[SudhanshuSD]

Anil,

We share the same workplace and the addition of pushing our cars hard into corners
I too have experienced some scary moments on this patch myself - especially as it has lot of loose gravel and I had bad tyres on my Linea. . .

Good to know you are OK - be safe and get your car checked. . .

Originally Posted by anilisanil

A few pics of the incident.

Attachment 572646

The left and right wheel tracks intersected.

Attachment 572647

The point from where I lost control.

Attachment 572648

The path just before the curve where I stopped, so I couldn't possibly doing more than 50-60 Kmph. I wasn't indeed.

Attachment 572649

A closer look at the skid marks


Edit: The car stalled again when I was returning to work place (This happened bang opposite to my workplace.) after taking these pics.

[anilisanil]

Originally Posted by selfdrive

Its a very unfortunate incident, and I hope you dont have a recurrence of this episode.
You mentioned that your car stalled again near your workplace: was your steering slightly turned then too? Have you tried to replicate/ simulate the same at different/ lower speeds?
A bit unlikely, but better to confirm you are fueling at your regular pump. At any stage of this episode, did your wheels lock at all?

As I said, I have no memory of what exactly happened. But I guess when the car stalled, the front wheels got locked and lost traction causing the car to spin about the front end.

Stalling happens irrespective of the Pump, but I will try and make a note of it as I use only 2 pumps for refuelling.

[anachronix]

Originally Posted by vina

Do diesels knock? I though knocking occurs in petrol engines only and that too if the fuel-air mixture ignites prematurely during the compression stroke.

In diesels there is no fuel in the cylinder till the ignition stroke, so how will knocking occur?



Also how would a knock sensor help/hurt Anil's situation?



EDIT: I may have been wrong about diesels not knocking Engine knocking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia says diesels always knock but the last question still remains

Left me confused as well, I was wrong by all means I guess! Sorry about that, what I read could be about the petrols!

However, I could find a flat response knock sensor for both Petrol/Diesel units mfg'ed by Delphi!

Here : http://delphi.com/shared/pdf/ppd/sen...flat_knock.pdf

[jayded]

Originally Posted by anilisanil

I had a heart in mouth situation. …
I am literally shivering as I type this.

Jayded: How is your car doing?

That's a really scary situation Anil. Like I have mentioned before, a driver realize the graveness of this issue only when he faces a similar situation and unfortunately I too did. We tend to ignore it most other times since the car would be in a straight line but once it happens on a curve and when the car behaves in an unpredictable manner, that's when we take it up seriously. Lucky that nothing unfortunate happened to you or your car.

My car has not stalled even once after the fuel injector replacement. They were changed when my odo read 9,4xx kms and now it stands at 11,4xx. So it's been 2K kms without the stalling issue, touch wood. I make it a point to revv my car over 3,500 rpm once in 10 days (for few seconds only) or so just to make sure I am following what Ford has adviced in the Figo manual.

I don't know if it's too early to call, but as of now, the fuel injector replacement seems to have worked in my case. Except for the slightly noisier engine, I'm happy with the present situation.

Keep us updated on what Ford has to say about this.

Originally Posted by anilisanil

Also another question, would my engine re-ignite by itself if I release the clutch after it stalled (push start)?

Yes it would. Have done it a couple of times when my car used to die on me.

EDIT:
I just realized that this kind of freqent stalling is not all doing any good to the car's turbo. Once the car starts stalling, then the frequency can be something like 2-3 times a day which in my opinion if really bad on the turbo considering that this happens at high speeds most of the time.

[gemithomas]

anil, can you confirm if you have been following the 30 second 3000rpm thingy. When did you do it last prior to this experience.

[anilisanil]

Originally Posted by gemithomas

anil, can you confirm if you have been following the 30 second 3000rpm thingy. When did you do it last prior to this experience.

I confirm I touch 3000 rpm more often than not and every Monday, I touch 3500 rpm in second gear. This Monday was no different.

[vina]

Originally Posted by anilisanil

I am pretty much sure that I am driving my car rather spiritedly. And this more often than not happens when steering is slightly turned and when you are about to downshift. This time even the a/c was not on.
...

Originally Posted by anachronix

1. I remember reading during the initial stages of the Figo launch discussion that the knock sensor is not there in the Figo TDCi. I am unable to trace that part of discussion anyway! But thats somewhere I would start looking at, a faulty knock sensor could also be a case if its there!

2. In a stall situation, releasing the clutch helps in bringing the car back to life if the car is still on the move.

Originally Posted by figo_mba

I am at reproducing the event and I found that some amount of hard braking is required along with working the clutch and lowering of gear.
But I cannot consistently reproduce it.

Guys, Please can you try various combos. Many is always better than one.

I remember diesel Fiesta had this problem of engine switching off during the rainy season (monsoons). The problem was attributed to a loose cam sensor.
So when the engine switch off issue happened to me I went to the dealer to check the cam sensor but they confirmed it was not the issue. Now I think we need to find the real cause..

...

From my experiences as a design engineer: the hardest debugs are those where more than one cause may be in play. They become harder when they occur in rare product units off the production line and impossible if even the faulty units have them rarely (= no reproducibility)

Hence unless Ford guys are impolite it wouldn't be too fair to blame their after-sales-support, as Anil has already mentioned.


Now coming to the problem - can we at least isolate whether this happens only at high-rpm or only at low rpm or both (and more complexities - like on some cars only at low rpm, on other cars only at high rpm)?

what is your experience so far?




