VF SV6 advice

[MattyC95]

Hey all, I'm after some advice or help in regards to my 2014 VF SV6 wagon. It's been off the road for 2 months now and honestly it's killing me! I've got some sort of problem with the engine where it has thrown a few coded at me, it idles extremely rough and is in a sort of limp mode, the left side of the exhaust comes out cold but right side is still hot.

P0430-catalyst efficiency below threshold
P0068-throttle position correlation
P0101-MAF sensor correlation
P0300-random multiple misfire

I have since replaced the post cat o2 sensors, the coil packs and spark plugs with no improvement yet. I feel I've done all I can at home but has anyone had a similar experience or know what I could check next? I'm hoping to resolve it at home instead of paying up to have it towed to Holden. Any advice or help is much appreciated, thanks.

 

[snortings]

Exhaust coming out cold seems to me that there is very little combustion on the passenger side bank. Is there any smoke coming from the exhaust?

Catalyst Efficiency Below Threshold
To me that error means that your car is adding more pollution into the air than it’s supposed to. You've replaced the post cat o2 sensors, I'd also be trying my luck and changing the ones before the cat. Could also be a fuel injection problem?

Throttle position/maf sensor Correlation
These are commonly caused by the same issue, the PCM has detected an inconsistency in the positioning of the throttle sensor with the MAF. Check there are no air leaks anywhere, especially around the throttle body.

Multiple Misfire
As I said before in this post, I'd be checking the fuel injectors, they could be clogged. I'm *pretty* sure the injectors are interchangeable over both banks, im not a mechanic so I wouldn't know, but maybe try swapping the right injectors with the left and see what that does? If you then get problems on the other bank well that's one of your issues hopefully solved.

Hope this helps.

 

[Forg]

Before poasting what I’m about to poast, I should provide a disclaimer ... I’m a complete noob, and my comments here are really only in the hope of eliciting answers from someone who actually knows what they’re doing.

I wonder how the ECU knows the cat efficiency is below par - with zero knowledge, my guess would be a temp sensor & the cat’s not heating up enough?
Could the cat be clogged, if it’s not heating up enough? But anyhoo, if the problem is just not enough heat getting into the cat, fixing the misfire will probably fix this.

So I agree with Snortings - these symptoms do sound like maybe too much fuel or not enough combustion, one side of the exhaust being cold kinda says the same. I did think that for efficiency reasons a V6’s exhaust system would combine both sides together (vortices created by gas pulses from one bank helping ‘suck’ the next pulse from the other bank down the exhaust-pipe - to oversimplify in a way that would make an exhaust expert cringe ), but looking at images of the V6 exhaust maybe you do still get the majority of exhaust from a bank going to the same-side tip. But - I really don’t know if that’s true, just suggesting that this symptom of ‘one side being cold’ may be a wild goose chase.

Swapping the injectors from one side to the other is probably a good call, as that can be done without spending on parts. Then if the problem moves, replacing or cleaning is fairly likely to fix it. Direct-injection injectors are fairly exxy to buy aren’t they? So a clean may be the way to go.

 

[vywgn]

Try disconnecting the battery for an hr so the ECU and stuff can reset it self. With the way cars remember things they can cause stupid little issues and a simple thing like this can fix it

 

[MaxCommie689]

[Thread dig]

I encountered a P0300 code while in my stock 2016 Calais V (V6) yesterday evening.

IThe car started up fine, I drove around 1.5kms from home and stopped at a red light. After a few seconds of stopping, the steering wheel started shaking - mildly at first and then pretty violently, a check engine light came up and the MID showed a "Service ESP" message. A few seconds later, everything went back to normal. How normal you might ask. It was as if nothing happened, enough for me to question my sanity

I drove around running some errands and came back home about an hour later. Did a scan with an el-cheapo bluetooth OBD scanner. It picked up the P0300 error code. The car was behaving normally before and after the incident. So, I cleared the code and drove around the block a few times - parking, shutting down and restarting the car in the process. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened till now.

What should I be doing?

 

[Skylarking]

If this P0300 misfire occurred just after or soon after refuelling, I’d be suspect a shite batch of fuel.

What to do? Check the inside of the tank would be a start. Then if there is dirt or stratified liquids within the tank, drain it of all fuel and liquids and then flush the tank clean. Also flush the fuel line and injectors clean.

The only issue is that on. f this is an expensive exercise because Holden in its wisdom hasn’t provided a fuel pump access hatch under the rear seat which means you must drop the tank
You could remove an injector and look at the injection ports are clear.

