Renault Espace (1997 - 2002) - 02 2.2 DCI difficult starting | Technical matters | Back Room Forum

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Tue 16 Feb 2010 10:36

02 2.2 DCI difficult starting - espace22

Hi. I have been reading through all the issues with this engine (Vol1 & Vol2), but my problem is slightly different ...

Last summer the radiator fan started coming on full blast whenever the car (which I've had from new, now on 90k miles) was stationery in traffic, but as the water level and temp guage were OK, and the engine seemed normal, I put this down to probably the water temp sensor going soft and ignored it.

Soon afterwards, the car became very difficult to start when warm, but absolutely fine when cold. I reasoned that maybe the same sensor was misleading the ECU?

Anyway, as autumn approached these sypmtoms eased, and at the next service (non-Renault!) I asked them to replace the glowplugs. I did this because on our previous Mk3 Espace (2.2dt), this made a huge difference to starting. However, in this case, it made no difference at all.

The problem of difficult starting has now evolved into the car becoming either OK (starts first time) or a complete pain (lots of churning, chugs a bit, dies, try again etc.) - and the mystery is that this now appears completely random! Some days, it will start a dream several times, some days all painful, other days a mixture of emotions - cold, warm or hot doesn't come into it anymore.

My current reasoning is that maybe the radiator fan fault (which incidentally isn't blasting now, presumably because of the cold weather) is unrelated after all, and I've got something else playing up. Then, I'm thinking it can't really be any of the major faults reported in Vol1 & Vol2 (EGR, injectors, HP pump, turbo etc.) because some days its fine, and always after its started it runs OK anyway.

Am I maybe looking at another sensor (TDC?) that's misbehaving, or a bad connection somewhere?

Vol1 & Vol2 have made me rather fearful that it may be wise not to start poking around and going down the path of guessing and changing things - and at 90k maybe its time to chop it in.

If I did sell this one, my aim would be to buy a used Mk4 - but these still have the 2.2dci engine! So was there a time when all the design faults were rectified and it was safe to buy the 2.2dci, or is it still regarded as a pig?

Many thanks for any expert help.

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