corsa 1.0 idle and running problem

[elliotweir]

hi there.


had a lot of bother with my corsa, it is a 1999 T plate breeze 1.0l 12V

starts with no problems, takes a while for the revs to settle, but sometimes the revs dont hold and the car will slutter and chug at 200 rps then cut out. this is when idling, or when i am in gear with the clutch down.
sometimes its fine and other times it can barely make a journey. engine management light is on half the time, and when the car is acting up, it is jumpy when cruising and the throttle response is very delayed. it only seems to do this at lower speeds (50mph and under).

i am getting about 28mpg (10 miles to work and back plus 20 miles to the girlfriends and back)
i drove to inverness the other weekend there and got about 50 mpg driving up there, car cut out twice though.

had the engine management light on in september, intermittently and changed the MAF (one of ebay) which cleared the problem, then i had a new idle control valve in october 2010 from kerr & smith vauxhall in ayr as it was jumping when removing my foot off the accelerator.

was running fine till april where i broke down in glasgow city centre twice in rush hour (not much fun).
after that i gave it a full service with GM parts along with a new coilpack.

that never rectified the problem so took it along to kerr and smith again, and they said it was the crank sensor which they charged me £140, but the car was still in the same state. i had a friend who owns a garage to have a look, i thought there was a fuel leak because of a strong smell of petrol but he had the car in for 3 days and found no problems, par the idle control speed coming up on his diagnostics machine. so back to kerr & smith it went and i have them a piece of my mind and they said they would have a look. got the car back a few hours later and they told me the valves are sticking and i should use super unleaded with fuel cleaner (redex stuff) to see if that will sort the problem out, but two months later and the car is getting worse.

i dont have a clue what is wrong with it, kerr and smith vauxhall wont take the car back as they are sick of it, so am I but I am needing it sorted, the idle control valve is still under warrenty. i bought a second hand throttle body from a scrappy and tried that but to no prevail.


any help would be much appricated



elliot

[GavTheMighty]

Take off the EGR valve and give it a good clean there is a guide to doing so under Corsa Faq using this forum.

Not a fan of redex myself but I can recommend this stuff which I have raved about on these forums already.....Extralube ZX1 Micro Oil Friction Eliminator 250ml.

[elliotweir]

serviced my car last month there at 32 000 miles, previous service was 24 000 in june last year, both carried out by myself, oil, air & fuel filters, spark plugs and oil.

I will have a look at the EGR valve in the weekend, il look up the guide right now for it. if its not that then thats near enough everything i can think of, getting sick of the problem, its a brilliant wee car but might the scrapyard in the sky if its getting any worse

[GavTheMighty]

If you do clean the valve leave it soak for a few hours if it comes to it I think you also would need to get a gasket for the valve and I would say leave the battery diconnected while doing all this to reset the ECU see if you still get an engine management light after fitting it all back together.

[elliotweir]

thanks very much, i will give it a crack at the weekend, get a full day to have a stab at it, if it doesn't work then i will be back on here moaning ahaha cheers! for giving that extralube a try as well, had a quick look and people seem to be saying very good things!

[GavTheMighty]

Dont forget though you will need to get a Gasket for that EGR valve before taking it off and cleaning it. Good luck

[boarderjaymee]

i had the exact same problem with mine, i solved my issue, you know the idle control thingy, dnt know what its called, where u can rev the car from under the bonnet? theres a little metal contact on that, with an allen key screw attatched, i tightened that to bring the contact closer, and ive had no problems since, that was about a year ago i done this! hope this helps u out!, jamie.

[elliotweir]

hi there

today i had a good look under the bonnet, disconnected the battery for 4 hours,

swapped the idle control valve for one from a scrappy and made no difference,

swapped the MAF for one off a friends car and made no difference, original one is sucking lots of air (disconnected it between MAF and air filter)

started to disconnect the EGR, had coolant pishing out, so decided to put the bolts back in, as i dont have a new gasket, not for going to my local vauxhall garage as i am not on best terms with them plus they are rip off's, so anywhere on the internet i could find a replacement gasket? had no luck this morning looking for one ( its a 1.0l 3 cylinder X10XE)

its running rich, can tell a mile away, got a slight oil leak, looks like the gearbox (was replaced around march)
also an oily mess coming from the oil pressure switch, cant see that being related to the running problem,

so i am thinking it is a problem to do with air into the cylinders, and since the EGR provides some of the air into the inlet, i am thinking thats going to be the cause of the problem.

my local vauxhall garage said its the valves sticking, dont really believe this as i go give it a good boot about now and again and run it on decent fuel with some fuel cleaner.

as GavTheMighty said, going to try some extralube when payday comes (tuesday) up at halfords, got a tradecard so should knock some of the price off.
my friend also said about a can of aerosol (dont know the name) that you spray into the MAF with the engine running to give it a good clean? anyone heard or tried this? for giving it a go on tuesday, cant make the car any worse than it is at the moment!



so how would yous go about draining the coolant ( for draining the raidiator anyway) and where could i track down a EGR valve gasket?



cheers, elliot

[GavTheMighty]

http://www.vauxhall-car-parts.co.uk/aca ... haust.html

On that page you should see the EGR Gasket. Also seems to be a decent site to get some parts I got an Ignition barrel and switch off them recently as some thieves tried to hotwire my car.

I suggest you get a Haynes manual for your car although they arent the be all and end all of information they do help when it comes to fairly straight forward tasks such as draining the cooling system.

I finished off a full service on my car few days ago I have to say I did try out a few expensive products and used all genuine vauxhall parts for the service but the product I was most impressed with or actually noticed the biggest difference with was this: BG44K 325ML FUEL SYSTEM CLEANER. I read loads of good things about it from merc drivers etc and blimey it really seemed to work where I couldn't stay in 2nd gear past 20 mph without the car wanting to blow up it now can happily go to 30 miles an hour in second the car is reving more freely and I swear it's going better. So Thumbs up to those gits they seem to have made a decent product. For a little 1.0 3 cyclinder car I cannot complain moves pretty well. Even if it does sound like a mini diesal lol.

[uvs166]

You could just do what we all did back in the "good old days" make your own gasket out of a thin cardboard box, breakfast cereal type, works a treat and most households have them in stock.
Once the EGR is cleaned you will notice a great difference.
Malc.