(resolved) ‘02 Pajero Pinin 2.0 GDL throttle issue. P1221 on low load/low rpm
hey there.
bought the pajero last year with known throttle issue. TPS sensor had been replaced. one of the magnets in the throttle had been detached and i disassembled that and fixed it. car had been running quite fine since then. a couple of weeks ago the car whipped into limp mode when i was reducing load on the engine. code reader showed error P1221.
in idle the rpm’s are quite low and oscillate in the low couple hundreds, after a moment the rpm’s jump to 2,000ish and the car kicks into limp mode.
the pedal feels nice and stiff. the rpm’s feel fine when i’m at speed.
i’m hoping someone else might have had similar problems or if they had any insight on the issue.
Hopefully that will fix it.
I don't know where/how the ECU is mounted on the 2.0, but if it's the same as the 1.8, I feel your pain.
The 1.8 has the ECU mounted up under the dash on the right side, and if it's RHD, it's a pain to get to - I ended up removing the driver's seat so I could lie on my back looking up, and my reason for removing the ECU was so I could reach the ETACS that was mounted immediately behind it. The ETACS had to be modified to get the remote entry functions of a third party alarm system functional - normally a one hour job that took me almost a week.
I no longer have that car, and it's one of the few that I don't regret selling, I enjoyed owning it, but I recognized that maintaining it to the standard I wanted was going to be increasingly difficult, so I let it go.
just tucked away
ya, mine was in the right (passenger) side footwell, to the right of the glove compartment. i’m a really big guy so getting my hands in there was an immediate no, and i couldn’t even see the far side of the bracket! i didn’t even want to think about putting it back in after.
thankfully the issue lay with the magnets in the throttle so in the end i just left it alone.
thinking about doing a full gasket replacement on the engine but everything in the car is so brittle (at nearly 26 years old!) kinda scared to touch it. i keep breaking things and ordering more from amayama…
Not gasket related.
Burning oil and smoking out of the exhaust is not gasket related.
Gaskets seal "non moving" parts, for example the oil pan (or sump) to the block, if the engine is burning oil, and smoking out of the exhaust, it's either going to be worn rings or leaking valve seals, depending on how/when it smokes and how much oil it's burning.
The color of the smoke, by the way, is usually an indicator of what is burning, white smoke (steam) is usually coolant, bluish smoke is usually oil, black smoke is excess fuel.
All engines burn oil to some extent, how much oil does yours burn?
awesome thanks. i don’t know
awesome thanks. i don’t know too much about cars. the ownership has been quite the adventure.
it has been white smoke so i guess it’s a coolant leak. i must’ve done something poking around the throttle the first time.
oil is black after couple thousand k. using oem oil filters.
no codes since i repaired the throttle magnet.
GDI engines
The GDI combustion process is inherently dirty and shares several traits of the diesel combustion process (both of them inject fuel into the combustion chamber), one of them is the production of soot which finds it's way into the oil, causing it to darken rapidly.
Choose your engine oil carefully, a full synthetic developed specifically for GDI engines is preferable and change it frequently.
5w40
i’ve switched from 5w30 to 5w40. i read somewhere that 40 might be better for an older engine which is why i made the switch. i feel like the oil burn has gotten better since the switch, but i could just be gaslighting myself. the bottles say they’re formulated for european engines; i live in canada, our cars run on cheaper stuff. yes, it’s a fully synthetic oil.
my biggest issue has been octane, but ive been adding octane booster at the pump to get me that extra one or two points.
Syndicate
simplest solution is usually the right one
after doing some more research i began to think that the ecu unit was fried. i took out the panels and upon seeing how the ecu was mounted said “oh, frig this”. i decided to tear down the throttle just to make sure the solution wasn’t simpler. lo’ and behold the throttle plate wasn’t resetting when i pushed on the plate. took the throttle apart and found that the other magnet, the one that was fine when i fixed it the other time, had come completely unstuck. bought some more high heat epoxy and stuck it back together. situation should be resolved. will update tomorrow if it’s not resolved.