I've got a 2002 V6 and, somehow, when E10 started appearing, I read (almost certainly mis-read) somewhere that E10 would be OK to use in my engine. As a result, I've been filling up with E10 consistently since it first appeared.
Over the past year or so, I've had periodic issues with idle revs being lower than I would expect and occasional reluctant power when accelerating, both when the engine is hot, things seem fine when it is cold. These issues have come and gone, I've mentioned them during services, but no problems have ever been found.
Over the past few weeks, the power has been becoming consistently reluctant when accelerating. Discussing with a friend, they mentioned fuel types and I re-checked the recommendations and realised my mistake. Since then I've put a couple of tanks of E5 through the van and the issues remain, in fact, they are much worse. To the point that when idling the revs are constantly going up and down and will sometimes stall entirely. Accelerating is very, very reluctant and power will often come in a burst after a few seconds, rather than gradually.
I've pretty much convinced myself that I've done something terrible to the engine as I can't think what else could be going on, but as you can probably tell, my technical knowledge of such things is very, very basic. So I'm wondering if some kind soul could please give advice on:
- How likely it is that the symptoms I'm seeing are as a result of the wrong fuel type being used for two whole years?
- Is there anything I can do to help with a determination of what's happening and why?
- Would the best course of action be to take the van to a garage, explain the situation and request an assessment?
- If "yes", to the above question, would this require a specialist Bongo garage?
Spherical Visions