Sluggish to accelerate black top 20v Sprinter GT

[-MATT-]

Hi all,
My bro has a '97 Sprinter GT sedan running the black top 20v 4age and its auto. He finds it can be very sluggish to accelerate when warmed up, then will all of a sudden come right. Had a few shops look at it including auto electrician but nothing other than the comment it could be throttle body related? Could it be a sensor or something?

Cheers,
Matt

[Kiwi-Corolla]

Sounds likely to be the oxygen sensor. Crawl under the car, unplug it and see if symptoms persist.

[Flannelman]

Throttle Positioning Sensor or Engine Coolant Temp sensor or vacuum leak. As its temperature related I would start with that one first, vacuum leak 2nd and TPS 3rd.

[matt dunn]

My guess too would be oxygen sensor too.

Or what fuel does it run on?
Try setting the timimg back a couple of degrees and see if it becomes more consistant.

[Ninja25t]

I had a similar problem with my AE111. After replacing all of the sensors mentioned in the previous posts, plus a bunch of other testing/fault finding, it turned out to be a faulty knock sensor. It would randomly play up and pull timing making it go totally flat, then it would clear and run sweet, all without throwing a fault code. It finally failed completely and threw the corresponding code. Might be worth a look, easy to test, not so easy to get to unfortunately.