Loss of power
Q We drive a 2006 Vectra 1.8 petrol with 98,000 miles. Six months ago fitted a new timing belt. It keeps being down on power and comes up with the error code P0365 camshaft sensor. I replaced the sensor bought off ebay. Still the same, so swapped the front and rear sensor – still the same. We went down to Dorset recently, it played-up on the way down, then did over 300 miles with no issue at all.
Now it’s back to being down on power. It could be fine for a few days then down on power. I am able to erase the code, then it may be back to normal but will soon be back to low power. What else can we check as my wife does not want to drive the car now?
Ray & Jackie Austin A The code P0365 is referring to a camshaft position (CMP) sensor B, bank 1 - circuit malfunction. This would suggest that unlike the P0016 or P0018 codes, this is not suggesting a problem with the correlation or the engine timing itself, but is a fault within the circuit of the sensor.
As you have replaced the sensor, which having been swapped should eliminate this as the problem, and I would assume that when replacing the sensor the connecting plug was checked and is clean, then the first place to check is the ECM (Engine Control Module), to ensure that the multi-plug on the ECM is clean.
The terminals connected to the camshaft sensor are numbers 11 and 52 with the wire colours of yellow/violet and black/white. There is also a third wire from the sensor – brown/blue which goes on to connect to various other engine sensors before connecting to terminal 1 on the ECM.
As this is an intermittent problem, then I would suspect that a poor connection to one of the ECM terminals may be the cause. If no problem can be found with either the wiring, connectors or terminals at the ECM, then the
ECM should be checked, as this may be the problem.