Hi all,
Can somebody please help me resolve this.
My car is again playing up - spoken with the dealer that I purchased it from in November of last year and all I got was a 'it is now out of our hands' type of reply.
I now seriously regret ever coming across that company.
Car is again back to juddering under power, cutting out, won't start - just like when I first got it.
Also the service yellow/amber symbol (car with a spanner) light keeps coming on and going off.
Car seems to be running fine even if fuel economy is a little bit lower than usual.
Fault is present when vehicle runs on both LPG and petrol.
This is the fault:
The car once started, runs like a dream either on LPG or petrol. Until you come to a halt! The engine then just custs out and has great difficulty (on either fuel) starting again.
There is no audible clicking of solenoids etc.
Have also noticed the the temp gauge now sits at the 12 o'clock as opposed to the 11am position.
All fluids are correct and there is ample fuel - I have checked this!
Tron.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 22/05/2008 at 11:13
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Also the service yellow/amber symbol (car with a spanner) light keeps coming on and going off.
That's not a service light. It's the Engine electronics, transmission electronics, immobilizer fault light. As the engine is running you can disregard the immobilizer (the light would flash on and off when you turned the key if that was the problem). You can also disregard the transmission electronics as beingthe problem if the car has a manual gearbox. That leaves the engine electronics. As the light keeps coming on and off - a fault is present and any garage with an appropriate fault code reader should be able to extract the fault code to find out the problem.
Have also noticed the the temp gauge now sits at the 12 o'clock as opposed to the 11am position.
Perfectly normal. Winter is over (allegedly) and the weather is now warmer.
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DD,
Many thanks for your reply, I will take it to have the codes read - just hope they have not cleared themslves down as the car has been behaving ok since it went wrong again 2 days ago and the light on the dash has gone off now too.
I have been there before on this though. I do not have the confidence to trust this vehicle not to fail again with the same running fault.
Starts fine, switches to and from lpg/petrol ok but the fuel consumption is still an issue.
The dealership I procured the vehicle from are a right bunch of fly by night operatives. I am seriously regretting now ever even hearing of their name - never mind being stupid enough to buy off them.
Tron.
Edited by Tron on 23/05/2008 at 20:39
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If the light hasn't been on for a while then there's every chance the fault code will have self deleted. It takes something like 25 or 30 clean startups (by that I mean key turns with no faults occuring) for the codes to be wiped from the ecu's memory.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 23/05/2008 at 22:41
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>>It takes something like 25 or 30 clean startups
It's quite confusing. The earliest 1.6 8 valve (and most other Vauxhalls of the time) would re-set after 20 ignition cycles. One of the earlier ECU software updates (again these were more generally applied across the models) increased this limit to 60 cycles. So, without knowing the software version, you can't be certain.
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Good point NC. Can remember now you mentioning this before, but let it slip to the back of my mind as the majority of people on Vauxhall forums still insist its approx 25 cleans starts.
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We experienced something similar with our 2003 1.6 Astra (8v Active). It seemed to happen on longer journeys where a higher speed was maintained; after a while, there would be juddering and loss of power and when we pulled over it would stall and not restart (at least for a while).
One time we got the RAC man came out who'd come across it before; he tapped a valve while we turned on the engine and that sorted. It's apparently a dodgy valve and a fault on the EMU. From research etc we were told that the EMU can be turned off and this should fix it. It's expensive via the garage so I'm looking at buying an extry-level reader/scanner to sort it as I need to add a new transponder key too.
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DD
I too have a Vauxhall Astra 1.6 2003. 3 times in 5 years the immobiliser light has come on and the car switched to limp home mode, most recently last Friday. The car has not been used since. In all 3 cases turning the engine off and then on again has restored full power. The car was serviced and MOTed today but the fault code reader found nothing.
This is worrying me in case it happens again on the motorway.
Any other ideas for what might be causing this?
Budders
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Budders,
When an old mk3 Cavalier of mine failed to store the fault code after the light came on, then reset it by turning off/on the ignition, the garage told me that if I was close by when it next happened, not turn off the ignition and to call in for them to read the code out.
I believe the fault light needs to be on for a period of time for the fault code(s) to be stored - saves ghost errors from getting logged apparently.
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