[rajneeesh]

Hi All, My 2004 Indica DLS has been guzzling fuel for the past few weeks. I got the clutch overhauled recently but the problem persists. The car feels a bit low on power as well. It has done close to 97 K Km. The fuel consumption these days is 10 KMPL

Do I get the fuel pump checked or do I need to get the compression check done? The car starts easily enough.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by rajneeesh

The car feels a bit low on power as well.

It has done close to 97 K Km.

The fuel consumption these days is 10 KMPL

Cheap : Get an engine flush and / or decarb done. You'll be surprised at the effect of these relatively cheap treatments on old N/A diesels.

Then, have the fuel pump & engine compression tests performed.

[tsk1979]

97K, 99% your fuel pump is acting up. You can get it overhauled from lucas. Works wonders. After every 80-90K kms, fuel pump normally starts acting up in the NA indica. It will keep working for 50-60,000kms more if you do not touch it, but performance will slowly degrade.
If you can find a second hand sumo fuel pump from scrap, get that fitted. Its bosch, and better quality than the lucas pump which comes in the indica.

[teknophobia]

My engine idle RPM has been fluctuating a lot recently, it's normal when I start, but after a few kms the idle RPM goes up to 1050-1100 and keeps fluctuating up and down by 50-70 rpm. happens randomly with/without AC. The engine note also changes with the RPM, so I'm reasonably sure its not a tacho calibration/voltage issue. ANyone have any ideas?

[teknophobia]

p.s. the power output of the engine goes up when the RPM goes up.

apparently I can edit the post only for twenty mins, so this second post

[indivic]

Guys,

My Indica makes a croaking and hissing noise when going over bumps, it is a bit temperamental though - the sound either appears every time I go over a bump or never on the same route.

Methinks the struts are giving away, how can I check that before I approach any service centre to prevent getting ripped off ? Odo reading is 47k and the car is 6 years old

Visual inspection on the wheel wells indicates no oil leakage, can the shocks alone be replaced or do I have to change the entire strut assembly ?

Thanks in advance

[vaisakhr]

Originally Posted by indivic

Guys,

My Indica makes a croaking and hissing noise when going over bumps, it is a bit temperamental though - the sound either appears every time I go over a bump or never on the same route.

Methinks the struts are giving away, how can I check that before I approach any service centre to prevent getting ripped off ? Odo reading is 47k and the car is 6 years old

Visual inspection on the wheel wells indicates no oil leakage, can the shocks alone be replaced or do I have to change the entire strut assembly ?

Thanks in advance

You can check the struts by pushing all the corners of the car. Push it hard several time and obereve and sound is coming, if some problem is there with struts you can clearly hear similar sound from the faulty strut during the pushing experiment.

I think the you can change the entire strut assembly only. it costs between 1.8k and 2.5k.

[indivic]

Originally Posted by vaisakhr

You can check the struts by pushing all the corners of the car. Push it hard several time and obereve and sound is coming, if some problem is there with struts you can clearly hear similar sound from the faulty strut during the pushing experiment.

I think the you can change the entire strut assembly only. it costs between 1.8k and 2.5k.

Thanks vaisakhr, I was not sure if I should do the pushing check since I read somewhere that it is not correct to do so. Will try that today. The only reason why I don't want to change the strut assembly is.. money - if it is just the shockers that are worn out why waste the other items which are otherwise working correctly.

[anonymous]

My indica is now almost 6.5 years old and have clocked 125000 KM. The car had been running absolutely fine until one day, when my battery died (It was Amaron and served me well for close to 5 years without any sort of trouble whatsover), so I switched to Exide and boy oh boy, was that a mistake. Indeed it was. This brand new battery died within 1 month. During this time, my autocop central locking had also stopped working and an engineer from autocop said that the main system had developed chip malfuntion due to moisture and it needs to be replaced. The cost was 1600 bucks. I switched to manual mode. Not sure if this had something to do with the battery being drained but anyways, I took the car to TASS and they gave me temp battery while they check mine. I had no issues with this temp battery for 2/3 days. One day I stopped the car and would not remove the key from the ignition but turned it off completely. There was no audio device (Lights, indicators, audio system ) running at this time and when I tried to start the car after 5 minutes, it failed to start (I had re connected the autocop just day before this). I again disconnected it and started the car after 5 minutes and wow, it started just fine.
Meanwhile TASS fully charged my battery and used it in another car for 2/3 days and it worked fine.
The story does not end here.
TASS told me that battery is fine. It may be possible that I kept any light on due to which it drained the battery so it needed to be re charged by external resource which they did.
More trouble
They also told me that both front shocker were gone and it needed to be replaced. The cost of replacement is 6k+some additional work on it. Cost another 6k+There is rust under the body and it would have to be repaired later on and it would cost me around 20k.
Last week, one of front tyre had a punture and later on it developed a buldge on the sidewall. Upon further check, there was a cut from inside. So I had to replace both front tyres. Cost 6K.

