No response to throttle! :O

[cmdrfire]

Was driving to work today. On the A30, 50mph, driving in manual mode, 4th gear, 3kRPM or so. Car starts slowing. Apply more throttle, nothing happens, I start to get a little worried. Hit the paddle and drop down a gear... gearchange occurs, but still no response to throttle. Warning indicators on, get ready to pull over, car behind still a little way away so drop into second. Again gearchange occurs but no response to throttle. Pull over onto the side of the road, mount the kerb, gear automatically drops into first. I put the car into Neutral and try throttle... and there's a blip. To be safe I turn the car off, and then on again, and gingerly get back on the road. No problem for the rest of the drive.

I drove 250 miles on the weekend with no problem :S so this is a bit disturbing. And it's not like the only other time I lost drive, with flashing PRNDS, then it was like the car was in neutral and the accelerator pedal still responded. That was resolved as a faulty tiptronic switch, more than a year ago.


Anecdotal: the most recent map I've loaded from Superchips causes a funny startup. The engine starts, revs to around 900RPM and then dips, seems like it's going to stall, and then picks up again to the normal 1100 RPM-ish. Yesterday the car actually failed to start twice. When I restarted the car after each occasion, a blip of the throttle was required. Also last week I've been having very minor stutters throughout most of the week, a bit like a throttle surge, particularly so when changing gears. But over the weekend, nothing, perfect performance except for the start.

Thoughts?

[animal]

VCDS scan would be my first port of call.

[Poverty]

throttle body could be playing up.

Any lights on dash?

[Janner_Sy]

Anecdotal: the most recent map I've loaded from Superchips causes a funny startup. The engine starts, revs to around 900RPM and then dips, seems like it's going to stall, and then picks up again to the normal 1100 RPM-ish.

my car has always ticked over at about 900rpm.  1100rpm is surely on the high side

[S2 Ant]

Agreed, mine always idles under 1k, the norm is prob around 900rpm, prob says in the tech specs part of the manual somewhere.

[Janner_Sy]

its almost like its running on choke,

On a cold day my car will sit at 1100rpm until it has heated the oils etc up, and then it will drop to 900rpm again.  usually takes about a minute

[cmdrfire]

Will see if I can bother Hedge again and go get it scanned. Problem is extremely intermittent which will make diagnosing a bit of a tricky one.

throttle body could be playing up.

Any lights on dash?

No lights. Did give a thought to throttle body reset but haven't done so yet.

my car has always ticked over at about 900rpm.  1100rpm is surely on the high side

900RPM once warm, starting from cold it (used to) sit at 1100RPM... almost always done that. Should've specified that in the OP. Even so, it feels like it's almost going to stall following startup, until the engine "catches" properly - and as I say did stall yesterday, twice, requiring a blip of the throttle on restart.
Superchips have advised me to put it back on original map for a few days and test... will try that.

[animal]

Will see if I can bother Hedge again and go get it scanned. Problem is extremely intermittent which will make diagnosing a bit of a tricky one.

throttle body could be playing up.

Any lights on dash?

No lights. Did give a thought to throttle body reset but haven't done so yet.

my car has always ticked over at about 900rpm.  1100rpm is surely on the high side

900RPM once warm, starting from cold it (used to) sit at 1100RPM... almost always done that. Should've specified that in the OP. Even so, it feels like it's almost going to stall following startup, until the engine "catches" properly - and as I say did stall yesterday, twice, requiring a blip of the throttle on restart.
Superchips have advised me to put it back on original map for a few days and test... will try that.

If something is wrong, a fault code should have been logged regardless as to whether you can recreate the fault.

I didn't think it was possibly to stall an Auto?

[Sparky Craig]

If you do get Hedge to have a look make sure he`s not got his screwdriver with him. 

[Saint Steve]

If you do get Hedge to have a look make sure he`s not got his screwdriver with him. 

[cmdrfire]

If something is wrong, a fault code should have been logged regardless as to whether you can recreate the fault.

I didn't think it was possibly to stall an Auto?

Didn't think it was possible either 
Anyway, OEM map now installed, so fault codes reset I presume (shoulda thought of that before I started the reflash but wanted a functioning car)... let's see what happens.

[Poppa Dom]

Neo - I am closer to you than Hedge for a scan if you need it (Bracknell).

Dom

[cmdrfire]

Neo - I am closer to you than Hedge for a scan if you need it (Bracknell).

Dom

Cheers dude. Hedge is just down the road a bit from where I work, but if I can't get to him I'll let you know.

Just gonna go out and take the car for a little drive - will report back when I, er, get back.

[john_o]

have a look around the throttle pedal wires. sounds a bit like throttle pedal gone awol.
theres some vcds checking you can do on it , theres 2 values , 1 goes up the other goes down   (they work in tandem)

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/00670


related or not the car should always start first time  

[cmdrfire]

Well, on the stock map now, starts seem fine, will see how it goes tomorrow. Will be at JKM so I might ask them to take a quick look, see if anything's wrong. The drive home was also alright... for some reason (possibly psychosomatic) the car just seems more "solid" on the stock map. Most peculiar.