vectra 1.9cdti loss of power, engine management light comes on?

Hi
Loss of power last year on way to Scotland showing car with spanner light on, drove around for four days with a lot of rattle and plenty of Urmm. Got back home garage put on air flow sensor , no change.
Next EGR clean no change . So new EGR, a little improvement. Garage kept saying its swirl flap code coming up £600.00 .
I got swirl repair rod kit of off eBay £14.00 a bit fiddly to fit but a noticeable improvement. But still had to thrash it up hills.
Went to snowdonia last week it just couldn't cope with the mountains.
I found a perished vacuum pipe on inspection just to the left of the battery box the one with the 90° bend in it . The local garage gave me a bit of pipe FOC 2mins later it's running fantastic. All these expensive fixes I was told about which made me want to trade the car in and I sorted it out for less than £15.00 . The original swirl rod had worn and was only working two swirl flaps . So on a quick inspection looked like it was in place .
It's a 1.9 cdti 150bhp signum with 58000 on the clock , hopefully now it will do quite a bit more

David
April 2016

My vecta 1.9cdti 150bhp 2007 model. engine management light came on and going into limp mode and giving me code p0400 and code p2279. I cleaned the egr valve and the throttle body which was full of black gunk put it all back together and had the same problem. I put the car on a expensive dynostic machine and it said my air fow sensor was'nt working. so I went to the local scrapyard and had a air flow sensor off a vauxhall zafera 1.9cdti for £15 mint. I fitted it out side the scrapyard south wales, the boys even helped me fit it only took 5mins the car is back to normal happy day. If you have P0400 CODE AND P2279 CODE TRY THE AIR FLOW SENSOR FIRST!

julian
July 2015

my 04 2.0 dti vectra went awol for two weeks power loss lights coming on when i turned on ignition key then lights came on when me car was parked and locked cut a long story short the cause was a dodgey fuse.

04 vectra dti
May 2015

Mine did the same (2003 1.9) problem solved, new air flow unit £80 30 minute job.

kypling
November 2014

Keith, you are a star. I have lived with my Vectra 1.9 diesel CDTi 06 on reduced power for three years. Runs well but in top gear with engine under strain the management lights appears until you turn the engine off then on again when it resets back to normal. As Keith says, remove the engine cover and look for the 6 inch rubber suction hose to the bottom right of where the cover was. Mine was split and perished. I glued the tube then PVC taped (just for a trial). Full power restored, will get replacement hose asap. Many thanks Keith.

MKVB
April 2014

Today I replaced my swirl flaps with caps due to swirl bar had broken. But when all conneceted up and started engine manangment light as come on and engine seems to have gone in limp mode. Turbo don't kick in at all. Engine seems to make a louder knocking noise on idle and reving any ideas will help alou thanks

Dan
March 2014

my Vectra has loss of power from take off
some times them will pick up and run fine for a short period then it ocures again

keith
March 2014

On my 55 reg 1.9 cdti 150bhp vectra c facelift I had done the swirl repair with the impressive swirl flap rod repair kit off e-bay off transpart-uk ,mine had a total underpower and at first thought it was maybe packed up gunk,having to drop from 6th to 5th and 4th for a couple of days to maintain 70-80 in outside lane, could feel the turbo sucking when revving through the fat pipe,so wondered if my turbo had lost some "fan blades"maybe,
cleaned the egr valve out which was quite manky, after this it still ran sluggish.
At this point I started inspecting any and every pipe I could find by feeling and sight before I was ready to start stripping one by one.
Them I noticed the tiniest split on the thin pipe from the solenoid as you look into the engine bay to the right of the radiator next to the battery cover where it seats on the metal vaccum pipe near the 3+4 injectors...no way ,,,i thought ,,can't be that causing such a loss of power?
Did a quick fix with good old pvc insulation tape round the little split and BOOOOM!!!!
A week later it still runs better than I ever remember,just need to treat the impressive 150 to a new vaccum pipe now in case the tape ever cracks!!
You cant beat putting a major worrying problem behind you and feeling the full power and confidence in your pride and joy.

stella_dale
January 2014

I have problem with my vectra, it was ok but engine light came on and was running poor at idle. it was due a service and a new clutch at the time so had it all done at same time. I knew the egr valve was stuck open and got garage to clean it, this fixed the problem and car ran much smoother. however he was meant to do a filter change at the service with me supplying the oil. I would have done it myself before it went in but was given wrong filters so did not bother. anyway called the garage to check on progress and he said it was ok and could pick up in an hour i asked if he had done everything ie change the fillters and put the oil in,
this seemed to be news to him but then said yes its done. get car back and noticed that the oil had obviously went in the car but the wrong filters were missing from boot i had been wondering all week if he had changed the fuel filter as it was manky next thing car looses power on motorway as if no fuel nothing from throttle. 2 mins later ok again stuck the foot down to test and happened again.so let it idle looked at fuel filter housing fuel residue all over it. i conclude that he opened filter seen it was wrong and fired the old one back in along with all the s*"t not attached properly and if fuel can get out then air can get in.also filter out let? on side of housing that runs to the engine was slightly out pushed this in and got home with full power. but engine light is still on would the fuel starvation keep this light on? or is it linked to all the work he has done? or is egr still faulty but is idleing fine again and not shuddering. if you have made it this far any ideas. cheers

RABC
April 2011

Mine is a 06 Vectra, I get loss of power, mine is an automatic diesel, the engine management light has flashed up a couple of times, when the iginition is switiched off and the car is then re-started the light turns off and doesnt come up at all, it has a mind of its own. But the loss of power is still there. Does anyone know what it could be? Thanks

Marcus
January 2010

when engine light is on two things egr take it off and clean it if not the intercooler hoses maybe a hole spmewhere definately

cihanbaba
January 2009

I had the same problem, had the egr valve replaced, great 2 day,s trouble free, AA came out again, this time an air leak was diagnosed , no one could find it. went to dealer again, they charged me again for another diagnostic, this time they found it was the intercooler, just had that replaced. picked the car up 3 hours ago, hopefully this is the end of it. with my pockets alot lighter i might add.

RON SKELCHER.
August 2008

my 04 turned out to be the EGR valve BEWARE these cars have a belt not a chain so get it done at 60K

alan lynch
June 2008

I have had this problem before with a vectra. It turned out to be a pin hole in an air hose that pressurizes the solenoids for the Turbo. This would seem to answer why you are getting this problem in the higher gears as the high revs through the low gears maintains the pressure and the low revs lets the pressure ease. If the cars responses to you revving up for a few seconds then it sounds like that is your problem.

Eunan
May 2008

Had similar problem. In my case was the air flow sensor.

MC
May 2008