1.2 16v Dash light, misfiring, not performing as normal.

[/Jim]

Hello all. My car was 100% perfect until Wednesday. Never let me down. I'm new to this forum just paid a little while ago so please don't flame me. I've made keywords bold if you cba to read it all.

Wednesday night, for no apparent reason it all went wrong. I was sat in a car park for about 10mins with the engine running, and when I went to leave and join a dual carriageway it felt as if I was in 5th gear.. I checked it wasn't, took it to neutral and put it back into first again, and then noticed a light in the dash.

(not my image, from another thread.)

The car carried on massivley under performing, as I mentioned it felt like it was in 5th by the way it was pulling. (I know it's a 1.2 however it's normally nippy enough.) It was flashing for a while, and then when I got home (<1m away) I restarted the car and then it started mis-firing. I was astounded. Pop-pop-pop coming from the exhaust, wobbling interior on the misfires and under the bonnet the poor little motors bouncing around popping.

The shape is described in the manual as below:

"Warning light for monitoring exhaust gas"
"For vehicles equipped with this option, the light lights up when the ignition is switched on the goes out.

• If it does not go out, consult your Renault Dealer as soon as possible.
• If it flashes, reduce the engine speed until the light stops flashing.

Refer to info on anti-pollution fuel economy and driving in s2."

Now according to lots of other threads from the search, it's nowt to worry about/it'll go away soon/need to replace MAP/MAS? sensors / Lamda (Oxy) sensor.

Set of new plugs on Friday, Bosch, and put those in but the problem persists. However now the light is not flashing, then flashing, then not, then flashing ect., and the mis firing is less frequent.

Drove to a friend's today who works at a Renault Garage, and he had a coil pack / leads in his toolbox so we swapped mine for that. No difference, so that could be his one is dodgy, or coilpack isn't the problem.


Saw a clever idea posted on here last few weeks, rather than take it to Renault to be diagnosed for some of my hard earned money (£65) ring up the breakdown cover instead. Since I don't have home start in my policy I parked it at a petrol station in my home town and rung up RAC. Incredibly frustratingly, the light went out as I got there. I have read that the car will store any error codes though.

After half an hour I had the guy in the driver's seat with his laptop attached to my clio via a wire into a port near the cigarette lighter. Nothing.
Tried it again, and then the laptop said something like Loss of compression in a cylinder.

This sentence has terrified me.

Alternatively, it could be a wrong reading, because it didn't work last time. My friend from Renault is going to take a "look at it mate" on Tuesday but that won't be free. He mentioned it's common for Clios to have "Tight Tappets".

What shall I do? New coilpack might fix it? Locate and replace/clean the sensors? I really am clueless. Please post any experience and/or advice.

 

[panda15]

I had this exact problem a few months back with my after market backbox it sounded like a scooby turned out to be a coilpack cost be about £100 to get fixed at a garage

 

[/Jim]

Thanks, was it mis firing and bogging down / not pulling up the revs properly?

 

[panda15]

Yeah mine happened at a set of traffic lights and i had to rev the nuts off of it to get her going again it felt like the car was resisting doing any speed

 

[kmackdci]

seen a few clio's wer the top engine loom wires have rubbed through and shorted. Also coil packs are bad on them

 

[MicKPM]

Clio II 1.2 16v have loads of issues and gremlins... most easy enough to fix though.

A flashing MIL denotes a 'Level-2' igniton/fuelling issue that is likely to cause CAT damage. These are unlikely to be wiring related and more likely to be a component at fault... most likely the coilpack, spark plug(s) or injector(s) not delivering correctly rather than being electrically faulty and because of this rarely flag a fault code that stays in memory which can be very frustrating. Also, to my knowledge the Clio II cannot tell you if one or more cylinders has low compression via diagnostics so I suspect that's an error in the RAC's diagnostic equipment as for this you would need to carry out a physical compression test using good, old fashioned mechanical test equipment. Prob nothing more than a software translation error and actually meaning a missfire in one or more cylinder (?)

A wiring fault is looking to be the most likely cause at this stage, seeing as your mates "test rig" ignition coil was also producing the same fault however it is totally possible that the test rig itself is faulty so I would urge you to get it on a CLIP and carry out some further diagnostics and component activations to ensure conformity; The wireless throttle bodies are also known to give faults to and whilst wiring looms are not overly expensive new, I've seen "short" top loom section replaced on these and doesn't actually cure the problem.

Mick

 

[/Jim]

UPDATE:

Following two of my friends assuring me it's a coilpack, and the posts above I bought a new coilpack yesterday and put it on. It has been running very well (touch wood) now and I hope this is the end of it. The light has gone and it idles and accelerates smoothly again.

Many thanks for your detailed information MicCKM, I really appreciate it. Out of interest, if you read this, what do you mean by the last part?

...seeing as your mates "test rig" ignition coil was also producing the same fault however it is totally possible that the test rig itself is faulty so I would urge you to get it on a CLIP and carry out some further diagnostics and component activations to ensure conformity...

Clip?

PROBLEM SOLVED
If a mod wanders past, add "Solved" to the title for others with this problem.

 

[mr.pink87]

Clip is the Renault diagnostics system.