Cinquecento advice needed

[helxx]

hello can anyone help? i have a fiat cinquecento sporting 1998 just failed its mot with flying colours had the work done that was requested. i had car retested yesterday failed again on front drivers side brake not working, the brakes were part of the fail on the first mot so they were replaced both sides ready for retest bloke said they couldnt get a reading from that side..... also it failed in natural idle emissions test bloke said they could not get reading as car erratic whilst sitting.. got home looked at gas analysis results and they were the same as first mot which they failed most of it on but it past the fast idle test yest with the same results first time round which they failed it on and the natural idle test it passed with same results first time but failed yest im very confused... ive ordered a idle control valve as man who done work on my car said one on it wasnt working .. my first question is does anybody know what the car should sit idle at? second question could this car end up costing me fortune trying to fix prob?

 

[blu73]

:wave: welcome to FF

regarding erratic idle (hunting) try checking the condition of the vac hoses, around the back on the throttle body and in particular the one to the map sensor..

 

[helxx]

Thankyou

 

[Ralf S.]

The brake could be a sticky caliper or a blocked brake hose. I'd guess the latter.

When brake hoses get old, they can start to break up inside. You could have a piece of the inner lining lifting away and blocking the hose like a valve... or the hose could simply have a piece of dirt in it.

The "cost" of this job is the labour, so don't mess about trying to work out what's wrong. Get someone to fit a new hose (about £15 on its own) and then re-bleed the brake caliper in that corner. That should sort it.

If the caliper is sticking then that needs it to be stripped down and re-built, possibly with new seals. The fella who looks at the hose can work out if the caliper is okay or not. It may just need the sliding pins to be cleaned and re-greased, or the pads could just be jammed and need freeing up (the slots they sit in collect crud so the pads can't move freely). It's not hugely expensive to sort.... just a bit of tinkering.


If the idle problems are not caused by a leak then it sounds like the lambda sensor. This sits right at the front of the engine and is easy to change. £30-ish from memory.. but buy a good quality (e.g. NTK) one.. not just the cheapest one you can find.


Ralf S.