Faulty fuel injectors on the LS3 motor

[Skylarking]

If the fuel system has water contamination, every part of the fuel system should be replaced.....That's fuel lines, pump, filter, injectors and regulator (if fitted)....

If it's just water contamination and you have plastic fuel tank and lines and the water hasn't been sitting long enough to cause rust elsewhere, then everything doesn't really need to be replaced, just flushed, inspected and cleaned.

But the question is how does the dealer determine if it's just water contamination and not some other chemical without rather expensive analysis (which the dealer wont do unless the owner pay the $1000 - $3000 for such analysis to be done). So the dealer takes the safe and rather profitable route by replacing everything at your expense becuase they aren't 100% sure what the contamination is. One's insurance may or may not reimburse all costs unless the claim was previously accepted and the repairs previously authorised. The servo may or many not accept the claim and may or may not reimburse you.. But the workshop will want to be paid for the work they did which you woudl have had to agree to for them to do it...

In this particular case, we know it's not fuel contamination so i'd want to know what work the dealer did and how they determined it was water contamination. I'd especially want to know whether they even measured the injector resistance to ensure they were within spec.

Service stations also send out reports relating to fuel sales for the day in question and any issues relating to that...So having that tucked in your wallet gives plenty of leverage where you can have 2 sides pitted against each other, with you sitting back laughing at them.

With fuel contamination, you always have a fight on your hands unless there were lots of complaints of fuel contamination. It's easier if it ended up on the news as they can't hide the fact but in other cases it's just so easy for the petrol outlet to say "you are the only one so it's not our fuel" even if they know its a lie

I've been caught between a car dealer saying it's fuel contamination and the Woolworths servo and their head office saying it's not them as they've had no other complaints. My belief was that he dealer stuffed up at their last service and put the wrong additive in teh tank... But there was no leverage as such. The dealer simply said if you want to fix your car you have to pay and then you can take it up with the petrol station. I had my doubts it was the fuel contamination but I had the (in theory) expert mechanical report and hand balled it to the insurance company. It was dealt with promptly and Woolies paid the insurance company without question so it was a done deal.

The second time i got fuel contamination, i fixed it myself in about an hour or so. Way easy to remove the fuel pump and injectors on that car as compared to the commodore... I flush tank and lines and clean injectors. It was easy as and nothing was replaced. Still going strong years later...

In the OP's case, as the dealer said water contamination but i'll call bullshite on that... I doubt they've done much other than pull out excuse #3 out of their book of bullshite excuses... Doubt they'd have emptied the tank and inspected the fluid for stratification and then sent off samples to be tested. Heck, they didn't even advise that draining the tank, filling with 10 litres of clean petrol and a 1 litre of metho will allow any remaining water to be consumed by the engine... it's just a fob off....

Regardless, for the OP, I still think the injectors must be replaced because OP previously suffered injector failure, twice, where the repairs were paid by OP because the car was out of warranty. Holden has in essence stayed very quiet about this issue so they benifit from such shitfuckery. Holden should have been forced to have a recall or in service repair and all this bullshite would have been avoided. In my view OP's injectors should all be replaced and his previous repair costs should be refunded, regardless of excuse #3...

 

[vc commodore]

If it's just water contamination and you have plastic fuel tank and lines and the water hasn't been sitting long enough to cause rust elsewhere, then everything doesn't really need to be replaced, just flushed, inspected and cleaned.

But the question is how does the dealer determine if it's just water contamination and not some other chemical without rather expensive analysis (which the dealer wont do unless the owner pay the $1000 - $3000 for such analysis to be done). So the dealer takes the safe and rather profitable route by replacing everything at your expense becuase they aren't 100% sure what the contamination is. One's insurance may or may not reimburse all costs unless the claim was previously accepted and the repairs previously authorised. The servo may or many not accept the claim and may or may not reimburse you.. But the workshop will want to be paid for the work they did which you woudl have had to agree to for them to do it...

In this particular case, we know it's not fuel contamination so i'd want to know what work the dealer did and how they determined it was water contamination. I'd especially want to know whether they even measured the injector resistance to ensure they were within spec.
With fuel contamination, you always have a fight on your hands unless there were lots of complaints of fuel contamination. It's easier if it ended up on the news as they can't hide the fact but in other cases it's just so easy for the petrol outlet to say "you are the only one so it's not our fuel" even if they know its a lie

I've been caught between a car dealer saying it's fuel contamination and the Woolworths servo and their head office saying it's not them as they've had no other complaints. My belief was that he dealer stuffed up at their last service and put the wrong additive in teh tank... But there was no leverage as such. The dealer simply said if you want to fix your car you have to pay and then you can take it up with the petrol station. I had my doubts it was the fuel contamination but I had the (in theory) expert mechanical report and hand balled it to the insurance company. It was dealt with promptly and Woolies paid the insurance company without question so it was a done deal.

