August 2009
Can anyone help with this?
Sudden loss of power accompanied by coil glowplug warning light coming on. AA could not identify the fault, so recovered to Honda main dealer. No diagnostic code - they checked the fuel system and replaced the diesel filter (which was in back to front), checked (but did not dismantle) the exhaust / cat and then tried a replacement ECU. Nothing found - they said it was OK to drive home but the fault would recur - and it has. Will not rev above 2,000 and there is some sort of power limiter which means the speed dies away on an up-slope. The car has not been misfuelled
Any ideas as to what this could be? What to try next.....
{header corrected, as OP confirmed it was the glowplug light and not the coil warning light - DD} Read more
Just looking for a few comments on wether this is a good deal or not. Been offered a Ford Focus Zetec 1.6 TDCI - 06/2006 with 70,000 miles for £5350. The car was an ex-government car, probably not a patrol car as it's silver. It has been registered since November 2006 and since then had five Ford services. It is guaranteed against rust until Nov 2011 under a Ford warranty. The garage offer a three month guarantee and an MOT, if anything goes wrong they'll fix it I'm told, with no exceptions.
The garage say they buy them in bulk and so look to make quick high volume of sales with the cars, hence the low price.
I know the high mileage young car is well discussed and I think I probably take the side of a car with high miles and low years by default must have hit the majority of them on the motorway which is good news for the engine. What about the clutch though, likely to run out any time soon? How much is it going to cost me to get the cam belt replaced when it reaches 100k miles.
Anything I am missing, please point it out. Any advice, constructive comments would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark Read more
This seems very expensive.
1995 Renault Clio 1 petrol - 1171cc ("Energy" engine)
Old Clio usually runs well, but has had a long term habit of not starting. When this happens, the engine turns over (fast ? as if little compression) but makes no attempt to start or even splutter or cough. The engine then will normally light up when all switched off and retried, and runs smoothly as if nothing has happened.
This all used to happen only about once a year ? maybe as I recall in hot weather. However recently this has happened much more frequently, and would not start for several days. This forced me to do some elementary diagnostics today, with a happy result at least of getting it lit up again, albeit no root cause yet!
When it will not start, there is spark @ plugs, but no smell of fuel. I have re-seated all of the fuel injection electrical connectors I can find, including what I think are the fuel pump relays in a box between the battery and the nearside strut top, all to no avail.
Today I managed to start it by dribbling some petrol into the air intake, having removed the air cleaner. The engine then ran well & restarted repeatedly without problem.
However (for reason now unknown to me!) I then decided to unplug the fuel pump whilst the engine was running (I can access via a hatch below rear seat). The engine faltered & stalled and would not restart after the pump was re-connected, until I fed fuel into the air intake again as above.
Can anyone please assist me with a likely root cause or the (simple please) diagnostics I can do to pin this down properly?
Many thanks for reading and for any assistance.
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Fingers crossed again.
I have now removed & discarded the historic Cobra immobiliser, and reconnected ignition wires behind steering column ignition switch using cable connectors. All seems well, at least so far so good.
Bizzarrely - it seems likely that I had 2 faults causing similar symptoms, ie flaky immobiliser as well as crank sensor.
The rear hub bearings have been replaced twice in 4 years and it sounds like a new set are needed again. Does anyone have experience in this area and can suggest possible causes for excessive wear please? Read more
tinyurl.com/y9vjohb {Link to books.google.co.uk shortened using tinyurl - you too can do this via the application in the sticky post up above, or by visiting the tinyurl website}
Brinneling of bearings can occur due to poor practices during fitting bearings and through poor practices during removal of brake disc.
The Brinnel test is (www.gordonengland.co.uk/hardness/brinell.htm ) comparable to what can happen to a wheel bearing that is abused during fitting (over loading, impacted, missaligned etc) and will shorten the life of a bearing. Brinnelled bearings will have indentations in the bearing surfaces where the ballbearings have been forced into the surface.
My sister's family also have a mk1 Focus estate but with the 1.8 TDDi 90bhp engine. I asked BiL if he'd looked into getting it chipped, and he hadn't. Superchips do an upgrade to 123bhp and 200Nm to 273Nm for £391 - anyone tried this?
Cheers
F Read more
The opacity reading is being reduced further for the MOt so the cars that have been chipped the reading will be too high!
