Six Signs of a Problematic Intake Manifold

The intake divides the fuel and air mixture among the cylinders. Here’s how to identify a faulty or broken intake manifold.

For flawless combustion, the intake manifold is in charge of precisely distributing air into the engine cylinders.

Therefore, the performance of your car’s engine depends significantly on the intake manifold. If you experience any of the signs of a defective intake manifold mentioned in this post, schedule an appointment as soon as you can with a qualified mechanic by looking up vehicle service near me garages online.

Unfortunately, the intake manifold can malfunction occasionally. However, what happens if it does?

The most typical signs of a malfunctioning intake manifold will be covered in this post. First, let’s go check out the indicators!

The dashboard check engine light is the most typical indicator of a damaged or broken intake manifold. You might also observe a number of engine performance concerns.

The most typical signs of a damaged or fractured intake manifold are listed in greater detail below:

1. Check Engine Light: While you are driving, the engine control unit continuously monitors the sensors in your car. If any of them are sending incorrect data compared to the pre-set values, the check engine light will come on in your dashboard. The air-fuel combination will become different from what it should be if your intake manifold is damaged, which will cause the check engine light to appear on your dashboard. You must read the fault code saved in the engine control unit when the check engine light comes on to continue troubleshooting. The MOT history checker of any vehicle indicates that an illuminated engine management light is a frequent cause of MOT test failures.

2. Misfires — When the intake manifold has a crack or a coolant leak, more air than fuel enters the combustion chamber, causing a misfire. Misfires will come from this because they occur when the combustion process is interrupted and does not finish. This may also occur as a result of coolant water entering the cylinder through an intake manifold internal crack or an area near the intake manifold gasket. If your car is misfiring, look up car garages in Reading and make an appointment. The technician will likely discover a fault code in the engine control module that is related to the problem.

3. Rough Idle — As you may already be aware, a damaged or broken intake manifold may result in a faulty air-fuel mixture. Your idle becoming harsh can potentially be a result of a poor air-fuel combination. Because it must function flawlessly to maintain a constant RPM, the engine is vulnerable to issues at idle. Because of this, an intake manifold issue will probably be apparent at idling. It is advised to look online for garages in Reading and schedule an appointment with a qualified mechanic to thoroughly evaluate and fix the problem before it leads to an engine breakdown.

4. Loss of Engine Performance — The ratio of fuel to air changes when the intake manifold breaks down. The air-fuel combination is crucial for effective combustion, thus any change to this mixture can have an impact on how much fuel your vehicle uses. You’ll observe that it will consume more fuel, requiring more frequent fuel tank refills. Additionally, you will sense that your vehicle is not accelerating smoothly, and that the engine might be having trouble. When this occurs, you should look for any leaks in the intake manifold.

5. External coolant leaks — The engine bay may experience coolant leaks if the intake manifold develops an internal crack or another issue close to the intake manifold gasket. It’s time to look for any indications of leaks near the intake manifold if your vehicle has a pool of coolant underneath it after spending the night in the garage. The leak frequently originates under the intake manifold, which can be particularly challenging to find.

6. Overheating Engine — The first symptom of an intake manifold crack is the loss of coolant, which causes the coolant to leak out into the engine compartment or the combustion chamber, causing the engine to overheat. The temperature gauge on your dashboard will show you this while you’re driving, and it’s best to get your car into a car service and repair garage as soon as this happens because an overheated engine might seize up and stop functioning entirely. The best approach to find this is to routinely check the coolant level in the engine compartment. If you see that it has gradually started to drop, it is time to look for coolant leaks.

The Intake Manifold’s Purpose

The intake manifold’s job is to evenly distribute the air that goes into the car engine’s cylinders.

For these engines, the intake manifold needed to distribute the fuel uniformly because in older automobiles, the carburettor injected fuel before the intake manifold.

Since fuel injectors are used in more recent vehicles, an even fuel distribution is no longer as crucial as it once was.

Modern vehicles even include swirl flaps that improve the airflow into the combustion chamber and increase engine efficiency.

Location of the Intake Manifold

On one side of the engine, the cylinder head is where the intake manifold is positioned. The intake manifold is situated midway between the cylinder heads in V-engines.

Because it is frequently mounted high up in the engine compartment, the intake manifold is quite noticeable in the majority of automotive engines.

However, on some cars, you have to first remove some plastic coverings to see it because they are frequently composed of plastic or metal.

If you are aware of the number of cylinders in your car, look for a part with an equivalent number of pipes.