Yet another Clio 172 dying and not wanting to start. (but not always)

[dentillozie]

Recently my 172 ph2 started to develop a issue after doing a Aircon and PAS delete.
So engine starts en runs fine but (at lower revs) the electrical fault light comes on and the engine dies.

The electrical fault light is on, car cracks but doens't start...

1st time was while idling on my driveway. I cleaned the big white connector and the contacts of the relays in the fuse box and it fired right up again.
2nd time was while driving, i had to down for traffic. Lucky I was able to safely pull off the road. Battery off and a wiggle in the fusebox "fixed" it.

Between the 2 instances i drove over 100miles with no starting issues or it dying.
Just turning off ignition and starting again does not change anything.


The car has a new pedal + connector, new sparkplugs, newish throttlebody all changed last year.

when disconnecting the battery when on the side of the road, I did hear a click from one of the relays. But I'm not sure if this is normal?

Some things I'm thinking of what it could be are:
- fuel pump? But I'm not sure if that would trigger the electrical fault light.
- TDC, pretty its still on the original one with the old connector style.

Any other things it could be or could check?

 

[MicKPM]

Ideally, needs CLIP at the time the EFL is illuminated I’m afraid, to see what’s actually getting its knickers all up in a bunch.

It’s most likely either an output control issue or a connection fault causing your problem but I’ve seen a couple of ECU’s with age related driver faults cause similar issues to and a new ECU has fixed it.