Technical tonights problem- cutting out, temp related?

[stardude]

hi all

after driving about 170 miles this evening down the m5 my cinq sporting 1.1 stayed at 90 degrees or below and performed brilliantly. i was doing 65mph.

about 5 miles from home, coming off the motorway, the car cut out when i came to a stop at the roundabout but re-started right away. the revs just dropped and it cut out.

at the next roundabout it did the same, but it wouldnt start. it was as if i had a flat battery. I got it to the side of the road turned all the electrics off and it started straight away.

at this point i noticed that instead of reading 80-90 degrees on the temp, it read about 110. since i had it its never gone that high. even on the 170 mile trip 2 days earlier.

it cut out about 3 times tonight.


upon getting home i had a look under the bonnet and there was some water coming out of the expansion tank cap.

it starts fine and after about 45mins of sitting on the drive the temp guage had gone back down to minimum.

at no point did the battery light come on or any other lights.

do these cars cut out when they overheat?

anyone have any ideas what might be going on?

will be checking the coolant level in the morning and topping it up.

any help appreciated.

getting slightly annoyed with the car now

done nearly 500 miles in the past few days and untill now performed faultlessly

cheers

adam

 

[fingers99]

Can't see them being related.

Compression test, check for water leaks.

Cutting out is often earth or TDC sensor related.

 

[stardude]

i will have a fiddle with the earths tomorrow and get a friend over to do a compression test with me.

hopefully its one of them. might go and get the battery condition tested tomorrow too. thought it was a bit strange that after it cut out the second time it would barely turn over, as if the battery was flat.

cheers

adam

 

[rallycinq]

Thats more of an earth problem.

Do remove, clean and replace all earths, not just look at at them.

Cheers

D

 

[fingers99]

Coating with vaseline or -- better -- silicone grease -- will keep the earths good. But as rallycinq says, take them off. A bad one will usually look fine!

Check that the radiator fan comes on, too. Failure is often down to a bad earth (it's switched on the earth side).

 

[RuiG]

This cars are capable of some odd mechanical failures.

One of my Centos did the same as yours when it was on optimal running temperature. Everytime I pressed the clutch for a roundabout, drop a gear or something it would cut-out or try to at least. Always started again first time after doing it. It's rather normal that you'll see the temp higher when you start it again because the car just stopped.

Other things were fixed but didn't solve the problem. Fiat dealership/shop solved this problem with a new Lambda sensor.

My other Cento started to misfire and dropping revs a bit too much at it gradually got worse. Fix: new battery as one day it wouldn't start and made some awful noise when trying to power the starter motor.

Small sidenote. When getting new parts like sensors (lambda, temp, etc), always go for original parts or at least same brand/quality. I strongly advise not to get universal ones.

Sorry for me terrible english.