat over several tanks of fuel). give her a good clean out and a hefty boot of the throttle to help clear its throat with a high injector flow rate. Its far cheaper than injectors, and can't cause any further harm.

Just changing the coded DCi injectors will be expensive, so if it can be avoided, so much the better, plus, you would probably be getting smoke from poor atomisation if the injectors were worn out.

Paul.

Thank you Paul for your valuable comments.

The mechanics also share your opinion that all errors can be related to the same issue.

I went to my local Suzuki dealer to have the original Suzuki SDT (diagnostic tool) check. They hooked it up, but their tool did not read any Suzuki-specific error codes from ECU. It read the same generic OBD2 error codes as my el-cheapo generic chinese ELM327 clone reading tool.
I was disappointed by that, as it did read Suzuki specific codes on previous occasion, when I had some faulty glow plugs (it knew exactly which glow plug was bad, while generic OBD2 reader just knew "issues with fuel heating system").

However, Suzuki's genuine tool did show some coded descriptions for each error. It displayed one new (fourth) error, and displayed error P0089 two times with different descriptions.

Attached is the picture of Suzuki's STD error display.

Service personnel at Suzuki said that's all they can do, and they have no further knowledge about Renault engines, so they told me to go to Renault service center for further aid. They annulled all error codes prior to disconnecting Suzuki's SDT.

When I arrived at Renault, they connected their genuine scan tool, and they could surprisingly read masses of engine working parameters. But there were no error codes, as Suzuki people had just annulled them. So people at Renault told me go bash the car around and try to brake it, then return.

So I went and I bashed the car uphill and downhill at least 15 times in a specific way, trying to reproduce the issue. The engine buzzed and rattled every time when going slowly dowhnill at approx 1100 RPM, but I could not provoke it to light a stop light.
After cca. 15th attempt, I noticed that the engine began to work a lot better, no buzzing sounds at low dowhnill rpm when engine braking, and no engine clatter as well!
I went up and down five more times, and it worked just fine each time!

I returned to Renault service center, and they said I'm either blessed or cursed

They sold me a special "dCi engine cleaner additive" to pour into fuel tank and drive the car on hard throttle on the motorway, and then monitor car's behavior in the upcoming period. They said that the issue might never return, as something might have been clogged or some device simply stuck.

I'll report of my findings. The worst thing now is that I have no confidence in taking the car "in the bush" as I am afraid it might break in the middle of nowhere, where I'll need a helicopter to bail the car out!

Hi Bosanek,

I'm glad you've had some progress. keep up with the additive by treating say one tankful a month for the next 3 months, then start to ween the engine off it, but one tankful every two months and so on, it'll clean the fuel system (though as it is a cleaner, there is a degree of abrasion, hence why you should not use it permenantly).

i'm surprised that engine is on a euro 4 cal, i'd expected it to be euro 3 interim, but its probably been flashed with euro 4, as the tech inside the engine is virtually identical, just in some engines a change in injection pressure (and the phasing in of DPF units).

Paul.