My Mum has a 1997 Ford Fiesta LX, I think it's a 1.2 or 1.3. When she brakes and comes to a stop, the car stalls. Not all the time, just intermittently
She phoned a garage who said "the valves need cleaning out". So she took it and paid £30 to have them cleaned out but it still does it.
Now they tell her, "Oh, it will need new valves".
WTF is going on, apart from it sounds a bit dodgy?
NB, she had a new clutch and ring gear about 6 months ago (from a different garage).
Cheers Paul, West Yorks
*Flexes best typing finger*
It's time, once again, for my stalling Fiesta cure to be aired.
So far it's cured 3 Festers and hopefully this will be number four.
Altogether now...underneath the air filter live two, possibly three, electrical connectors. Remove said air filter and, one-by-one, seperate each connector. Spray the contacts of each half with WD40 or similar and have a good poke about with a cotton bud or three. Spray again, wipe out with dry cotton buds as best you can, re-unite the two halves. Repeat with the other connectors. Start engine and marvel at the lack of stallingness.
Check the spark plug gaps too if the above seems to work because they're often closed down/opened up by mechanics who are desperately trying anything they can think of to cure the stalling.
Of course, it could be a multitude of other things but this one's free to try.
Si
She could try prosecuting them for telling her that valves need cleaning out and charging her £30. What did they do for this? take the head off and remove the valves, clean and re-seat them and put it all back? For £30 quid? Or did they spray some jungle juice into the air intake when the engine was running?
These are cowboy tactics as far as I can see and she should get a breakdown of what they actually did.
Rob Graham
This is only applicable to the 1.3 Endura pushrod engine, but yes the air temp sensor plugs under the air filter, and indeed the sensor element itself tends to melt if the car spits back afew times also causing stalling or difficult starting problems.
Tim..
I thought this was a case of the OP getting slightly confuddleed and I assumed the garage would have cleaned out some sort of ICV?
In message , Rob graham writes
Hold on a a minute, we are relying on the accuracy of the report of the OP who was given the details of the conversation by his Mum who might not be particularly technically minded.
Look at the symptoms that the OP reported. Don't you think it entirely reasonable that the garage actually cleaned the idle control VALVE? Its probably the first thing I'd do and charging £30 for doing that isn't ripping anybody off.
True. I simply expressed my views on the situation as reported.
Rob
The car is a 1997 R-reg LX. Is it likely to have an Endura engine?
Cheers Paul
Not sure what they did TBH. My Mum just said "they cleaned the valves out".
They actually replaced the valve today before I could tell her I would clean those electrical connectors under their air filter as per the original reply. She reports all is now OK.........
Many Thanks Paul
"a.n.other" wrote in news:dtikrr$in2$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrdmz03.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com:
It's fairly certain that they were referring to the idle speed control valve, not the combustion valves.
It's worth having a look at any/all electrical connectors to do with engine sensors whatever it is.
Si
For the cleaning out that didn't work and the new valve, it was a total of £70.
I saw the valve - but couldn't really describe it accurately!
Cheers! Paul
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