Astra 1.6 16v Lumpy at Idle and no power

[trevorw]

Hi hope someone can help,

History,

My Dad ran petrol down until fuel light came on (nothing unuausal about that) He then put £10 of petrol in.

After a few miles the car started to loose power and the car started shaking, gets worse with the A/C on.

Now when you start engine it idles lumply if you know what I mean, when you rev it, it feels like it is not firing on all cylinders properly, NO Smoke or anything but a strong smell from Catalyst.

I have asked him if he did put Petrol and NOT Deisel, and he was sure he did.

Can anyone shed any light on this or give me an idea on where to start looking. Was going to start with Spark plugs and an ECU reset. Could be a blocked Catalyst?

He has gone on holiday today and said he will take it to the Garage when he gets back, but would like to see if I can do anything in mean time.

Cheers for any suggestions/help

Trev.

[dern]

My guess would be dirt in an injector.

Mark

[trevorw]

dern said:

My guess would be dirt in an injector. Mark

Cheers Mark,

Do you know how to clean them? its worth ago or is it some of that addidtive stuff you put in the tank?

[eliot]

aditives<==>snakeoil

Pull the injectors and get them cleaned by a proper dealer, worth taking look at the little inlet filters on the injectors frist to see if the are visibly clogged first though.

[dern]

trevorw said:

Do you know how to clean them? its worth ago or is it some of that addidtive stuff you put in the tank?

If it was my car I wouldn't bother with the additives but I'd refer to the haynes to see if there was any way of pulling the supply feed pipe off each injector to see if there was any visible gunk as eliot suggests. TBH though, if you're not happy taking the injection system apart I'd leave it to the dealer.

Good luck,

Mark

[trevorw]

Cheers for the info, no i'm not that good with that kind of stuff. So I'll leave for the professionals.

Thanks for your help anyway.

[trevorw]

Just a thought, read on another forum (ffoc.co.uk) about coil packs giving up and the engine not firing on all cylinders properly. This sounds about right, as the car gets right throw the rev range, but seems to miss a beat every 1 or 2 revolutions.

Could it be a coil pack? Is it worth changing Spark plugs, leads and coil pack?

[_Al_]

If you've actually run out of fuel it could be an air lock in the system. IIRC some cars have a bleed facility (e.g. Pug 205GTI).

Only problem is that if there is no air lock and you haven't let the system depressurise for long enough you get a petrol vapour sprayed everywhere, which is a teeny bit dangerous...

[trevorw]

Cheers for the idea __AL___,

No he did not run out completely, the Yellow warning light cam on so he filled up. So had a good few litres left in tank.

Haven't had a chance to take a look yet, Coil Pack is gonna be approx £60 - £100 so will probably leave it for me dad to sort when he gets back of Hols. Shame it would have been nice to get it fixed before they get back. May still have a tinkle before the weekend though.