Dacia Sandero - Loss of Power

S

Smiley0120

Registered User
Messages
12
Hi there,

Hoping someone can offer advice. In May 2021 I bought a second hand 2019 Dacia Sandero. In March 2022, my car lost power, and couldn't go above 30km/hr. I had all my engine lights turn on. I managed to get home, turn the car off and called out AA who ran some diagnostics and managed to remove all the error lights, bar a trouble code "P061A".

I booked it into the Dacia garage as my warranty is still in place until April 2022. They checked the car and couldn't find any issue with it. They even ran a diagnostic on it, and no sign of the error code mentioned above. So I assumed all good.

Today, again, car lost power and all lights came on. I pulled over and took a bit of a break, tried the car again and all is working fine, and error lights have gone. I'm worried there's an underlying issue, I am entirely reliant on this car and am now worried that since it's no longer in warranty, they are now going to cost me a fortune to fix.

Two questions -

1. Has anyone experience this before? And if so, what was the issue and the fix?
2. Will I be able to argue with Dacia that this issue was there before my warranty expired, and they are responsible for the fix?

Thank you in advance.
 
Dacia ain't cheap for no reason. It sounds like there is a problem and it's intermittent. If you are that reliant on the car, it's only a matter of time before it breaks down again on you.
 
I'd be worried about a dealer show couldn't diagnose the source of the fault. The P061A might just be the result of a faulty sensor or the sign of something a lot more serious.
 
Dacia have a Renault engine and these engines particularly Clio had a problem with the Throttle Body, giving loss of power and not responding to the throttle pedal, has the engine light come on since?
 
assuming it's not a faulty sensor, it's more then likely an issue with the accelerator pedal or it's cabling
 
Check that the accelerator pedal isn't loose , also that the foot carpet hasn't curled around it. My friend has one and same symptoms as yourself, ended up being the pedal caught up in the foot carpet. A neighbour of mine has one for 2 years, wouldn't be my choice of car but it's a little dinger and no problems at all.
 
Have you done any minor maintenance recently such as changing a fuse or bulb?
There could be some incompatability issue.
 
Smiley0120 said:
Will I be able to argue with Dacia that this issue was there before my warranty expired, and they are responsible for the fix?
Click to expand...

As its out of warranty, and did not show up faults at diagnostics stage when at your dealer, you should produce the AA report on their findings to pursue with a warranty claim from your dealer, that this same issue was present with in the warranty period, and for the fact that you held AA cover, it would have been a recovery job to the dealer to sort.

The 30klm restriction is an engine safe mode to get you home.
 
LS400 said:
As its out of warranty, and did not show up faults at diagnostics stage when at your dealer, you should produce the AA report on their findings to pursue with a warranty claim from your dealer, that this same issue was present with in the warranty period, and for the fact that you held AA cover, it would have been a recovery job to the dealer to sort.

The 30klm restriction is an engine safe mode to get you home.
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I think the Dacia center are now trying to say that because I needed the AA to come out to me that I have gone against their warranty terms. But the AA person didn't do anything other than run a diagnostic on it, and I needed someone to come out to me as I need the car to get to hospital appointments.

EDIT -- So I just went back over my records and the AA person was actually the person that Dacia garage sent out to me to check the car. The AA person and Dacia MUST have a record of this and the car faults, right? They were saying they have no evidence something was wrong.
 
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noproblem said:
Check that the accelerator pedal isn't loose , also that the foot carpet hasn't curled around it. My friend has one and same symptoms as yourself, ended up being the pedal caught up in the foot carpet. A neighbour of mine has one for 2 years, wouldn't be my choice of car but it's a little dinger and no problems at all.
Click to expand...
I'll check this now, fingers crossed it's something like this!! I love this car, it's been so good until now!
 
I think I now need to get ahold of the Dacia warranty team who sent the mechanice / AA out to me to check the car, the garage are saying it's nothing to do with them. Such a "pass the buck" mentality.
 
JohnJay said:
might be worth giving Dacia Ireland a call, see what they think of your dealer experience. https://www.dacia.ie/contact.html
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This is a great idea, I'll give them a call today and see what I can make happen. I'll update the thread here with the resolution.

One of the things that does get me is that I managed to take a picture of the fault that didn't clear from when the mechanic/AA came out to me. So at least I have proof myself that something was wrong. It MAY be a different issue, but as the symptoms are the same... I highly doubt it.
 
Smiley0120 said:
EDIT -- So I just went back over my records and the AA person was actually the person that Dacia garage sent out to me to check the car. The AA person and Dacia MUST have a record of this and the car faults, right? They were saying they have no evidence something was wrong.
Click to expand...
If an official Dacia service computer was used, this would likely record the fault codes and timestamps from the car, but it's far more likely that an AA technician used a generic tool and simply erased the codes to get the engine running again.
 
So, it turns out it's happening mostly during the hot weather, when I park the car in the shade there's no problem, if the car is in the sun, and I start it or drive for a bit, the issue happens - lights come up, speed limited to 30km.
 
Hi Smiley,
I'm hoping you got to the bottom of this in the end? I've got a 2013 model and it's been doing the same loss of power thing you described. Funnily enough I've been suspecting it's due to the wet weather rather than hot that you concluded (maybe just 'extreme' weather in general?).
I've taken it to the garage a few times now and every time they look at it the fault goes away. I feel like I'm being gaslit by my own car!
 
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