Cold start stalling

gsi2000

Member
Hi all,
Vectra c z22se, on cold start (mainly early mornings, but can happen after a few hours sitting) the car starts up fine, soon as u turn the key its running, as the revs start to drop within 10-30 seconds it starts hunting and knocking bad and stalls, turn it back on, fires straight away may do exactly the same thing or be fine, when its been forced to run (keep accelerator pressed, it will try to die but then will redline) then its fine, drives exactly has it always has.
op-com fault codes are:
P0132 O2 sensor circuit high voltage bank 1 sensor 1 (not present)
P0135 O2 heater circuit malfunction bank 1 sensor 1 (present)

changed spark plugs, taken throttle body off but was still clean from last time i cleaned it, egr is blanked and has cheater, coolant temp sensor changed with a genuine one, still the same, when i erased codes with op-com the car was fine for until 2 days later it developed again, when plugs were changed it was fine for a day then returned. if i do short runs it will keep doing it every time i start the car having sat a few hours, however if i give it a good half hour run with high revs it wont happen until next morning.
Any ideas?
 

gsi2000

Member
Thats what i thought with it working fine after clearing codes with op-com, i have ordered one as all spare ones i have are bank 2 sensors, is it possible to clear codes, unplug o2 sensor and run it like that until sensor arrives, or would i still get stalling problems with ecu map?
Cheers vocky :)
 

gsi2000

Member
Fitted new mixture sensor, still doing exactly same thing. is it at all possible the egr cheater i have fitted, fail without giving an error code.
Or something to do with timing or balance, loss of compression? after 20-30 seconds driving its fine until its sat a while, mainly overnight
 

gsi2000

Member
*UPDATE*
I took my car off road a few weeks ago, after stripping the engine down to do piston rings and cam chain i found both the rear guide and front guide was extremely loose, because of this they must have relaxed onto the chain when stood for a few hours or more and caused chain not to spin as freely hence the rough idle and stalling. engine rebuild is on hold at the moment while i wait for con rod bolts on back order.
 
Hello,
From time to time, at lower temperature (under 5 degree Celsius), my engine (Vectra C 2003, Z22SE) starts very hard. Maybe after 10 seconds of cranking. After starting, everything is normal. No stall, no lack of power. Sometime it start at first second. Remember, this is happenning only at cold engine. I don't have EGR, I had cleaned TB, changed Coil Pack etc.
Please help,
Thank you!
 

gsi2000

Member
Hi, how old is your battery? try testing its voltage when car is cold. if you have a charger you could put some charge in for 30 minutes to boost the battery (make sure you disconnect the charger before starting) if the symptoms are still the same then i would be looking at some of the sensors, first the coolant temperature sensor located on the thermostat housing at back of the engine.
does sound more like a electrical problem (i could be wrong)
let me know how you get on with it
cheers
 
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