On my clunker of a daily driver, my injectors were visibly clogged up on removal. Isopropyl alcohol cleaned them up nicely on the outside while I used carbi or maf cleaner and a 9V battery to open up the injector so I could spray them clean on the inside. Worked a treat.

If this issue hasn’t occurred around refuelling then it could be a sudden onset of faulty injectors so check the injector resistance and confirm the are within spec, else check leads, plugs, coil packs, wiring and earths and the normal things around suck squish bang fart fuel and spark…

 

[MaxCommie689]

If this P0300. Is fire occurred just after or soon after refuelling, I’d be suspect a shite batch of fuel.

What to do? Check the inside of the tank would be a start. Then if there is dirt or stratified liquids within the tank, drain it of all fuel and liquids and then flush the tank clean. Also flush the fuel line and injectors clean.

The only issue is that on. f this is an expensive exercise because Holden in its wisdom hasn’t provided a fuel pump access hatch under the rear seat which means you must drop the tank
You could remove an injector and look at the injection ports are clear.

On my clunker of a daily driver, my injectors were visibly clogged up on removal. Isopropyl alcohol cleaned them up nicely on the outside while I used carbi or maf cleaner and a 9V battery to open up the injector so I could spray them clean on the inside. Worked a treat.

If this issue hasn’t occurred around refuelling then it could be a sudden onset of faulty injectors so check the injector resistance and confirm the are within spec, else check leads, plugs, coil packs, wiring and earths and the normal things around suck squish bang fart fuel and spark…

Thanks mate. All of that sounds like fun!!

I had refuelled the car from my regular Shell pump, used the same dispenser as usual and filled up with P95. Never had this trouble in the past. So maybe its just a random electronic gremlin. Is there sense in waiting for it to repeat this behaviour before digging in?

Also, the battery is still the original AC Delco unit. The MID shows 12.5v to 14.8v over the course of a daily drive. Could it be the battery nearing the EOL?

 

[Skylarking]

Thanks mate. All of that sounds like fun!!

I had refuelled the car from my regular Shell pump, used the same dispenser as usual and filled up with P95. Never had this trouble in the past. So maybe its just a random electronic gremlin. Is there sense in waiting for it to repeat this behaviour before digging in?

Also, the battery is still the original AC Delco unit. The MID shows 12.5v to 14.8v over the course of a daily drive. Could it be the battery nearing the EOL?

As she’s come good, just monitor as usually since with fuel contamination it normally won’t get better unless it’s just a little bit of crud that’s gone through the system…

As for the battery, with the engine running will will see volts between 12.6 and 14.8 and sometimes a little higher depending on the battery state of charge and electrical load. Such doesn’t provide much of a hint at the battery condition because the alternator may mask issues. Best to check the battery voltage with all systems off where it should be 12.6V (easiest is to disconnect earth and wait 1/2 hr) and then check battery voltage during cranking where it shouldn’t really be lower than 10V. If it’s within these limits the battery is likely ok but many places will do a battery load test for nada or a small fee…

8 years is a good run but I’ve heard of them lasting 10 years…

 

[wetwork65]

My 2014 SV6 battery seemed OK, but when the local Bridgestone checked it - it resulted in "replace".
Cynical me said "yeah nah, it's OK". (Was always going between 12.4 and 15.1 Volts on the display when driving).
Soon after that, the cranking speed when starting reduced to a sluggish rate. Covered that up with a charger from time to time.
I also had a very occasional misfire.

Changed the battery to a new AC Delco and all good since then. Maybe one cell breaking down?

 

[MaxCommie689]

My 2014 SV6 battery seemed OK, but when the local Bridgestone checked it - it resulted in "replace".
Cynical me said "yeah nah, it's OK". (Was always going between 12.4 and 15.1 Volts on the display when driving).
Soon after that, the cranking speed when starting reduced to a sluggish rate. Covered that up with a charger from time to time.
I also had a very occasional misfire.

Changed the battery to a new AC Delco and all good since then. Maybe one cell breaking down?

That could very well be the case. I haven't noticed sluggishness with cranking per-se. But the entire instrument cluster (not MyLink) does go blank for a few seconds everytime I start the car. I don't know if that supposed to be different.

In July 2022, I had left the car parked for about 2 months in the "transport mode". When I came back, the remote locking/ unlocking, the locator lights and remote start did not work. So I opened the door using the key, deactivated the alarm using the keyfob, brought it to normal mode and it started right up, with a single, slow (but steady) crank. Took a 20-30kms drive and everything was (or atleast seemed to be) back to normal.