Silly_me

A bit of help please.
2005 W211 CDI w/50k miles. I had posted about it having a surging of power at low load and a few thought it to be the EGR valve.
Well, today I drove in to work and she had NO acceleration at all. I mean I would floor it and she would act like I was barely telling it to move. I tried manually shifting but all that did was provide slow acceleration at a higher RPM.
She had no problem keeping an 81mph pace on the freeway. So there wasn’t a lack of staying power, just no acceleration at all. No noise, no bucking, no odd engine issues aside from the no power deal. Everything was normal, just in slow motion
Giving it just a bit of throttle made 0-30mph seem normal, but anything more was asthmatic.
What the hell is this? Could the EGR problem result in this? Could the turbo just give it up (in the parking garage I could hear what I determined to be the turbo “whoosing” under acceleration).
There are no warning lights on, no message in the display, nothing. I thought modern cars threw lights at you if you farted in the seat wrong.
Please help!

Baron11

Get it checked professionaly before you screw something up. Well not you personally, but if the engine is not running right, get it checked before it affects something else. If the EGR and O2 aren't working right, your exhaust should be notably darker and with more soot, if this is the case you risk clogging up your emissions.

Bryan

Polar Bear

EGR would cause that. The vehicle goes in limp home mode, and the VTG vanes on the turbo do not tilt to prevent the turbo from generating boost. It will have virtually no acceleration and cannot climb a steep hill at full throttle. Generally stopping, turning the car off, and restarting the car will restore power. It sounds like you need to have the DTB I sent you performed.

No, it will NOT always give a Check Engine light when the EGR is starting to go. It will eventually, but not at first.

Also, if you don't mind, try to observe your full throttle acceleration now (with the car running properly) and after the DTB is performed. It seems that my car doesn't have quite the acceleration with the new software upgrade. Not a big difference, but noticeable.

I can hear the turbo whistle while revving from an idle, and before it was more silent, but I could hear the surge of air more before the DTB.

harkgar

Please post this DTB for all to see.

C5DRVR

I second the above opinions. My 2005 CDI had the exact same symptoms. Around 60,000 miles my EGR failed and no acceleration as described above. At 135,000 miles the same condition occurred but this time it was the MAF sensor. Also, both times there was no check engine light. However, the technicians were able to see the failures with their diagnostic equipment. Get this problem addressed quickly as the loss of power is dramatic and could be very dangerous. What if you are trying to pull out into traffic and the car loses power ?

Silly_me

I took it in today and the Service Advisor was not really interested in anything I had to say (showing him the TSB etc). He had never seen a CDI with this issue, he also believed that if it was something mechanical like the EGR (he thought it was electrical) that it would a) not be intermittent and b) it would throw a code.

So, since I had no codes and they didn't know what could cause the surging and the accel issue (seriously why did they want to drive it? Can they not take the owner's word?) they really didn't seem confident that they could diagnose it so they didn't and I didn't pay for anything today.

So we agreed that I would drive around until a code was thrown. He said that no harm could come to the car in regards to this even if it was the EGR.

Polar Bear

I feel 99% certain that is your problem. It will take a while for it to generate Check Engine light. The surging will start to get much worse.

Polar Bear

I would but it may be against the forum rules. If you want to PM me your email address, I can send it to you.

sonci

Wrong post

ot1

hello Polar Bear I PMed you as I see you are still around.