Hi All,

New here but not new to Jag/LR.

My wife's car has started acting funny. It's a 16 model, 3.0L V6 SC, just turned 101K miles.

This all started at the ball park on a hill. her car had enough fuel to read 31 miles to empty however on a hill where the front of the car was turned downward but not by much. Her car would turn over just fine however wasn't firing, so I suspected a fuel problem. I went to the nearby gas station, grabbed a tank and put about 5 gallons in. Went to start the car and it still wouldn't fire. Eventually after a handful of tries and some light throttling, it kicked on. At that point I just chalked this up as her running it near dry and needing some help, and she went on her way. After she went to the nearby gas station and filled up, same problem. This time I had a hell of a time getting it started. Eventually however I did get it going, but it wouldn't idle properly and would sit around 3-400 at a stop and die off. The ride home was fun to say the least.

This has now happened on and off, it will go days running and starting just fine, and others where it doesn't want to fire without throttling the pedal. Once it's started however it idles and runs smooth like normal.

Codes originally have come back only to say too rich as idle, I cleared them once and drove the car for two days without them coming back. Then had a tough start, engine code came, and I went to work again. Removed the MAFS and cleaned those thuroughly, everything worked properly again. Cleared codes, a few more days, and yesterday it started again. Same codes again.

I'm suspecting this is air/fuel related - wondering if anyone has had similar issues. I'm inclined to think there's an injector issue or possible failing fuel pump.

Unsure it it's related - but yesterday when I had a tough time starting it her outside temp sensor was reading -6 degrees on a 60 degree day, and her AC would only blow cold at LOW. Today when it cranked back up normal the temp sensor was normal and AC worked on all temperatures.

Any ideas are helpful.

Thank you!!

 

Rough low idle seems to fit with rich condition. That would not be a fuel pump - failing pump will always give lean condition. Could be injector leaking, o2 sensor, MAF sensor, coolant temp sensor, purge valve stuck open (and maybe gas in the charcoal filter so rich fumes getting into motor). You mention rich codes - was it for both banks or just one?

The outdoor (ambient) temp sensor should be unrelated to the rich condition, but a failing ambient temp sensor will cause problems with the AC. That said, I believe the ambient sensor also connects to the ECM along with all the other sensors (big bundles of wires come together and plug into the ECM). So, if you have something going on like rodents chewing wires - not unheard of - it’s possible they’ve nipped both sensor wires (just trying to come up with something to explain both problems here).