The second time i got fuel contamination, i fixed it myself in about an hour or so. Way easy to remove the fuel pump and injectors on that car as compared to the commodore... I flush tank and lines and clean injectors. It was easy as and nothing was replaced. Still going strong years later...

In the OP's case, as the dealer said water contamination but i'll call bullshite on that... I doubt they've done much other than pull out excuse #3 out of their book of bullshite excuses... Doubt they'd have emptied the tank and inspected the fluid for stratification and then sent off samples to be tested. Heck, they didn't even advise that draining the tank, filling with 10 litres of clean petrol and a 1 litre of metho will allow any remaining water to be consumed by the engine... it's just a fob off....

Regardless, for the OP, I still think the injectors must be replaced because OP previously suffered injector failure, twice, where the repairs were paid by OP because the car was out of warranty. Holden has in essence stayed very quiet about this issue so they benifit from such shitfuckery. Holden should have been forced to have a recall or in service repair and all this bullshite would have been avoided. In my view OP's injectors should all be replaced and his previous repair costs should be refunded, regardless of excuse #3...

Plastic fuel tank or metal fuel tank, water contamination means fuel line, fuel pump, fuel filter and injector replacement...

I have a 1976 model car with a plastic fuel line.....I got water in that and had to replace the fuel line...The carb got overhauled because of the water, but got lucky with the metal tank, as it didn't rust..

Yes getting the servo to admit contamination is difficult....BUT, if the dealership is claiming contamination and the servo denying it, they can go at each other.....It saves you arguing at either party....They can argue between themselves at who is responsible and you as the end person get the parts replaced at someone elses expense, like it should if it is the case

 

[Fachoo]

I'll bet my left nut, they back pedal real quick....

not good advice if right one was previously lost from demanding something not obtainable.

 

[vc commodore]

not good advice if right one was previously lost from demanding something not obtainable.

You helping the op with some advise?

 

[vxbris]

Is there any early warning signs to look out for with failing injectors? Will they usually begin to slowly fail or just fail without warning? My 2016 Caprice feels like it has a slight rough shaky idle. No visible drop in revs but feels like an irregular shake.

 

[Anthony121]

Is there any early warning signs to look out for with failing injectors? Will they usually begin to slowly fail or just fail without warning? My 2016 Caprice feels like it has a slight rough shaky idle. No visible drop in revs but feels like an irregular shake.

My Redline is doing this too after replacement injectors were done approx 50k kms ago.

You can check the resistance of each injector with a multimeter.

 

[Skylarking]

Is there any early warning signs to look out for with failing injectors?

Yes, the early signs are that you bought a VF LS3 Holden

PS: I should add I’m joking above. If you have injector concerns, best check the injector resistance as suggested by Anthony121. You should have a max of -/+ 3 ohm variation between injectors with an average injector resistance between 11-14 ohms. The VF workshop manual defines how to test and calculate the average on page 5174 of 11631

 

[vxbris]

Yes, the early signs are that you bought a VF LS3 Holden

PS: I should add I’m joking above. If you have injector concerns, best check the injector resistance as suggested by Anthony121. You should have a max of -/+ 3 ohm variation between injectors with an average injector resistance between 11-14 ohms. The VF workshop manual defines how to test and calculate the average on page 5174 of 11631

Cool I’ll check that, cheers.

 

[Pablito]

My LS3 has the wobbles on idle vxbris, so I got the injectors checked yesterday. They were all apparently quite even and all in the 12's (ohms). Not that I know what that means...... but the workshop said they were good. So not the injectors causing the wobbles for me.
My series 1 redline has the occasional wobble at idle, but this thing wobbles a lot. Drives fine though and no codes, so nfi.

 

[Skylarking]

My LS3 has the wobbles on idle vxbris, so I got the injectors checked yesterday. They were all apparently quite even and all in the 12's (ohms). Not that I know what that means...... but the workshop said they were good. So not the injectors causing the wobbles for me.
My series 1 redline has the occasional wobble at idle, but this thing wobbles a lot. Drives fine though and no codes, so nfi.

It means the electrical side of the injector is most likely ok (wish Holden also specified inductance so one could check that as well since it impacts voltage rise and fall times. I guess such can be checked on a scope if Holden shows correct waveform in the workshop manual).

Since the electrical side seems ok, you may need to look at injector flow rates and spray patterns on a injector test bench, check injector seals for air leaks (and same for intake and other plumbing), check fuel pressures, check throttle body and ISC for crud and correct operation. Heck, it could even be one stuffed valve stem seal/clearance that causes an air leak and a lope (and very little blue smoke).

Having said that, I was told by service that the LS3 was tuned to lope a little but I suspect that may just be a self serving fob off to avoid any warranty work…My car doesn’t do it much, it could be anything, it could be nothing though I’ve yet to check live data and/or the injector resistance.

Guess I’ll also have to break out the multimeter sooner rather than later