I've noticed when I set off from cold (it's just above freezing here at the moment), the engine makes a loudish whistling noise on initial engine acceleration (in all gears) - it stops doing it pretty quickly ( a few hundred yards) - any clues?

 

Hi
Is yours an auto? are you sure it's not the gearbox.

 

Hi Merlin

Mine's a manual box. I didn't do it this morning (and it's very cold today) but it did it yesterday when I was stationery and revved the engine a little.

 

More symptoms on this, and perhaps a little more serious. At the weekend, I was driving (accelerating slightly) along and the power suddenly cut completely, so I coasted to a stop. Tried starting it, and it started without a problem and accelerated away - initially slightly hesitant, but after that, no problem. That hasn't happened again (yet?), but I am still getting the whistling when revving the engine when cold (including when I first start it, in neutral) and initially, the acceleration is very sluggish, but after a few hundred yards, is back to normal for the rest of the journey.

This evening, when I started it, I pressed the throttle whilst in neutral, and there was no initial response at all - engine didn't pick up, but after a few seconds, all was normal again.

Any suggestions? I'm thinking of taking it back to the garage I got it from, but they aren't Chrysler dealers, so don't have the diagostics as far as I know - so any clues I can give them may help.

 

that whisling sound MAY BE connected with turbo. I said it may be, couse you can't tell without expirience.
if that's the case, revving the engine while it's cold may NOT be a good idea.

first of all, find out when was the last oil change and what type of oil is inside the engine. fesh and good oil might solve the whistling problem.
but that's not related to the engine problems.

 

I have wondered about the turbo - do turbos come in at a particular engine speed? If so, presumably if I carefully increase the engine speed up to this point, I should hear nothing and then the whistle will increase in pitch at a fixed engine speed - is this correct?

The oil was changed recently (about 4,000 miles ago) - the car does have a full service history by the look of the service book.

 

Hi
So very hard without being able to hear it. Have you put your head under the bonnet (hood to the US) and see what area it is coming from? Fuel pump fault, back by the tank fits all the syptoms you discribe but that's at the back and you say the noise is from the engine area. So could be water pump, alternator, timing belt idler so hard to say but none of them would give you your faults you discribe. The faults you discribe sound more like fuel starvation issues and would need to diagnose this properly.

 

Thanks (yet again) Merlin - quite feasible that the noise and the symptoms are unrelated, fuel starvation certainly sounds about right for the more serious symptoms of cutting/bad acceleration. Interestingly enough, a friend of mine has recently bought a 1999 3.3 Voyager, and I think he had a fuel pump problem - is this a particular weakness of voyagers and is it likely to be a failing fuel pump or just a bad connection?

 

I'm going to change the oil and filter - since the last service was done when the previous owner was probably thinking of selling, he may not have worried to much about what was put in it. I have always liked fully synthetic oils - so will probably go for this unless anyone says otherwise. I think the recommendation is 5w-40 for the voyager - is there any sense in putting anything different in, such as 0w-40, which I assume would circulate faster in winter?

 

Hi

diesel fuel pumps areknown to fail, Petrol ones no so much (or could be just most are diesels in the uk so I don't see so many) It most likely the pump that fails not a conection, it just make loads of noise but doesn't pump. The pump is external bolted up next to the tank not like the petrols that are in the tank so easy fix.