We were driving along at 80 km/h in cruise this evening (in LPG mode) and the engine just stopped. I managed to pull off the road but by the time I stopped there was no power steer or brake assist.

I could restart on petrol (it can't start on gas) but idle was very lumpy (jumpy, even) and at first there was no throttle response. Eventually it would reluctantly rev to 2000 but when I tried to see if it would move off it wouldn't go above idle when in "D".

So called NRMA who came very quickly, there was lots of looking and head shaking but that ended with a "dunno, better get it towed".

So an hour or so later the tow arrived and it's now in the yard at the garage who installed the LPG, just in case the fix requires a look at that.

What could cause that? Oxygen sensor? Air volume sensor? Throttle body? Are they things that stop working mid-drive? The engine alert light did not illuminate.

I guess I find out tomorrow. Hopefully not something too $$$

Well it has to stay overnight again. The garage have diagnosed the coolant sensor as being a problem, and with an open circuit on that the injectors are flooding the engine.

The guys just don't have time to day to get and swap out the sensor for a surprise customer!

Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

that suks mate, hope u get it back on the road soon without costing tooo much!

D'oh.. good luck with the fix .. coolant sensor sounds a bit weird to me but if they sort it out all good!

FYI new coolant sensor from mitsu is like $75. I would of thought if it shorted it would just go to a default mode like if it was dead cold or something.

Easy fix I guess so go with it :D

Sounds like in hindsight I should have got it towed home, but it's hard to know what to do when you're stuck on the side of the road with a 4 year old and it's getting dark...

Makes sense, floods the engine so it runs rich and thus tries to keep it cooler....
Hope its nice n cheap for you.

Still no car.

New temp sensor fixed the idle & fuel measuring, but the guys said it lacks power from 3000 rpm. They didn't have much time to investigate today so it's there till Monday :-(

These guys sound like utter tools

Have they actually done a proper diagnostic on the car, what happened sounds more like perhaps the ignition coil or ignition module

I think the "dont hvae time to spend 2 minutes to change a sensor" is just a cop out, is right on top of the water outlet pipe and is easy as piss to get to

To be fair they didn't have the sensor in stock Thursday, so it was swapped in on Friday. I did just drop a car in their carpark in the dead of night without a booking (and they do LPG installs as well as servicing, so I guess finding time in a booked up garage is hard?)

Hopefully I get some diagnostic time on Monday now they know it needs doing.

Could the flow of unburned fuel through the exhaust have damaged the oxygen probe? Could that cause the rough running at 3000 rpm?

We did 1000 km of towing (an 1100 kg Jayco Eagle) a couple of weeks ago with no power problems.

PS thanks for the advice Mal. My Dad (TF Altera) and I will trek to you in Melbourne for our 200 000 km timing belt etc services in 18 months or so :-)

I really don't understand that if you are driving on LPG that a coolant sensor can make your injectors open and flood?
Even if you are on petrol and driving, it wouldn't come to a dead stop. It would start chugging and black smoke would appear. Sounds electrical.

I really don't understand that if you are driving on LPG that a coolant sensor can make your injectors open and flood?
Even if you are on petrol and driving, it wouldn't come to a dead stop. It would start chugging and black smoke would appear. Sounds electrical.

:stoopid: I had the same problem after my cruise control throttle jammed up on the screw clamp to the air intake on the throttle body after tryin to do that stupid coke bottle cap mod lol

Trust me Mal would know because my car was behaving the same as yours after I was trying to drive it and it wouldnt rev over 3000rpm, I shat myself and called Mal not knowing WTF was going on only to notice after a close inspection the next morning what the problem was. Check your throttle and make sure nothing is obstructing it, good luck

i had a falcon in the shop not long ago with a cat that was broken up due to running too rich (faulty injector)... symptom was not reving beyond 2000rpm.... replaced cat and all good

I really don't understand that if you are driving on LPG that a coolant sensor can make your injectors open and flood?
Even if you are on petrol and driving, it wouldn't come to a dead stop. It would start chugging and black smoke would appear. Sounds electrical.

When it happened I had no idea what was going on, but I think the LPG system beeped, telling me the car was switching to petrol. I guess the computer switched it when the sensor broke?

Lots of things happened all at once - LPG beeping, cruise switching off, car slowing rapidly, steering heavy and heavier bakes (though the engine compression was slowing us down pretty fast!). I'm just glad there wasn't too much traffic for me to pull across 2 lanes of traffic and up the gutter onto a grassy verge.

mate sorry to hear that, did you find out how much?

It's still there with an undiagnosed problem, so no idea yet... which can't be good.

possible ecu or sensor which are buggered, but thats just my guess..

All fixed. Needed a new temp sensor and distributor (and a bunch of dollars). Only 2 hours labour though.

Sweet, glad your back on the road without massive probs.

Taa - it feels good :-)

I'm going to Gosford and back on the weekend which will be a nice test drive.

Glad you are back on the road and I was right with my internet based diagnosis lol

This is becomming a more common item on these cars as they age

Glad you are back on the road and I was right with my internet based diagnosis lol

This is becomming a more common item on these cars as they age

Awesome work!

I guess we're learning together how these cars age...