PS: From figo_mba's post above, I feel it may be possible that when you brake heavily when the clutch is engaged, the rpm on the wheel side may drop below the rpm needed to idle the next lower gear. then if you release the clutch too fast, engine will go below its idling rpm - will stall. Now the ECU map might be toasted and the stalling rpm may have been set too high, or something of the sort might have happened.

Also, if the rpm was high when you downshifted, there is a possibility that you go beyond the redline when you downshift - if ECU detects that it may shut down the injection (BAD maping again - shutting fuel injection would have been better). again BAD mapping might have set the over-revving limit too low.

Both of the above look impossible, unless some control loop in the algorithm is trying to set the idling rpm or over-rev rpm dynamically based on sensor inputs etc. - and messing up in the process.

the above are two different (hypothetical) problems that will happen in two different conditions, more isolated information will help.

[anilisanil]

Originally Posted by vina

PS: From figo_mba's post above, I feel it may be possible that when you brake heavily when the clutch is engaged, the rpm on the wheel side may drop below the rpm needed to idle the next lower gear. then if you release the clutch too fast, engine will go below its idling rpm - will stall. Now the ECU map might be toasted and the stalling rpm may have been set too high, or something of the sort might have happened.

Also, if the rpm was high when you downshifted, there is a possibility that you go beyond the redline when you downshift - if ECU detects that it may shut down the injection (BAD maping again - shutting fuel injection would have been better). again BAD mapping might have set the over-revving limit too low.

Both of the above look impossible, unless some control loop in the algorithm is trying to set the idling rpm or over-rev rpm dynamically based on sensor inputs etc. - and messing up in the process.

the above are two different (hypothetical) problems that will happen in two different conditions, more isolated information will help.

The problem is definitely at low rpm, coz the problem occurs as soon as you depress the clutch, making the rpm close to idle. So if you are not quick enough to release the clutch the engine stalls.

Now there are two scenarios-

1. You released the clutch and the vehicle speed is good enough for a gear. In this case the car just chugs along with a small jerk and the engine comes back to life.
2. If you are too slow for the current gear or there is not enough momentum, the car would not fire back.

Now 2 is a grave problem because its tricky. Like in my case yesterday, the car shutdown but before the tires could push start the engine, they lost traction and I started skidding off.

Also for the car to start itself, it is good to be in a straight line path. If you are negotiating a curve chances are that you notice this because, you lose the steering and braking control for those moments before the engine fires back. Which is why most observations of the fault here are when the one is negotiating a turn.

So this is not a problem when you face this in a straight line (it is probable that you may not even notice this even if it happens because the engine generally fires back once you release the clutch). But if you stall your engine while taking a turn, you are in for soup.

[vina]

Originally Posted by anilisanil

The problem is definitely at low rpm, coz the problem occurs as soon as you depress the clutch, making the rpm close to idle. So if you are not quick enough to release the clutch the engine stalls.
...

I meant just before the problem occurred (i.e. just before you pressed the clutch), were you driving in high rpm or in low rpm?

also were you trying to accelerate or were you trying to break?

Let's gather this data from everybody - may be with more information the problem can be replicated on some car

[gr8guzzler]

In my case it occurs when I am slowing down to take a speedbump or twice it happened when I drastically slowed down from a higher speed for a red signal. When I press the clutch during both these scenarios the car dies. One thing I have noticed is that the day this happens, usually my clutch feels harder than usual.

[figo_mba]

Originally Posted by vina

I meant just before the problem occurred (i.e. just before you pressed the clutch), were you driving in high rpm or in low rpm?

also were you trying to accelerate or were you trying to break?

Let's gather this data from everybody - may be with more information the problem can be replicated on some car

I was driving at 70 or so speed when the car stalled on me. I had braked slightly and depressed the clutch so as to change the gears. The engine stalled but the car continued to speed. Could this be a problem with the Idle air control sensor ? Problems with the idle air control sensor is known to have caused engine seizure during rapid deceleration (In the ford petrols in Europe)

just wondering if this is a case here.

[kpzen]

Originally Posted by anilisanil

Well it was not a turn, its just a curve(its a circle at junction of four roads, and I was keeping on the same road before and after the circle so it is not much of a steep curve), and I was doing not more than 60KMPH in fourth gear.

I think when the car shut down, there was not enough traction to over come the engine braking so tires kind of skidded and car started spinning. I seriously do not know what I am to do. This scared the living day lights off me.

Anil.

Glad that all is well.

Other the engine shutting off thing, get all 4 suspension assy checked once.
From the pics, i think the rear has popped out of track which made the car spin out of control.

[blackfire_9]

Guys, this might be completely different than the problem at hand in this thread but I just wanted to pitch in with some thing that I have observed in my Maruti Alto. Yes, it's not a Figo, but then the problem is similar & so thought of sharing it here in case it helps.

My car has never stalled but the engine does seem to go down on its knees on such sudden deccelarations & upon frequent visits to the MASS, it was identified as an issue with the air sensor. This is supposedly some sensor that controls the idle rpm. Another consequence of this faulty sensor had been the erratic rpm of engine when stopping at some traffic signal after some high rpm run. The rpm would stay high & take longer than usual to settle down to the usual idle.

Drive safe.

[anilisanil]

UPDATE: I just spoke to the RSM on the stalling issue. It seems Ford has acknowledged the problem and are working to replicate it on their test tracks. If the RSM is to be believed there should be some solution soon and he would inform me as soon as one evolves.

[Sheel]

3,000 rpm + limit is supposed to be attempted at least in 3rd or higher gears in a diesel Car.
Hope your issue resolves soon enough.