LDV Problems

You should take this vehicle straight back to the dealership you bought it from. But be careful, because a car with a throttle that doesn’t want to return to idle is a very dangerous thing to drive. Trailering it might be a better idea, since a sixth random throttle-jam might not end so harmlessly.

At the very least, you’ll be placing terrible strain on the engine by allowing it to rev up when you’re trying to stop, but the greater danger is that the engine might overcome the force of the brakes, making your stopping distances much greater. It’s easy to see how this could be a problem in an emergency stop situation.

The problem itself is likely to be within the throttle-by-wire system, and could be caused by a wiring fault, bad or dirty sensor or a hardware problem.

The most likely cause of this is a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) that is either blocked or on its way to becoming blocked and needs cleaning. Soot build-up in a DPF can restrict the flow of exhaust gasses, at which point you might also find the car’s computer will limit performance to avoid doing damage to the engine.

You can either try to force the DPF to regenerate, or you may have to have the DPF manually cleaned or even replaced.

The other possibility is a problem with the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) valve which can also become clogged with soot and affect the vehicle’s performance and emissions. Either way a check up at a workshop with the appropriate scanning equipment is necessary.

From what I can gather, some newer cars (and the LDV may be one of them) play the indicator and reverse buzzer wounds through the car’s stereo. If, then, you have accidentally muted the sound system, those noises will also be muted.

Find your car’s owner’s manual which should have a section on muting and unmuting the stereo system. That’s the first thing to try. You could also dive into the menus on the touch-screen to see if there’s a function there for muting the indicator and other sounds. The other function to look for is a 'restore factory settings' button which should take the vehicle back to how it was delivered brand-new.

If none of that works, you could always try an LDV dealership which has probably seen this a hundred times before and will be able to quickly reinstate these functions for you. If you’re a regular servicing customer, they may not even charge you for the five minutes it will take. And if they can’t fix it, it then becomes a warranty issue anyway.

Start with the basics, including checking the fuse(s) that control these functions. But don’t dig too deep, because this is a warranty issue and is LDV’s responsibility to fix. The only exception would be if somebody other than LDV has fiddled with the car or somehow modified the dashboard or wiring. That could include an aftermarket workshop fitting auxiliary lighting or even possibly a different stereo head unit. Beyond that, it’s a pretty straightforward case of a warranty claim. Don’t make it your problem if you don’t have to.

It’s very possible that the continuous clicking noise you can hear is the central locking trying to lock the vehicle but, for some reason, not achieving the desired result. That could be because there’s a misalignment between the bits that actually physically do the locking. If these aren’t aligned correctly, they can’t physically interlock and lock the vehicle. And when that happens, they keep trying which causes the continuous noise you’re hearing.

But the cause could also be a problem with the car’s body computer. This computer is responsible for all sorts of tasks including the stereo, air-conditioning, wipers, lights and, of course, the central locking. If the computer loses the plot it can easily convince itself that the car is unlocked and needs to be locked. Over and over again.

However, the body computer also takes its cues from a variety of sensors around the car, including little switches in the central locking to tell it that the car is locked or unlocked. If one of these fails you could get similar symptoms.

But before any of that – and it sounds pretty basic – walk around the car and make sure all the doors, windows and engine cover are closed properly, as a slightly open window or ajar door will often confuse a central locking system.

For a start, your vehicle at just over five years of age is only just out of its five-year warranty. So it would be worth contacting LDV Australia’s customer service department to see if there’s any help available for a fix, or to cover some of the costs of a fix.

Meanwhile, a lot of these plastic add-ons are attached via small plastic clips and it’s these that fail, allowing the part in question to fall off. In the old days, such a trim piece would probably have been made of metal and been secured by metal tabs or pins or even a nut and bolt. But there are some really good adhesives on the market now that would probably have the strength to effectively glue the trim piece back on. That will make getting it off again (if you ever have to) a bit messy and could damage the paint underneath, but it’s probably better than having to replace a strip of tape every few weeks.

It sounds as though your first step should be to try another LDV dealership. It seems a pretty long stretch to assume that a coolant leak on to a fuel pump is causing a limp-home mode situation. Of course, if enough coolant escaped, it could conceivably allow the engine to run hot and cause a limp-home situation, but that still wouldn’t explain the fuel leak problem. And regardless, if there’s a coolant leak then it also needs to be fixed.

Another option is to have the car independently inspected (which you have already done) and get the mechanic’s diagnosis in writing. Your state motoring club is also potentially able to offer a professional opinion on where the fuel leak is coming from. From there, you can contact LDV Australia’s customer service department and ask for the problem to be sorted out.

If you don’t do any good at that stage, the ACCC is your next step.

Meantime, you haven’t told me what model LDV you have, but if it’s a Deliver 9, this vehicle was subject to a safety recall to check for a fuel line that may have been incorrectly manufactured and could lead to a fuel leak. Has this possibility been followed up?

Conventional wisdom suggests that a modern electronic fuel-injection system is smart enough not to flood an engine when starting., However, experience tells me that sometimes, you can get excess fuel into the engine if it doesn’t fire straight away. However, if you keep trying to start it, that fuel should pass through the engine, and it should eventually fire. So, I’d say your problem is something else.

A mechanic would probably start by checking things like whether the fuel pump is operating, the fuel and air filters, fuel pressure and whether the fuel injectors are pulsing when they should be. Your problem is likely to be a shortage of fuel rather than too much of it, so checking the fuel delivery pressure and rate is a critical step.