Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) HELP! Another VP 44 question

[dknoch]

About 2 months ago, I had a momentary loss of power on the freeway while coasting and then trying to accelerate. Code P-0216. Code cleared by Dodge. Fuel pressure gauge installed, poor fuel pressure, lift pump replaced, good fuel pressure. Power loss incident happened again about 2 weeks ago, same code. Truck stumbled and blew gray smoke when pulling off the freeway. Truck sat for about a week and seems fine. Code has been cleared and has not returned again yet. I know that the 0216 code is for injection pump timing failure. Is there anything besides the VP-44 that could cause this? Map sensor, throttle position sensor, etc. ? Since it doesn't act up very often, we are having a hard time believing that this is the pump. Can anyone please help and explain what is going on and how I can fix it. Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks everybody. Dan.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

A fair number of outright failures of the VP-44 seem to occur as you describe - after a period of coasting and then attempting to accellerate - but it usually is fatal the first time it happens, IF it actually IS the VP-44. More often, what you describe eventually seems to boil down to a bad throttle position sensor that is failing or has a poor connection - hope you find your problem soon, and it's not the VP-44!

 

[kshimizu]

The past few weeks my truck was running really bad but I wasn't able to leave it at the dealer. I would only lose power and have it stumble and smoke on a few occasions but it never actually died. When crusing down the freeway it sounded like my engine was cycling and sometimes when you stepped on the gas pedal and floored it it would do nothing. I finally was able to drop it off and they said the VP-44 was bad. Is it normal to have just the VP-44 die and the lift pump be good? If the injector pump is dead at 60k miles, is my lift pump going to die soon too? Will they check the APPS or is that something I should mention? The dealer said that my lift pump is fine. My dad's 01 had its lift pump go out at 70k miles. The only codes to show up before I took it in were 1693 and 0500. This is the first time in two years that this truck has been to the dealer and hopefully the last for awhile.

 

[mgoncalves]

I know of one truck that a dealer replaced a dead injection pump and said the lift pump was fine. A quick run with a test gauge taped to the windshield showed an extremely bad lift pump.

 

[BarryG]

Dknoch:

When my vp went out it had the same symtpoms. It would act up then be fine for several days up to a week. Then it would do it again. As time went by it would do it more and more frequently. Mine only did it under certain coast then accelerate conditions then it got worse to just about anytime going down a hill it would act up and take longer to correct itself.