Advice Please (Stuck Between A Rock And A Hard Place)

inflames · April 21, 2012

Hi all, i have not been on here for a while, the new updated site looks good by the way.

Anyway iam after a bit of advice and would like to here what others think or if they have an answer to my car problem. For the last 4 months i have been falling out with my is200!!!! Been having intermittent miss firing issues, fought i had it all sorted after changing the spark plugs and a used ignition coil on cylinder number 2. It was fine for a bit then it went again about a month later, on number 2 again according to my mechanic friend when he used his diagnostic machine. Then recommended buying a new one. Again fine for a short period of time, then it went on number 1 sorted that and now its playing up again. So today went out to my friend's garage and he hooked up his code reader again. This time we had miss fire on cylinder 1,2,4. Its going to cost me a fair bit i think, starting to think it could be a ECU problem. :(

All this time i have been trying to get it fixed so i can sell it as what a change and could really do with an estate. My car is a T reg (99) with FSH, tax till jan, MOT till aug, its got 126k on the clock and the rear arches have started to bubble so it worth around £1000- £1400. So do i chuck a load more cash at it and sell it for around £1200, doing this i will be losing money and even if i do get it repaired it might only solve it for a sort period of time and maybe not even solve the issue. Or do put it on eBay stating the problem or as spare and repairs? I dont know how much i would get for it that way, if i had the space i would break it but i dont.

Anyone got an good idea's?

north · April 22, 2012

Sell it on eBay stating the issue.... But changes are that you need to clean up the ecu's connectors they might suffer from corrosion and that is what is causing the intermittent faults... You could use connector cleaner for that in a spray can (or WD40) also checking the crank sensor and cleaning that one up usually helps misfire problems to much dirt around the sensor causing it to not read the crank position marks properly causing al sorts of intermittent misfire faults.

ps the cranksensor is located next to the crank wheel behind the bottom timing belt cover ;)

hope this helps

inflames · April 22, 2012

Cheers mate, ill give those ago during the week and see if they help.

inflames · May 17, 2012

Had a go with the crank sensor but no joy, iam really fed up with this now and just want it gone. But I found Someone trying to sell there's on eBay with a similar problem and it got no higher than £700.00. Do i put it on eBay or not?

longboard · May 17, 2012

^{have you actualy looked at the fuel it cold be you have water/contaminated fuel thats cuasing the random missfires i would be removing the senders and having alook what the fuel is like}

north · May 18, 2012

uhm.... reading it again it is possible that your tank has water in it.... only one way to find out have the engine running while the petrol is in the redzone on the gauge (clear the ecu faults first) check the ecu again for the misfires if they are there again write them down.... then fill the pertoltank up with a jerry-can of petrol if it runs fine it and no misfires show up that means there is water in your tank... in that case change the petrol filter and have someone draining the tank completely (than refill it) clear ecu from all error codes and have it running for a while ..... check the ecu for misfires if that doesn't show up the problem is sorted..... now more question do you have the right sparkplugs, and are they connected properly to the sparkplug cores?

Also check if the rubbers around the sparkplug holes are in place and not broken ( if that is the case) it is possible that there is some contamination going on (water or whatever other fluid) in the sparkplug holes making the engine misfire as the energy goes straight to the water/fluid that is in the holes.

Check these things as they are known issues with these cars... also please state the exact error code that pops up as this is a better way to help you without actually seeing the car.

Succes with it.