182 Rough Running/Misfiring. Help Needed!

[UnderSteerDan]

Hi Guys,

It's been a while since I've posted, but I'm back in a Clio and back into having 'issues' so here we go:

My car developed a heavy misfire one morning. It was seemingly running on three cylinders and cutting out when coming to a stop. No warning lights were displayed, and limped it home to jump into my (reliable) Alfa....

I ordered replacement plugs, leads and coilpack. Upon fitting these the car seemed to run fine when I took it for a short spin, and I thought the problem was solved so continued to service the car. However the problem returned whilst the car was left idling, seemingly running on three cylinders and coughing and spluttering.

I removed the TDC sensor to give it a quick clean, but this made no difference. It was one of the revised 'blue' sensors so has obviously been replaced previously. I've also used a code reader on the car, but this detects no codes and there are still no fault lights on the dash.

The car will start and idle very roughly. It runs very rich and will not idle on part throttle at all, but the misfire will seemingly clear when given full thottle whilst stationary - although the car can't be driven. The strange thing is that it will continue to run in exactly the same rough way when any one of the ignition leads are removed from the coil, but will cut out completely if two are removed. It puzzles me why any one of the ignition leads can be removed without affecting the running of the car.

Has anyone any idea of what might be causing this? I'm running out of ideas and any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[RSsprint]

Id say it was an injector as you have replaced nearly everything else apart from them and Lambda sensors.

 

[olliewebbuk]

Have you had it plugged into any sort of diagnostic machine yet?

 

[blackcarbon]

mine was doing this the other week, i plugged it into my brothers diagnostic machine and showed no faults, changed the plugs and the problem was still there, so i stuck it in the garage for a day and night, sprayed all my connections with wd40 and it seemed to solve the problem. im guessing mine was just damp.

 

[UnderSteerDan]

Id say it was an injector as you have replaced nearly everything else apart from them and Lambda sensors.

Would an injector or lambda fault not trigger a warning light? Also, do you think that this would cause an intermittent fault rather than a permanent one?

 

[UnderSteerDan]

Have you had it plugged into any sort of diagnostic machine yet?

I've only got a code reader here, but no codes were present. The problem with getting to a dealer would be getting there!

 

[DannyR]

I having same problem, just need to swap CPS and lambda, nothing else solved it.

Thinking its lambda more as when cold runs fine, after 10 mins and manifold is warmer it started running like a bag!

 

[UnderSteerDan]

I having same problem, just need to swap CPS and lambda, nothing else solved it.

Thinking its lambda more as when cold runs fine, after 10 mins and manifold is warmer it started running like a bag!

Did the lambda fault not trigger any warning lights? I'm a little confused as to why no warning lights are shown....

 

[KevF182]

I would be pointing the finger of blame at Coolant Temp Sensor. Just a guess though.

 

[DannyR]

Coolant temp sensor causing a misfire? Really?

No lights or anything no, but I've got a ph1 which are a little bit behind on the electric warnings I believe!

 

[RSsprint]

Would an injector or lambda fault not trigger a warning light? Also, do you think that this would cause an intermittent fault rather than a permanent one?

Mine came up with a code about a "random and intermittent misfire" which turned out to be an injector, it did bring up the Mil light though.

 

[UnderSteerDan]

I switched the lambda sensors over this afternoon and the car ran much better - I've now got two new ones on order.

Thanks for all of your help guys - I'll be sure to post up the result for future reference!

 

[DannyR]

I switched the lambda sensors over this afternoon and the car ran much better - I've now got two new ones on order.

Thanks for all of your help guys - I'll be sure to post up the result for future reference!

Would be handy mate! If that's it then that will be my next job to do! Once I get paid

 

[UnderSteerDan]

Quick update:

I had ordered two new lambda sensors from Northwest Performance (their service was frankly terrible, to the point where I think I'll start a thread to warn others, anyway...) and they arrived this morning.

Once fitted, the car seemed to run a little better - although nowhere near like it should be. I was hoping the rough running was due the ecu adjusting to the new sensors, but as soon as the car warmed up the misfiring and cutting out returned as before.

Upon getting the car home, there was an awful smell and looking underneath the car showed the catalytic conerter to be glowing bright red. I had only taken the car a mile or so.

Once cooled down, I pulled the cat off. It was as black and sooty inside as could be expeced, but I could see that the 'honeycombe' inside had begun to deteriorate and was broken at the rearwards end. I've got no doubt that the cat has become blocked, and I can clearly hear something rattling around inside of it when shaken.

So - hopefully it's the cat that's blocked rather than somewhere further down the exhaust. I've just ordered a shiney new cat which should be here tomorrow, so I'll update then.

 

[DannyR]

Have you tried injectors yet?

Tried injectors individually tonight, found one to be not working and one to be on the way out. All changed and running well

 

[UnderSteerDan]

Have you tried injectors yet?

Tried injectors individually tonight, found one to be not working and one to be on the way out. All changed and running well

No, the injectors would be next on the list.

With the cat glowing as brightly as it was (considering i'd taken the car about a mile at this point) it's safe to assume that there's a blockage there. Hopefully the new one will be here tomorrow - I'll post up with my findings.

Out of interest, how were you testing the injectors?

 

[DannyR]

You'll need two people.

Take injectors out still attached to fuel rail and crank the car over and youll see if all four are squirting fuel equally, if not you've filling your faulty one!

Worth a try for 30 mins and the price of a cat not being used!

 

[UnderSteerDan]

You'll need two people.