I was earlier thinking to keep this car for another 1 year but I think its better to sale it now.

[vaisakhr]

Originally Posted by indivic

Thanks vaisakhr, I was not sure if I should do the pushing check since I read somewhere that it is not correct to do so. Will try that today. The only reason why I don't want to change the strut assembly is.. money - if it is just the shockers that are worn out why waste the other items which are otherwise working correctly.

Is it? Any particular reason for that? I suggested you that method because its the most popular and effective way of checking the strut wot any dis assembly. I got this technique from a TASS itself. They checked my car like this and told one of my strut (rear right) need to be changed which is still in pending list.

The main cause of sound will be the damper inside the suspension. Check it in a SC and ask them whether it can be serviced instead replacement.

Rgds.

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by teknophobia

My engine idle RPM has been fluctuating a lot recently, it's normal when I start, but after a few kms the idle RPM goes up to 1050-1100 and keeps fluctuating up and down by 50-70 rpm. happens randomly with/without AC. The engine note also changes with the RPM, so I'm reasonably sure its not a tacho calibration/voltage issue. ANyone have any ideas?

I suspect the alternator / alternator regulator malfunction. Get it checked at TASS or Lucas TVS service center.

[teknophobia]

Took it to the ASC today, everything checked out fine, they suspect a batch of bad diesel as the problem started after my last fill up. Since there's no power drop or filter choking, they've advised me to just burn off the fuel. So now that I have 3/4th of a tank of diesel to burn up quickly, as of today my new middle name is "leadfoot". Honestly though, I had forgotten how much fun flooring the accelerator can be on this baby (the reason why I had bought it in the first place). I'll post an update in a week or so, probably once I get stranded somewhere after running out of fuel

[rajneeesh]

Originally Posted by GTO

Cheap : Get an engine flush and / or decarb done. You'll be surprised at the effect of these relatively cheap treatments on old N/A diesels.

Then, have the fuel pump & engine compression tests performed.

Thanks for your suggestion GTO and Tanveer,

I took the car to Auto Engineers in Sec 16 again and we were able to identify the issue. This was the last ditch effort before getting into the FP thing.

A small motor, that has two hoses connected to it and sits near the radiator was the culprit. What it is supposed to do is, up the RPM by 250 or so when the AC is switched, on so that the engine can take the load better. While the motor was ok, one of the two nozzles connected to it had broken. As a result, the RPM would not go up when the AC was in use. This put a lot of load on the engine and the car was always being driven in a lower gear and with a heavy foot on the accelarator

It cost me Rs 100 for the motor , Rs 160 for the air filter and Rs 100 towards labour cost.

The car is running much betr now and the fuel consumption has also decreased. It is around 15 KPL. Will be able to give a more authoritative figure after a couple of tankfulls.

[EFF-EIGHT-BEE]

Err thats basically not a motor, its a solenoid valve which just turn on/off vaccum in the pipe to which it is connected which in turn lifts a thing(don't know the name though) and as a result RPM is raised

[indivic]

Originally Posted by rajneeesh

A small motor, that has two hoses connected to it and sits near the radiator was the culprit. What it is supposed to do is, up the RPM by 250 or so when the AC is switched, on so that the engine can take the load better.

Originally Posted by EFF-EIGHT-BEE

Err thats basically not a motor, its a solenoid valve which just turn on/off vaccum in the pipe to which it is connected which in turn lifts a thing(don't know the name though) and as a result RPM is raised

I think it is called FICD - fast idle control device