08 120d very sluggish last night....any thoughts ?

[Snowman23]

Afternoon all

I came out of work last night, pulled out onto the road trickling along in second, squeezed the accelerator a bit and there was nothing there, it felt like i was in 4th, or had left the handbrake on (it was a no on both fronts !)

As I made my way home kept trying to accelerate in most gears and it literally felt like somebody had swapped the engine during the day. About 10 mins in to my journey i join the A3 that has a nice long uphill slip road, so I floored it in 3rd and it picked up above 3,000 rpm and felt almost normal but once on the A3 and up to 80, foot down in 6th and absolutely nothing. I went out at 9 last night for a run to see if it had magically cured itself and presto it had ! Very strange...

I had an intermitent issue when the car was new where it would take a few seconds for the boost to kick in in 6th on the motorway

Anybody had anything similar or know what it could be ?

The car has done 18,500 miles by the way...oh and I fully realise it's a 2 litre diesel car and it's not the fastest thing on the road and will never 'live' with an M3

[noumenon]

Any warning light on the dash? There is probably a "limp home" mode which may have been triggered if it thought something was wrong.

[Neil.D]

Snowman23 said:

Afternoon all


oh and I fully realise it's a 2 litre diesel car and it's not the fastest thing on the road and will never 'live' with an M3

LoL, nice one

Presumably it is still under warranty? Take it to the dealers and explain this dangerous fault. Imagine this happended whilst overtaking...

[Snowman23]

Thanks guys, no warning lights on the dash...

It is under warranty and I plan to take it in on Saturday for a chat and hopefully an on the spot check, it's almost annoying that it's seemingly fixed itself, I can't see there being a quick resolution to this......

I was thinking with all the 1/3/520d's knocking about it might be a known fault

[onemorelap]

I've had an intermittent fault with mine with no warning lights coming on.

In gear acceleration below 2000rpm and on some occassions it's like the turbo isn't there. A slight lift and then re-application of the throttle cures it but it can be a bit frustrating sometimes.

Took it to the dealers and they couldn't find anything wrong with it (or the computer couldn't anyway)

Had the turbo linkage go within a month of owning it and that was obviously very noticeable. Your problem can't be that though if it's rectified itself.

[northandy]

sounds turbo related, heard of a few 177bhp ones going...

[LocoBlade]

Yup sounds like it could be a sticking turbo actuator, which is a fairly common fault, there's a couple of long threads about it on babybmw.net

[murphyslaw]

Had this 'sluggish' behaviour happen on my E46 330d a while back. Had the EGR valve replaced, air mass sensor and finally, one of the Injectors replaced.

Up until the injector was replaced, the problem persisted. Once injector replaced, not had problem since (touch wood).