Ford Mondeo 2lt Petrol Estate - Shuddering & no power

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Fri 28 Jan 2011 19:27
Ford Mondeo 2lt Petrol Estate - Shuddering & no power - DGBH

Hi,

I have the above vehicle which last Thursday started to shudder, after about 20 miles when approaching a junction and slowing down it was not sustaining the speed expected from when changing gears, and took a lot for the speed to pick up, another 10 miles there was almost no movement in the vehicle.

It became slow, I had my accelerator fully down and the vehicle was just about moving 2 mph ... I called the AA they changed the coil to the sum of £85.00. I returned to the vehicle several hours later to drive home, the vehicle started fine, I pulled away fine, usual speed and within 10 yards the vehicle was struggling to move. I called the AA out again, they had no idea I was conveyed to my home address. The AA guy suggested new spark plugs and cables, I have today changed the old with new spark plugs and cables, starts up fine, but when pulling away becomes all shuddering again to the point of stopping ...

Does anyone have any suggestions which is not going to immediately break the bank balance this week please.

Thanks in advance

Dean

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Fri 28 Jan 2011 21:26
Ford Mondeo 2lt Petrol Estate - Shuddering & no power - unthrottled
Shuddering at low speed/high load (ie pulling away) is a classic sign of coil pack insulation break down. It's usually fine at idle because the cylinder pressures are lower and a smaller voltage is required to jump the gap. You don't state the year, so I don't know how many coil packs the engine has. If you keep the revs up, and the cylinder pressures down, it should limp around.
Coil pack insulation breakdown is a pain because you can't test the coil pack with a multimeter, since it only breaks down under heavy voltage-so it is a gamble...

I run my spark plug gaps at 30 thou-below the recommended gap to take the strain off the coil packs. This can cause alightly lumpy idle though.
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Fri 28 Jan 2011 23:01
Ford Mondeo 2lt Petrol Estate - Shuddering & no power - Graham567
I once had this type of thing in an old car.It turned out that the baffles had dropped inside the exhaust blocking the exit.Put your hand over the exhaust pipe while someone revs the engine and check that the fumes are coming out ok.
Does the engine rev through the rev range at stand still?
How old is the car?
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Sat 29 Jan 2011 13:20
Ford Mondeo 2lt Petrol Estate - Shuddering & no power - smilleynially

Hi Dean, what year is your car?

As taken from HJ car breakdown -

WARNING An engine rattle from 4 - 10 year old 1.8i and 2.0i petrol engines might indicate wearing of the shaft of the injection air inlet manifold flaps. If the shaft breaks and the flaps come off they are then ingested by the engine, wrecking it. This is beoming increasingly common. Also affects 1.8i engines. Seewww.fordmondeo.org/forum/showtopic.php?tid/777251

This happened to my 2.0ltr Mondeo. No rattling but It showed the same symptoms as yours is.

Fingers crossed it isn't though!

Nial

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Sat 29 Jan 2011 13:34
Ford Mondeo 2lt Petrol Estate - Shuddering & no power - davmal

I run my spark plug gaps at 30 thou-below the recommended gap to take the strain off the coil packs. This can cause alightly lumpy idle though.

What should the gap be? A .030" reduction sounds quite hefty

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