Conference terri::cars_uk

	Hello Andy,

	I have had a sort of similar problem to yours. I currently have a Astra
CD, 1800 injection.(Same engine as the original GTE but with a non-sport gear
box). I am very pleased with the car on the whole but a very annoying factor is
the misfire it has. When the engine has warmed up and you have done a motorway
/dualcarriage way stint, if you put your foot flat to the floor (in 5th) at
exactly 3000 rpm the engine will cut out. Sometime the cut out is a splutter but
othertimes it goes to the extent that the rev counter has reached zero even 
though the clutch pedal is up and still in gear. Then engine catches and off it
goes like nothing had happened. Now this is more annoying to me because my
last car, (also the same type/model) did EXACTLY the same thing. Every time I
took it to the garage, they did something else but they never corrected it.
	I personally believe that it is a "BUG" in the Engine Management System
and that Vauxhall have no intention of fixing it. 
	Now where have I heard that before....

	I suggest they check the EMS over and hopefully they will find something
wrong with it.
	I would be interested if any body else has had similar experiences.

	All the best

		Chris.

    Hi,
        Andy, Chris?,
                      I had a similar problem on my Orion 16i, where I
    would be driving along and then the engine would stutter/misfire?,
    I ignored this at first until the engine cut out altogether, and could
    not be restarted??.
    It was towed to a garage where they found a fault in the alarm system?
    which was causing the problem, they bypassed the alarm and it runs fine
    now?.
    
    Just something to check, if you have an alarm fitted???.
    
    Regards
           Colin.

    	Chris, Colin,
    
    	Thanks for the suggestions.. just to bring you up to date on 
    	what's happening. A chap from Vauxhall at Luton came to drive
    	my car from cold, and yes you've guessed it - no problem at all.
    	
    	We took a spin to the dealer who looked at the problem earlier.
    	The mechanic who worked on it was sure there was on problem on
    	number 3 cylinder, but could not find what it was.
    
    	He's taken the car away now to test it over a few days. When he 
    	gets back in touch I'll suggest he disconnects the alarm system 
    	in case it's causing some kind of electrical fault.
    
    	Andy.
    

    My Golf 16V has a problem with the engine cutting out and an alarm
    fitted......
    
    The car is 6 months old/8000 miles. The problem is intermittent and 
    occurs when the engine is warm on the overrun (ie after depressing the 
    clutch when pulling up). The only way to restart it is by pressing the 
    throttle fully - it won't start with the foot off the throttle. When it 
    fires up it sometimes won't idle at all and sometimes idles erratically 
    and 'hunts'. The problem will go as fast as it came until the next time...
    
    Royal Berks garage diagnosed it as an inlet vacuum leak and fitted a
    new intake pipe, needless to say the problem returned. I've checked
    the Idle stabilization valve and overrun cut off valve as per Haynes
    manual and they seem to be working as spec. and of course the garage
    would have checked these :-)
    
    The car has a remote alarm fitted....but I doubt that a wiring
    fault would be causing the grief? The 16V Golf has mechanical fuel 
    injection and no overall electronic engine management unlike the 
    Vauxhaul 16V.
    
    Any ideas?
    
    - Roy
                                      

    
    Andy
    
    
    Sounds a little bit like a problem I had when I first got my GSI.
    They changed plugs/leads etc and at first it was OK, but then started
    playing up again. 
    
    They then found a hairline crack in the distributor cap and, apart from
    it being stolen once, it has been great ever since.
    
    May be worth checking.
    
    
    Mark

>    They then found a hairline crack in the distributor cap and, apart from
>    it being stolen once, it has been great ever since.
    
>    May be worth checking.
    
My mother has got the Carlton 2.0 and she has been having terrible trouble with
it, they found the hairline crack eventually but couldn't replace it for days
'cos they had run out of stock. Is this a design feature ?

Alex

PS The car runs perfectly now though ! 

    	The man from Vauxhall returned my car 5 days and 700 miles later,
    	with no sign of a miss-fire. His opinion was that an exhaust valve
    	may have been coked up due to the short journeys that  I normally
    	do. Sounds a bit iffy to me, but to his credit there has been no
    	sign of the problem for a few weeks now.
    
    	I'll just wait and see if the fault re-occurs, then get the
    	distributor cap checked along with a de-coke as required.
    
    	I'll forward any future developments.
    
    	Andy.

    I've had a prob with my injection for oh must be  nearly two
    years now....
    Car is a 2 litre 16v Vauxhall Sri. The Injection warning light
    comes on intermittently mostly when you back of the throttle
    and over time the engine misses and eventually cuts out briefly
    Very disconcerting when overtaking on a Motorway!
    Faulty part is the Air mass meter, which has been replaced
    3 times so far, Works ok for a couple of weeks after replacement
    then gradually starts failing again.
    I don't believe I've had 3 bad ones, so something must be
    breaking them. The garage has re-routed wiring and stuff 
    but don't seem to be able to find the root cause.
    Anyone else suffered with this as I would like to suggest
    a proper fix to them.
    Ta matt.

Matt

I had a similar prob on the Astra GSi - turned out to be the Lambda sensor - 
never missed a beat since !

Andy

Matt,

	My dads cavalier has had the exact same problem. It turned out after
several repairs that the problem was due to the bonnet rubbing against a sensor
on the air intake (possibly the air mass meter, I'm not sure what other stuff
they stick in there). It took several attempts by the garage to get the problem
fixed but it seems to have worked for several monther now. Apart from letting
the garage keep quessing the only way to fix it is to cut a small hole in the
fire/noise blanket type thing where it is rubbing against the sensor.

Gordy.

    I had the car in yesterday, and after pushing them to find the "real"
    fault the chief mech found a selection of things. A bad earth on
    the sensor return causing false readings, a vacuum pipe missing
    from new and another signal pipe cracked! I suspect it was the
    bad return from the sensor causing the prob, as every time they
    disturbed it to fit a new one it worked for a while, then lost
    connection with vibration over time.
    It's been ok today so time will tell.......
    Matt.