Now recently I have experienced two times, within two days, an engine cut off while driving. Both times while accelerating to between 70 and 90 km/h (43 and 57 miles).

My car is a Volvo S40 1.6D, '07 mod, 80 000 km, all services done (the last one was service 2.0 w/ firmware upgrade for a month ago. Where they also did read out the cars log, and found no serious things to report).

I'm the third owner, and have only done the last 15 000 km. Mainly short distance driving. More or less the last year the engine hasn't been running all smoothly. But having tendency to loose power for a fraction of a second, 2 - 3 times pr. 10 - 20 minutes.

My S40 also have a kind of fan that tries to stat every time I park. But mostly it fails and just give a humming sound which last about 3 second.

 

Hi Silver, welcome to the site.

I really have no experience with the S40's but in general, how old is the battery? Other issues may be a failing fuel pump or bad throttle control.

Does the car display a CEL?

 

There is lot of electrical power. Both times I tried to start by turning the key, only to hear the start engine run as normal while the main engine remained silent. But suddenly the main engine still come awake within 2 - 3 minutes.

I forgot to pay special attention to the message display. I just noticed that where plenty of electrical power, though the radio kept on playing without any sign of electrical fall outs.

What does eventually the message "CEL" report about?

 

Check Engine Light. Meaning have the car scanned for error codes which will point you to the likely problem.

 

No, on the dashboard there ar no indicators lightening at all. But I have done som discovering.

First I had the car to a repair shop to read the error codes, the day after I posted my problem here. One error was registered. The Diesel Pressure Regulator had reported an error/failure. But they needed to check other places/sources about possible reasons and contact me later. (BTW: The same day I found a dead mouse on top of the radiator. So I removed the plastic lid on top of the engine block, then looked around in the engine room to see if there where bee some biting marks after the mouse. Though I couldn't see any suspicios at all. But I do wonder what kind of things that attracted the mouse.)

Since then, the engine has cut out relative regularly. Some days I go, I filled up the tank with Diesel Extra from Shell (they have extra detergent in their diesel type). Then I added a bottle of Kemetyl (K-Diesel 300 ml). Just to see if some cleaning effect could solve the problem. But very soon I found the result negative.

Later I went on a country road trip. Where I finally discovered how the symptoms works. Therefor I have done som testing the last 3 days. The symptoms seem to be like this...

1) As long as the engine is cold, everything works fine.
2) When the engine temperatur reach normal working temperature, it gets sensitiv to acceleration. Because when I then hit the pedal and let the engine reach between about 2300 and 2900 RPM, it loses power. After this, it's really hard to build up speed surpass 37.5 mph (60 km/t). Uphill it's hard to surpass 25 mph (40 km/t) .
3) If I then, after the lose of power, let the engine work between about 2300 and 2900 RPM for 1 to about 10 minutes further, it most surely cut out.

Further I discovered this phenomenon...
1) After engine cut out, the car seemed not willing to start when turning the ignition key back and forth between position 1 (power on) and position 3 (start engine). But as soon as I turn the key to position 0 (power off) and then try to start, the engine starts immediately. Also all it's power is back, until it reach between about 2300 and 2900 RPM again. Then the failure repeats.

2) If I, during the loss of engine power, stops and shut off the ignition, the car starts immediately when I turn the ignition back to position 3 (start engine). Also then the engine got all it's power back. As described, until, the next acceleration (causing loss of power) followed by continouos driving with the engine running at 2300 to 2900 RPM (causing engine cut out).

 

After even more driving, the main problem seem to be just that the engine just suddenly shut down, in kind of a boom stop and then the RPM-meter slowly falls to zero.

In order to get the engine started again, I have to turn the ignition totally off and then on. Even if I imediately turn it on, it just starts as nothing ever happens. Then, within a short time I possibly experience all the same several times. It's seems as turning off the ignition totally make the car forget the problem for a short while - each and every time.

 

After some lot more lasting test drive, I discovered how this symptom was and was developing. First I let the engine reach normal temperature. Then I drove the car for 30 minutes with the engine running at 3000 to 3500 RPM. Then the symptom came clear. Because from this point of I had to push the pedal extremely slow to build up speed. Every time I unintentionally made a tiny to hard push on the pedal, the engine cut - no matter which RPM the engine was running at.*

SOLUTION: This is caused by the car's limp mode (emergency mode), even though no indicators ever showed. So I got it solved by letting a Volvo repair shop to refill the additive tank with additive fluid (VO 1161752). Which is supposed to be done at each 60 000 km service (I found it was skipped on my car).*

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NEXT NEW PROBLEM
But now, after this fix, I have another symptom. Which is that it's nearly impossible to have the engine pass 3000 RPM. At 3000 RPM nothing happens at all when pushing the pedal to the floor. Below 2800 everything is acting normal. If the engine do pass 3000 RPM, it instantly drops to between 2800 and 3000 RPM, and then keeps acting normal between 0 and 3000 RPM.

 

Hi I am facing the same problem with my Volvo S60 D5 Diesel, how did you manage to fix this issue? Please share. I really need help.

 

I guess it’s not the «limp mode» you Ask about. In that case the solution is allready described above (the fuel additive). This problem occured when the car passed 83 000 km. The additive fluid on this S40 1.6D ‘07 mod should have been refilled at the 60 000 km service, but was eventually refilled shortlu after it’s 80 000 km service.

The second problem about RPM, I don’t remember. I did keep track of all the services and repairs that car went through, But didn’t find anything,

Just to make a wild guess. Could it be be a loose hose or faulty pressure regulator of some sort..?
Is battery and the electrical system ok?

I recommend trying reading out error codes through the ODB II connector. Get an ODB II plug with BlueTooth or WiFI, and try one or some of these apps…
- DashCMD (Dashcommand) -> https://www.palmerperformance.com
- Carly -> https://www.mycarly.com
- Carista -> https://caristaapp.com/en
…or others

Be aware that some ODB II apps require ODB II plug of certain brands.

 

Hi
Thanks for the reply.
I used the fuel additive and changed the fuel filter, restarted the computer by disconnecting the battery, mechanics also unable to identify the issue.

Today I found some oil in the part in the image, can you identify it and its role etc.