Need Help

bigdaddy1970

Hope somebody can help me out with this problem. My wife's volvo started acting up when ud try and start it, ud have to turn it over 2 sometimes 3 times before it would start and I can hear the fuel pump kick on every time. This went on for about a week or so then Wednesday it would start but if u gave it gas or tried going forward or in reverse it spits an sputters and tries to shut off. I changed the cap and rotor & its still doing it. When it's running u can add pedal slowly and it runs but if u tap the pedal it tries to shut off. I replaced a couple sworn vacuum lines thinking it was a vacuum leak, but it didn't change a thing. When I turn the key to on and purge the fuel rail it just trickles out. When its running it half ways sprays. My question is, would the fuel filter cause this?? It seems u have to keep hitting the key for it to start because its only letting a lil bit of fuel get through and when theres enough gas built up it starts up and duns for a bit spitting and sputtering off and on then after bit shuts off. Am I on the right track thinking fuel filter?? I can hear the fuel pump every time I turn the key and just acts like its a fuel issue. I put a bug bottle of treatment in when it started this crap thinking we got bad gas, but hasn't helped. I replaced plugs, wires, and air filter in April for routine maintenance as well. Again, I can hear the pump working and if you add pedal slowly it will rev up and you can hold at higher rpms, but when you tap the pedal or put it in gear (adding load needing more fuel) it dies. ANY IDEAS OR HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. Already paid for a cap an rotor that obviously I didn't need so didn't want to buy anything else without picking somebody elses brain. And with a collapsed right side of my spine and nerve damage I don't want to go through the physical pain of changing the filter which is a bugger to do on the AWD for nothing. THANKS in advance for any help given!!

Mr_Shiftright

One way to answer the question would be to put a fuel pressure gauge on the fuel rail and see how it's reading. But if you want to take a blind guess and change the fuel filter, that at least is a logical move given your symptoms. But these same symptoms could be from any number of things. Having the car scanned for trouble codes would also be very helpful to you.

bigdaddy1970

Thanks for the info Mr. Shifteight, the only codes my obd 2 is bringing up is showing it lean on bank 2 and the couple misfires that were stored from when I changed the plugs, wires, etc which was February, not April lime I thought. But unfortunately no codes to tell me what's going on now.

thecardoc3

You have a code for one bank lean, what you need to know is if both banks are lean and under what conditions. To do that the long and short term fuel trims for both banks must be monitored and the values added together under varying engine loads and speeds. This data combined with fuel pressure under the conditions that demonstrate the loss of power would be the first phase of testing. Another important piece of data is the calculated engine load pid. The trouble right now is that a lot of the generic OBDII code pullers don't support the scan data well enough (if at all) to do this.

bigdaddy1970

Carsoc3, my ODB does give calculated engine load pid & a whole lot more. The only thing I don't have on it is the ABS for volvos because I'm not paying $35-$40 just to download that info into my scanner. The downloads & updates are actually free, but where they get ya is charging for the program u have ro purchase to download the info ao it can lpad into my odb..lol

bigdaddy1970

Cardoc3, I'll run another scan tomorrow and right the pid and what other info its displaying. And THANKS for the help!!