grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

GGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

Bloody french! :P

how old is it? if it runs on a coil pack, it sounds like a coil has failed and isnt providing a spark to two cylinders (if of course it is running on two cylinders)

It's a 97, 1.4 with 74k on it. If it's the coil pack how much am I looking at? Any way to test whether it is? Have a multimeter handy. Only other pseudo-symptom is that it seemed a bit thirstier than I had expected.

Chandy

simple way to test, is take the car into a dark place (or wait til its dark), disconnect the injector(s), remove one ht lead from the engine and one spark plug from the head. fit the plug into the lead and hold it very close to the engine metal work while getting someone to crank the engine. repeat this for all cylinders (you can use the same spark plug). all being well, there should be several clearly visible sparks with each cylinder. failure to spark with cylinders 1 & 4, or 2 & 3 would indicate a burnt coil.

not sure as to the price, but you could probably pick one up from a scrappy from a ZX, pug 306 for about 15-20 quid.

hmm, just been reminded that fuel was into the warning light. Couldn't be some kind of crap from the bottom of the tank could it?

Chandy

its possible. you might have dragged years worth of s**te thru the filter and its not able to pass enough fuel to supply the needed pressure. try the test with the spark plugs first then think about changing the fuel filter (do it anyway if you plan still using the car, it cant do any harm).

Right, this is now even stranger. Went back out to it a few hours later to show someone what it was doing and at least 3 seemed to be firing, was waaaayy smoother, though still sounding very rough, but actually drivable. Left it running for 15 minutes then got back in and drove home (13 miles) and couln't tell 100% if there was anything wrong with it or not by the time I got there!

So, I think I'm just going to have to say 'service time'. Leads, plugs and all the filters and I'll take it from there (and avoid the larger puddles, one of which I had hit 10 mins before all this happened!).

Thanks for the input.

Chandy

Weigh it in lad.