Urgent: K12 Heading for Mongolia needs help, sporadic power loss

[The Haggis Hunters]

Bit of background, we are day 30 into driving a
K12 998cc Nissan Micra Petrol from Edinburgh > Mongolia. We are currently in the famous country of Kyrgystan (just south of Kazakstan) but we are having severe difficulties with the car loosing power.

Car will begin kangarooing and immediately loose all power and essentially be unable to move above 5mph. Rpm in neutral can go to 7,000rpm or above but by bringing the clutch up all power evaporates.


When:
The problem normally occurs during acceleration or when the engine load increases from a hill.
During the past 5 days the problem has increased in frequency. The car does less kangarooing and more complete loss of power.
We have never experienced the problem until after driving for 6hours (so usually occurs during the middle of the day).
Often the problem will dissipate in the evening (air temperature decreases)
The problem first occurred on 5th August after 5hours of driving, shortly after refuelling from a jerry can of 90 or 93 octane fuel. We drained the fuel tank and replaced it with 95octane fuel but problem persisted


Remedies:
5days ago the problem could be solved by flicking the ignition on and off, by keeping a foot on the accelerator you could feel the power and revs immediately increase and the car would appear 'back to normal'. -this no longer really works
The only true fix for the problem has been to leave the car turned off for as long as possible before continuing.
For example, parking for 15 minutes will allow the car to drive 'normally' for 15minutes before loosing power again.

The problem has occurred since Georgia 5th August (air temp >40c) currently in Kyrgyzstan (air temp ~35c). Car has driven approx 250-450miles per day since then.

Other info:
There are no overheating warnings
Radiator appears to have reasonably even spread heat
Removing the MAF sensor does not affect the problem
Disconnecting then reconnecting the battery doesn't solve the problem

Only experiencing the problem during the middle of the day encourages us to think the problem is temperature sensitive. For example after 1hour of driving the car climbed 2,000m to 3,500m altitude taking 40 minutes (5am) no problem. Later that afternoon (12:30pm) the car could not move above 5mph on flat roads. By evening (8pm) car would happily drove up hills at 60mph again. -Contradicting this theory, previously the air temperature in the morning was 35c whereas now this is only the peak in the middle of the day.

Current theories:
Electric fuel pump is dogey
Fuel filter is blocked (doesn't explain why the problem varies during the day)
Possible electronic throttle peddle problem (throttle always shows an element of responsiveness even if there is no power to match)

Tomorrow we head for Kazakstan and hope to have an availability of spare parts.
Any help to solve the problem would be greatly appreciated before we continue onto Mongolia!

 

[raptoranderson]

Camshaft position sensor. My car did exactly the same thing after the coolant boiled over and soaked the sensor and a bunch of other parts. The camshaft is out of sync with the engine and so the cycle is a good dozen or so degrees behind. This is only a theory though, but from what you've described i'd definitely check it out

 

[frank]

the fact that it restored when you turned the ign on and off while running points to a faultcode/limp mode being flagged, did you take a code reader with you ?

 

[The Haggis Hunters]

Thanks for your suggestions.

If the camshaft position sensor was out I would have though the problem would be there all the time. I would have also though it would have engaged the engin management light. Was this the case with your car?

When the problem occurs the car dose not go into lim mode. The can can Rev (out of gear) to the limiter and the engine management light has never came on.

We do not have a code reader but we will try and get it to a garage that has one. Unfortunately the problem occurs after 4-6h of driving.

We have just driven the car 1300km and were now in Almaty Kazakstan the problems arose multipal times. This is our last opportunity to fix the car.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[frank]

i dont think the k12,s have a conventional limp mode, they had a serious chain stretch problem tho !
my van had some egr problems that would bring on an ordinary limp mode, and the only way to reset it was to turn the engine off and physically erase the faultcode
so i never drive without my codereader to hand, let alone driving half way round the world without one ffs

 

[raptoranderson]

I didnt have any engine light on with the position sensor. It is odd that it only happens after a few hours ....

 

[BH12MWA]

I know my post may be late, but i think its an electrical issue.
Some corroded fuses, or maybe some soldering on an electronic circuit.
Not sure where the electronic circuit is locate, but explains why the problem occurs in the afternoon.
You should consider a light bulb not positioned correctly...check brake lights.