As one who lives "Up North" it's a rare event when I travel so far down south in my car, but having just come back from a weeks holiday in the Mosel in Germany, I had cause to use the crossing both ways to get to Dover and then back home.
On the way down the M1 we made good time and then on to the M25 and then we hit the tailback of traffic.Crawl, crawl crawl until we saw what was causing the holdup.The Dartford crossing toll charge.
What lunacy is this all about ?
I could not resist Googling the subject, and find that originally the toll was to pay for the bridge, but this was repaid in 2002/3, so why is the toll still present ?
The Government is always spouting it's green credentials but how can miles of stationary traffic in both directions, every day, every week, every year be "Green".
It is absolute stupidity that a main arterial route for business transport, holiday makers and all other users is used to tax people for something that has been paid for already and never mind the amount we pay for infrastructure through all the other motoring taxes.
Contrast that stupiity with the superb road system on the Continent that allows you to drive unhindered from Dunkirk, through Belgium and into Germany.It really opened my eyes to just how bad our road system is in th UK despite the billions relieved from road users.
It's a national disgrace and it makes me quite angry.
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That must have been the Warburton toll bridge. Has it gone up to 12p then? It's 25p for all day apparently.
Vauxhall Vectra B facelift - 99 2.0tdi its a diesel Trouble starting hi i have trouble starting my car it stolled on me in a car park then took a while to start up then it was fine for the rest of the day. today i went to start my car and it will not fire up it turns over but will not fire. no engine management light on can you please help thank you Read more
No pump in the Fuel Tank on Diesel's, only a swirl chamber and Sender Unit for the Fuel Gauge ! Looking expensive but sometimes its only the Pump ECU ( bad soldering) and its only about £300 to fix instead of £1000 + DO NOT OPEN THE PUMP yourself or no one will attempt an ECU repair-Do a Google for more facts-Good Luck.
Just wondered when you change your car? I've had mine since March and I like it, I know it inside out but I am getting bored. However since I have fixed all significient faults I would be mad to sell it. My plan is to keep it till at least next March or longer (probably till next August) of course an accident or an engine failure woudl change that!
So I wonder why do most people here change their car? Is it due to the fact its no longer ecominical to repair, its a company car or you're just bored of it?
I've decided my next car will either be an Astra G or a late Focus MK1. I am thinking of a 55 reg and I already have a money tin I am putting at least £10 a week in to try and save up a little bit!
I would probably keep my next car for around five years. Read more
I've usually changed mine when I realise they were bought without thought of practicality (recent examples include a Citroen Acadiane, xantia activa, xm petrol turbo estate and a cx 2.5 auto). Being a community nurse and skint, my current £200 Bx is proving reliable enough and Citroen enough to last me a little while. Having had 21 citroens in the last 10 years, I console myself with the thought that none were so expensive I lost fortunes when I sold/scrapped them a few months into ownership.
i was driving to work yesterday when i got an `emmisions workshop`appear on the displayand then a yellow engine light lit, according to the handbook it`s the lambda sensor which is faulty, where is it & is it easy to change? Read more
Just incase it is the sensor its self squirt a bit of WD40 where the
sensor screws into the down pipe. I have been amazed at the results of giving
WD40 a day or 3 to work.
Yeah,
I 'mended' a sensor on my clio with a bit of WD40- never gave me trouble again!
How come the M6 Toll card payment machines don't need a PIN? You just put your (in my case Visa) card in, it comes out a second later, and the barrier lifts - faster than cash.
Do they get special dispensation? Why do automatic petrol pumps (to use another motoring example) need a PIN? Read more
Many moons ago, the Safeway petrol station in Edinburgh was the first to go live with 24 hour paying at the pumps.
I remember the conference call we had on a Monday morning when it was casually mentioned that there had been a bit of an issue on the Sun night once the main shop closed at 6pm.
Cutting to the chase I believe that a good number of Edinburgh taxi drivers managed to get free fill ups that night with a dodgy card or cards.....
Browse
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Sounds exactly like what happened to me when my EGR went. They are expensive, so Honda tried everything else under the sun first (was under warranty). Replacing the EGR fixed it completely, and new software (there was a TSB apparently) has so far stopped it recurring (50k miles since the change).