Take injectors out still attached to fuel rail and crank the car over and youll see if all four are squirting fuel equally, if not you've filling your faulty one!

Worth a try for 30 mins and the price of a cat not being used!

You might be right afterall!

The new cat arrived this morning. Unfortunately nothing has changed, and the burining smell reappeared within a couple of minutes of starting the car.

I'll fetch the fuel rail off and test it as soon as there's someone here to help me.

Should one (or more) or the injectors be to blame, why would this cause such a huge amount of heat to build up so quickly in the cat?

 

[DannyR]

I had the same thing, my exhaust was burning straight away. I imagine it's to do with no fuel to cool and ignite in simple terms but I dont know the ins and outs of it!

I imagine it'll be one at fault causing it, just remember to crank it a few times after changing I fill fuel rail of and make sure it's firing the same pattern of fuel

 

[UnderSteerDan]

Another update:

I've fetched the fuel rail off and gave the engine a few cranks. All of the injectors were firing and seemingly firing evenly. I still thought I'd order a set anyway just so it can be ruled out, so I ordered a tested and guaranteed used set from Cliospares. All four injectors and the fuel rail.

Once they'd arrived, they were fitted and tested and all seemed good. The car started and ran, although was still very lumpy. The was was left to idle until it was up to temperature, but as soon as I tried to pull away it would cut out.

When idling when warm, I noticed a lot of black sooty water coming from the exhaust - so I thought it would be wise to order a new coolant temperature sensor.

Once the new sensor was fitted, the car took a few turns to fire and then settled down to it's lumpy, slightly misfiring idle. The car hadn't moved for a while and was running low on fuel so went to fill a can from the station, giving the car time to cool down completely.

Once returhing home and putting in some more fuel, the car simply refuses to start. It would crank over until the battery ran low, but simply wouldn't fire. The engine management light was now illumiated too, and the code reader gave P0300 - random/multiple cylinder misfire.

I'm beginning to get to the end of my teather with this car, and can't even drive it anwhere to get a proper diagnostic check. does anyone have any new ideas as to what this can be?

 

[Cristi_Xp]

are you sure your timing is ok ??? Can you check that somewhere? You are having missfires,also that is the reason that the catalytic converter was damaged and turned red ,and probably same thing will happen to the new one .Can you check what value does the map sensor provide at idle ?Check the timing . Try a new map sensor,try a new TDC, try an ECU reset with the renault CLIP .With the diagnostic tool , do you see information from the TDC ? When you crank the car , does the TDC send to the ECU rpm information ? You should have 300 rpm when cranking the car .If you crank it for 10 seconds, still doesn`t start ?Check fuel pump , check fuel pump regulator . Check the compression on each cyllinder ...theese things are comming in my mind now , if you can check them all , let me know ...I`ll think of other things then .

 

[Freeman_1986]

Id say timing. Mine had same symptoms a couple of months ago. Ran like sh*t. Got timing sorted and is running perfect. Hasn't missed a beat since

 

[Cristi_Xp]

any news about the problem ?

 

[RegisCup]

any update on this?

 

[UnderSteerDan]

Hi,

It's been a while, so I thought I'd take advantage of the decent weather and get out and have another look at the Clio. It hasn't moved or started for a couple of months and I was getting a little bored of seeing it sat there.

As you can imagine, the battery was dead so having hooked it up to the Alfa the car point blank refused to start - so no different than before. The car would turn and turn but refused to fire. I once again checked for spark and for fuel, and once again all seemed fine (as mentioned previously in the thread I've already replaced the following items: plugs, leads, coil pack, both lambda's, catalytic converter, TDC sensor and coolant sensor - I also changed all fluids/filters and the auxillary belt whilst I was there, and got hold of anoter fuel rail and set of injectors just in case).

I tried removing the airbox and using some Easystart, and the car would attempt to cough into life but little more.

Then, after a couple of hours of checking things that I'd checked a hundred times previously and a couple of hundred futile attempts at starting the car - it fires into life!

The car quickly settles down into it's rough running and misfiring idle, refusing to rev and attempting to cut out. This might seem like a bit of an anti-climax, but considering that it hadn't even started for a while then this was progress of sorts. Infact, I was at the point that I was a couple of months ago - but now the engine was running I was finally able to make an attempt to find the cause of it's rough running (it was more undriveable than rough running, but never mind).

Anyway, the car had refused to start for so long that I now had a new list of things to check. The first being the MAP sensor, and unplugging the MAP sensor did.... nothing! The car sat at its rough idle just as before. So, a quick spin to ECP and £98 later I have a shiny new MAP sensor in place and the Little French Nightmare settles down like nothing's ever happened.

The car hasn't made it out of the street in a long time, and I've only convered about 400 miles in it whilst in my ownership (it lasted a whole weekend before these problems surfaced) so I knew better than to get too excited - but an extended shakedown drive revealed that the car was now running and performing far better than before and now runs like a French (speaking) watch! Perfect!

Happy days! A bit of a long, expensive and fustrating road but the car is now spot on and has had everything attended to so should be ready to provide some commuter enjoyment for a while! (It will only be a while though, as I've bought another Alfa whilst the Clio was laid up and shouldn't really have cars scattered everywhere!).

 

[domsclio182]

Was thinking map sensor as I was reading this mine did the same thing,Just wish I had seen this thread before.Glad you have got it sorted.

 

[Kier182]

Can i have some advice i have a bad misfire checked leads checked plugs bought new coil pack as was a cheap make one. Checked spray pattern on injectors. The person i bought it off said he was driving it and it made a rattle noise and started missfiring someone please help me.