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This happened a month ago but just getting around to making a post. My wife drove our 2013 Enclave with just under 100k miles home from work with no issues. Went to leave about 30 minutes later and it was hard to start, then misfiring badly and the the CEL came on. She called me and I told her I'd check it when I got home and figured it was just a coil went bad as I had replaced one of those a couple years prior when it acted similar. I was just happy it happened literally in my driveway at least.
Get home and hooked up my scan tool expecting to find P030X where X was the cylinder misfiring but instead got P228c and P0089. Hmmm...
P228c =Fuel Pressure Regulator 1 Exceeded Control Limits – Pressure Too Low
P0089 =a diagnostic trouble code (DTC) for a fault found with the fuel pressure regulator.
Well crap, that sounds more serious. Next I obviously googled those codes and pretty much every GM post with them was an issue with the high pressure fuel pump that's attached to the side of the engine. On direct injected motors like ours there is a pump in the fuel tank that pressurizes the fuel to around 60 PSI, then a pump on the side of the engine that bumps the pressure to 600-1000 PSI for the injectors. I found two real time logs for fuel pressure in my OBD Fusion app (really nice code reading app for iOS), "Fuel Rail Pressure" and "Fuel Rail Pressure (gauge)". Figuring one was probably the pressure from the tank and one was the pressure after the high pressure pump I set it up to log both and cranked the car. Both were reading around 60 PSI. So I had either confirmed my issue or I was logging the wrong data. Called my buddy who has a 2015 Acadia and ran over to his house to do a quick log of his car since it's the same platform/motor/ECM/fuel system etc. On his the Fuel Rail Pressure was reading 700-800 at idle and Fuel Rail Pressure (gauge) was reading 60 PSI. So confirmed, my high pressure pump was not high pressure pumping.
Only place local that had it wanted $400 vs $189 for the same Delphi part at Rock Auto so decided the wife and I could carpool for a couple days while I waited for the Rock Auto part. Proceeded with tearing it down to get it ready for the new part to arrive.
I'm not going to go in depth on the removal/replacement because it's easier to just watch this great how to video I found. However, I was not able to get the bottom bolt out on mine without removing the coolant tube:
I did pull the main fuel system fuse and kept cranking the car until it wouldn't even try to start to remove as much pressure from the fuel system as possible. On disconnecting the lines a little came out but nothing major. Since the coolant tube came off I swapped the thermostat and gasket while I was in there as well. The roller that fires the pump looked brand new with zero wear so I didn't bother replacing it. Oil changes with full synthetic every 5k probably helped with that.
Parts ordered late Tues night, delivered Friday morning, so 3 days of carpooling to save over $200.... not bad, especially since the wife basically drives right past my office on the way to her office. Overall the job wasn't too bad. Would have been a 45 minute job if it weren't for 2 really difficult to access bolts. Once it was all back together I tested for leaks and then proceeded to start the car with the heater cranked front/back and continued topping the radiator off until it finished burping out the air in the system. A week later I added just a little bit to the overflow tank when it was cold to bring it to the full mark, likely more air burping out. Codes were cleared and it has ran perfectly since.
Get home and hooked up my scan tool expecting to find P030X where X was the cylinder misfiring but instead got P228c and P0089. Hmmm...
P228c =Fuel Pressure Regulator 1 Exceeded Control Limits – Pressure Too Low
P0089 =a diagnostic trouble code (DTC) for a fault found with the fuel pressure regulator.
Well crap, that sounds more serious. Next I obviously googled those codes and pretty much every GM post with them was an issue with the high pressure fuel pump that's attached to the side of the engine. On direct injected motors like ours there is a pump in the fuel tank that pressurizes the fuel to around 60 PSI, then a pump on the side of the engine that bumps the pressure to 600-1000 PSI for the injectors. I found two real time logs for fuel pressure in my OBD Fusion app (really nice code reading app for iOS), "Fuel Rail Pressure" and "Fuel Rail Pressure (gauge)". Figuring one was probably the pressure from the tank and one was the pressure after the high pressure pump I set it up to log both and cranked the car. Both were reading around 60 PSI. So I had either confirmed my issue or I was logging the wrong data. Called my buddy who has a 2015 Acadia and ran over to his house to do a quick log of his car since it's the same platform/motor/ECM/fuel system etc. On his the Fuel Rail Pressure was reading 700-800 at idle and Fuel Rail Pressure (gauge) was reading 60 PSI. So confirmed, my high pressure pump was not high pressure pumping.
Only place local that had it wanted $400 vs $189 for the same Delphi part at Rock Auto so decided the wife and I could carpool for a couple days while I waited for the Rock Auto part. Proceeded with tearing it down to get it ready for the new part to arrive.
I'm not going to go in depth on the removal/replacement because it's easier to just watch this great how to video I found. However, I was not able to get the bottom bolt out on mine without removing the coolant tube:
I did pull the main fuel system fuse and kept cranking the car until it wouldn't even try to start to remove as much pressure from the fuel system as possible. On disconnecting the lines a little came out but nothing major. Since the coolant tube came off I swapped the thermostat and gasket while I was in there as well. The roller that fires the pump looked brand new with zero wear so I didn't bother replacing it. Oil changes with full synthetic every 5k probably helped with that.
Parts ordered late Tues night, delivered Friday morning, so 3 days of carpooling to save over $200.... not bad, especially since the wife basically drives right past my office on the way to her office. Overall the job wasn't too bad. Would have been a 45 minute job if it weren't for 2 really difficult to access bolts. Once it was all back together I tested for leaks and then proceeded to start the car with the heater cranked front/back and continued topping the radiator off until it finished burping out the air in the system. A week later I added just a little bit to the overflow tank when it was cold to bring it to the full mark, likely more air burping out. Codes were cleared and it has ran perfectly since.
