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Intermittent limp mode is sending me insane!



DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
Adam was a mate of mine from the West Mids group, I think he rage quit the club over something, haven't seen him in years.

I have a really odd aircon delete setup Fred from BTM did, it was put together from spares he had knocking about and runs a BMW aux belt, i'll just get the 110 amp one to be on the safe side.
 

JamesBryan

ClioSport Club Member
Adam was a mate of mine from the West Mids group, I think he rage quit the club over something, haven't seen him in years.

I have a really odd aircon delete setup Fred from BTM did, it was put together from spares he had knocking about and runs a BMW aux belt, i'll just get the 110 amp one to be on the safe side.

Well it's worth checking what you already have because the 110 and 75 mount slightly differently 😅
 

DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
We only changed the belt 4 years ago, shouldn't be that bad, it will have to be done on my driveway though as I can't trust it to not randomly cut out at speed.
 

DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
Cant do discounts until we see pics lol

Unfortunately Renault have been ramping their prices up lately so I think even with the £53 surcharge Autodoc are going to be the cheapest.
Really? Because your price posted is £191.60, Autodocs is £195.99 posted, I know that's basically the same but i'd rather buy from you as at least you're in this country and delivery will be pretty quick.
 

Kev@KAM

ClioSport Trader
  Badass Toyota
That one is the lower amp one though I think? So yes. If you can use that I can get it to you in 1-2 days
K.
 

DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
I think I may have found the solution to this, was preparing the Clio for it's mot tomorrow and because it's sat so long the battery is a little sluggish in turning the over, so I decided to give it a quick charge and discovered that no matter how much you tighten it, the positive terminal is loose and may not always be in full contact with the battery.

If i've bought a £250 alternator because i'm too stupid to check the simple things first, i'm going to have a serious word with myself, stupid f*cking hippy!
 

DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
Went into limp mode again but didn't cut out this time, RST says the same thing 'Voltage Regulator 1' so it's either the alternator, the battery, or both, if the positive terminal had come loose again it would have cut out, although it wasn't as tight as it is when cold because the heat had expanded it a little.
 

DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
The irony is I used it to visit Ryan and Kim in their new house, I think seeing Ryan and him not working on it upset the car, so it threw a strop on the way home.
 

DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
Well figured out what's wrong with it, spent the afternoon at Ryan's trying to get the bottom of this and as I was pulling onto his drive it cut out again and the dash lit up, Clip didn't tell us much so we had a look at the engine, two of the HT leads were moving about so we took the inlet off to have a look.

All the HT leads are covered in carbon

IMG_20220529_150703.jpg


Spark plugs are beyond f*cked

IMG_20220529_151013.jpg


So something has been arching and causing all it's cutting out and limp mode 'voltage regulator' fault codes.

Problem i've got now is it's bore washed the cylinders so many times it's caused another issue, we compression tested them and 4,3 & 2 were all spot on, cylinder 1 is down 45 psi, also one of it's exhaust valves is spitting, so a head rebuild is on the cards and possibly some work on the block depending how bad that cylinder is, at the very least it's new piston rings.

Not the best news but at least I know what's wrong with it now.
 

DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
Should have said it got new plugs today after we saw the state of them, had to get multipoints with the wrong gaps but they still improved the running a fair bit, got it home without any problems.
 

DaveDreads

aka Philomena Cunk aka Barry Shitpeas
ClioSport Club Member
Not yet, but i've got a new old stock crank sensor to go on, i'll update this thread when I do.

What symptoms have you got? Because mine have changed as it turned out there were a few reasons it was cutting out and I solved a few, but i'm left with a car that just shuts off like flicking a switch leaving no fault codes.
 
  Clio 182 Cup
On track last week, it threw the electrical error light and went into limp mode. Restarted the car and it was fine for the rest of the day however it’s now occurring at least once every trip out. No codes coming up and no lumpy idle.

So far I’ve cleaned the white plug, all the relays, checked the big plug behind the washer bottle, swapped over throttle body, changed MAP sensor and intake temp sensor. None of which has had any bearing, still throwing the light. Really hoping it’s not a loom issue somewhere.
 

Oggy997

ClioSport Club Member
  997.1, Caddy, e208
mine used to randomly cut out with a dodgy earth, but it was at lower speeds
 
  Clio 182 Cup
Yes white connector pulled and no visible signs of any corrosion but have it a clean anyway. Starting to think there is a short somewhere in the loom but not looking forward to doing any tracing.

Before I do that I’ll pull the HT leads, check plugs and also check the injectors but doubt it will be that. Doing my head in.
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
I’ve been through it myself, would come on intermittently, sometimes half way through a long drive, sometimes immediately after turning the car on. I had Mick at diamond diagnose, he checked the wiring and didn’t find any faults, then identified the throttle body as at fault. Bought a brand new one to avoid any hassle and issue disappeared for months. It then came back, I bought a verified low mileage pedal (not available new anymore), issue still present, so I bought a used engine ECU and had it virginised at EFI, replaced ECU and no more limp mode in over a year since. My car had a battery that was too large though and didn’t have the proper positive terminal cover, so I suspect it managed to short the ECU at some point. I read an old thread where that happened to someone else.

Wiring faults are apparently way more common though, so I’d get that looked into first, and a brand new throttle body is a good way of properly ruling that out, rather than rolling the dice on a 20 year old used one.
 
  Clio 182 Cup
Your fix certainly sounds hardcore @hopgop1 ! I have a spare engine from my old Clio before I rolled it on track so I have swapped the sensors and TB over form it but still the same unfortunately. I currently have the inlet off and in the process of inspecting the loom - boy is it tight! I did have a slight leak coming from the bottom of the thermostat housing so the loom below it is a little damp. I've since fixed the leak but inspecting the loom below it is proving to be.... challenging!

So far I can't see any damage to the loom however battling to remove the ECU cover to have a look under there. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I don't have a spare pedal to try however I'm dubious as to whether it's that or not.

RSTuner was not showing any codes however borrowed a different scanner from a mechanic friend and the following code was showing:
P0120 - Throttle/Pedal Position Sensor/Switch A Circuit
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
Your fix certainly sounds hardcore @hopgop1 ! I have a spare engine from my old Clio before I rolled it on track so I have swapped the sensors and TB over form it but still the same unfortunately. I currently have the inlet off and in the process of inspecting the loom - boy is it tight! I did have a slight leak coming from the bottom of the thermostat housing so the loom below it is a little damp. I've since fixed the leak but inspecting the loom below it is proving to be.... challenging!

So far I can't see any damage to the loom however battling to remove the ECU cover to have a look under there. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I don't have a spare pedal to try however I'm dubious as to whether it's that or not.

RSTuner was not showing any codes however borrowed a different scanner from a mechanic friend and the following code was showing:
P0120 - Throttle/Pedal Position Sensor/Switch A Circuit
Yeah the code won't tell you much unfortunately, just which track the fault is on.
Pedal is certainly possible, especially if it has some miles on, the potentiometer has electrical contacts that have wire running across them, I could definitely see wear on the tracks of my original pedal with the cover off. Like I say though, that wasn't the issue on mine anyway.
 


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