General Marea cutting out when slowing down...

[Danny7276]

I have an X reg petrol Fiat Marea Weekend and recently it has been going slightly nuts. The idle speed keeps rising as and when it feels like and it has now started to cut out sporadically when slowing down in traffic or at junctions or when at low revs, i.e. parking or reversing. It will start again straight away but can do this 4 or 5 times in succession before apparently resolving itself and will then drive without cutting out for a few days. I have noticed the fuel consumption getting a bit on the heavy side too. Also the temperature gauge on the dash is getting up to halfway pretty quickly and staying there but when idling it will rise until the fan kicks in and brings it back down to half way. (This is not always in the sunny weather either).
I am certainly not mechanically minded at all but a friend has suggested either a faulty idle valve(?) or something to do with an intake hose(?).
Any ideas people, and am I looking at an expensive job or just a replacement part or two??

Thanks in advance...

 

[Venters]

I've had the dodgey idle and cutting out before. Turned out to be the maf sensor on mine. But I had the engine management light on too.

 

[exhaust]

If you have 1.6 engine, there is no MAF sensor.
You should check idle position motor located where on intake manifold. It should be lubricated once in a while. Also, check your coil pack, spark plugs and cables. First, the obvious, then the complicated... Keep usp posted.

 

[Deckchair5]

With a sudden and noticeable rise in fuel consumption and then couple that with unreliable tickover, dying away then I'd check out the lambda sensor as one of my first checks.

Lambda gives the signal for the ECU to fine tune the fuel/air mix when engine is at steady state rpm so a sudden huge loss of economy would make it first on the hit list as the ECU wouldn't have a clue and you would tend to run very rich