Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[geoprea1989]

Dear Omega fellows,

I have an 1995 Opel Omega with an X20XEV engine and for the past 8 years I had no significant problems.

The only problem I had with was the faulty camshaft sensor that had to be replaced twice, but I read this is a common issue for this engine.

Why twice, maybe you wonder...

With the second sensor, every time I started the engine, the MIL light turned on and the car ran in LIMP mode, but if I quickly took the ignition and turned it on, the MIL light turned OFF and the car worked as it should, or at least that's what I believe.

I compared it's values with the Autodata ones and there were big differences in it's resistance across it's pins and the error was stored as an intermittent fault according to "My Naff Code Reader".

Thinking that this is not very safe for my car, I gone further and replaced this sensor with a third one.

That being set, I bought a new sensor, aftermarket of course, and for the past 2-3 months everything was fine, but in the last week I began having strange issues with the first cold start of the day.

The engine turns, the pump from the tank pumps, I have pressure on the rail, the spark plugs are sparking, but the engine just won't start up if it doesn't crank for about 10 seconds.

This only happens with the first start-up of the day, no matter if it's warm or cold outside, sunny or raining, morning or noon, what can I say, my car has it's own personality

As a strange workaround I found that if I pop the positive lead from the battery for half a second and then crank the engine, it starts in a blink.

The workaround works even if I do this before cranking, or after a long 3-4 seconds crank, or a couple of tries.

I checked the values of the new sensor and are the same as the ones from Autodata.

I connected the tester to my car, "My Naff Code Reader", but there are no codes stored and I don't see any changes within the values.

Thus I think this is an electrical problem, but I currently don't know where to begin from.

I even redone the connection between the short wiring loom from the sensor's plug and the wiring harness of the car.

Tonight I'm going to replace the new sensor with the old one to check if there's any improvement, or at least a quick start-up, but if nothing changes, that doesn't look very good.

The next step will be checking the ignition coil, but I'm not sure if that's a problem since it makes the spark plugs spark, and it responds fine to the "My Naff Code Reader" tests for the two bank coils.

I just cannot explain this workaround, if I disconnect and reconnect the battery lead [even before putting the key in the ignition barrel] and after then I crank the engine, it starts immediately.

Given these, did anyone here had the same issues/symptoms as above and found a fix?

Thank you in advance for your help and ideas,
George

P.S.: I know I wrote a lot, but hope I didn't got you bored yet

[Doctor Gollum]

Fit a genuine Opel/GM sensor and report back

[geoprea1989]

Hello,

I know that everyone recommends to use only OE parts, but currently I cannot afford buying an OE camshaft sensor as it costs about 150 Euro.

The thing is that I cannot replace it just by guessing that this might be the problem on such money

Any other ideas why does the battery connect/reconnect fixes this issue?

Thanks,
George

[Doctor Gollum]

Every time the battery is disconnected,  the ECU resets to base values... after 50km or so of driving, it adapts to actual readings from the car sensors

Genuine sensor might cost €150, but you're already on your third crappy one in six months

[Diamond Black Geezer]

In this case it's not simply us/OOF being very 'by the book' and 'good' by saying ''only fit OE parts'' in fact for many many parts we recommend getting other aftermarket stuff from Allgermancarparts, ATP, Lemforder, Boge etc etc

it's just that in this case the aftermarket cranks sensors are known to be rubbish, and simply do not work, or fail after a few miles. You may well spend more than the cost of a crank sensor buying other parts, find the problem is not cured, then eventually have to buy a genuine GM crank sensor, to find that has cured the problem, and if you'd done that in the first place you would have saved money.

You say you've already bought three crank sensors, these are the exact symptoms which people find when they buy a non-genuine crank sensor, the engine works 'ok' for a while, then fails. If you are really keen to save money then there might be a second hand genuine sensor for sale either on here or ebay etc.. (omegaspareparts on ebay may have one)

I hope your problem is solved soon. I can fully appreciate you don't want to spend such a large amount of money on a small wire, but it is highly likely this will solve the issue. 

[atann]

Though slightly off topic, I've noticed with my Omega, that 99% it starts straight away. But there is the odd time when it doesn't and you then have to crank it for about 5 seconds to start. I fitted a new Bosch battery two months ago, any ideas?

[Bojan]

Hi.

Camshaft sensor problem on XEV is a very common one. And yes, as everybody say, you should get a OEM one (this goes, more-or-less for all sensors and DIS-pack too). Alternatively, Bosch/siemens parts can be used, but be sure to use trusted supplier.

As you now have two new sensors, you could try the following (which I've read on another site, not tried it, as don't have XEV anymore).

You need to cut off the area marked on the image below, so you can push the sensor more towards the driver side (this would be passanger side in UK) a bit more than it was possible before the modification. Hope my explanation is good enough.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w52/CallyAdz/1.jpg