Technical Loss of power under acceleration...

[Smokey22]

Hi peeps I have a 1.1 01 seicento 54bhp, recently I had a problem where I was doing 60 on a motorway and all of a sudden I lost power and had to pull over ( engine didn't stall but ground to a halt through loss of power) no lights came on and after 5 mins I carried on,anyway I took it to my local garage where he had a look and said it could be the coil or the crankshaft sensor might need replacing, I opted for the cheaper option the coil.. €20 and I fitted it myself, and it has been driving fine ever since the other day when I was overtaking a car and all of a sudden it lost power and was slowing down even tho my foot was to the floor! (Scary moment). Anyway every time I try pick up speed the car gets sluggish and bows down and I was wondering does the other coil need replacing or should I be looking towards the sensor? After reading through this brill website I'm now thinking maybe it's the ecu??? Any tips on how I can try and resolve this problem myself and does anyone have any ideas that I can try . Great forum by d way, Peace

 

[fingers99]

It's unlikely to be the ECU.

Easy peasy test for the TDC (aka crank) sensor is, next time it conks out, xheck for wet plugs (and strong smell of petrol) on cranking, and spark at plug. If neither 98% it'll be the crank sensor.

Easy DIY job.

BUT your car is OBD2 -- a code read might give further clues. Generally a TDC sensor won't generate a fault code, a coil issue will at least show up some kind of ignition fault.

 

[Smokey22]

Thanks fingers99 for the reply, the car tends to not konk out just looses power then picks up again but will take it to a different garage tomorrow and get it pluged in and see what comes up.

 

[fingers99]

I wonder if it could be a simple earth fault. Worthwhile taking off the main earths, cleaning up, coating with vaseline and re-attaching.

The main ones are from the top of the gearbox to the passenger side inner wing, from battery - to drivers side inner wing.

 

[cc1]

Check the Fuel pump filter on the pump.

 

[Smokey22]

I will check in the next couple of days.. It's running fine at the moment as long as I don't do over a 2 hr journey each way as that's when it start to loose power and bog down.. No warning lights come up..

 

[Pep0]

try testing the twin high tension coil packs with a multi meter the ECU connectors to the packs can be disconnected with the coil packs in situ and winding resistance of each checked with a multi meter borrow or buy cheapo from Halfords or more friendly factor.

nominals are in a sei/Cinq guide but 5.5k ohms at ECU connectors (that is coil primary not ECU) - from memory