Hi I'm a newbie on here. I've got a 2000(x) Brava HSX which I've had for about 3 years. the only problems I've had previously have been general wear & tear and the car's been always run vwey well.
Now however the car chugs and splutters at low revs and I feel it might start to kangeroo hop. I've taken it to two garages thinking it might be the injectors but they have been tested and are all fine. Could this just be a fault on the ECU? and if so can this be reset somehow?

which engine?

it's a 1581cc 103bhp 16valve Brava HSX

ok on a 1.6 i would want to measure the resistance of the injectors before i assumed they were ok. why? garages cant do diagnose injector fauls very well, even fiat dealerships; and on the 1.6 its by far the most common cause of your problem.

however, if you're happy to scratch injector failure off the list and you dont want to get your multimeter out to test them, we'll move on to the next most likely issues.

HT leads / spark plugs
dodgy HT leads are a big issue on the 1.6, failure to replace them in line wiht the service schedule is a false economy. if you dont know when your Ht leads were last changed then it is time to change them.

loss of compression
a misfire can easily be casued by poor compression. its so easy to rule out that you should do a compression test before you go assuming other things are wrong.

coil pack
if you have no sparks on 2&3 or 1&4 then coil pack has failed.


if engine management light is on then you can have a diagnosis done to determine what is wrong, it isnt guaranteed to work (especially with injector failure) but its quicker and cheaper than randomly replacing sensors.

lambda sensor
your symptoms can be caused by a faulty lambda sensor.



many other things are possible, but less likely that the above. an ecu fault is very unlikley.