Firstly,I think it is unlikely that the new distributor is a genuine Nissan part as these were over £500 at the last count.The timing needs to be checked,but on these there is not a large margin of adjustment.What does give trouble on the early K11 models ,is the throttle body.Dry solder joints on the internal printed circuit board can give poor running and lack of power.Fortunately this is an easy and cheap fix.Take a look on internet for Micra throttle body faults.

Personally, I'd have looked for a good secondhand or a refurbished one first - that must have been quite pricey?

It was and so would I if the AA hadn't towed the car straight to the garage. We were just glad to get home after a long day, not thinking clearly. AA man was great by the way. Diagnosed the problem correctly, looked after us really well.

You don't say if they've done any investigation work to try and find this issue??

Having made us wait a weeeeek before they even looked at it, after another week the attitude was well we've cost you enough already, sent one distributor back because we thought it was faulty, can't really be bothered to do any more testing cos we think it will cost you another arm and two more legs so 'let the fault develop' and develop it did!

Well, there's a lot of things it might be !! Personally I'm not a fan of diagnosis by guesswork. Testing is required.

Me neither, I thought my DIY days finished 10 years ago but I am now motivated to have a go myself!

Coincidence is just that. It's a fairly old car with plenty of miles.

I'm a pragmatist I dont believe in coincidence. It was driving fine till the distributor packed in. The plugs were fairly old but the gaps were good and I had replaced the HT leads a couple years ago.

Go somewhere else then! But, why? What have they done or not done to lose your trust?

I intend to. Over the years as the management has evolved there have been a few niggly things that have gnawed away and this about finishes it off :)

Perhaps you could illucidate as to what diagnosis (if any) has been done to find the cause of this new issue? What findings do you have so far?

I think you mean Elucidate there pal :). Not having any fancy kit, I can't do much at the moment, but I have changed the petrol and air filters and have bought a timing strobe today (threw the old one out recently - typical). Luckily, having an identical 3 door model my daughter drives, I was able to roughly check the timing on both and one of them is way out! Gonna get a tacho delivered sunday and do the job properly. As mentioned by my other kind responder, all my internet searches point to the likelehood of it being in the throttle body somewhere, but I wanted to explore this angle first as I am very rusty on this sort of caper. I'll let you good folks know how it goes :)

There you go, glad I took the trouble to have a go myself, adjusted the timing roughly then checked the rpm at idle speed with a handy little hand held digital meter I got on Amazon.

Just had to take the side cover off under the right wing and stick a little bit of white tape over the rim of the cranshaft pulley and bobs your uncle. Idle speed appeared to have been set for automatic instead of manual transmission. Kept the potentiometer leads on and set it to 650 as it says in Haynes. Rechecked the timing and moved the distributor assembly till it was spot on 15 deg. Engine running much smo

Ta for the replies guys, gave me the oomph to have ago :))))