B***dy Clio!!! Another warning light.

[Gad-Westy]

03 Clio 1.6

I've asked several questions about this car in the past. It seems determined to either self destruct or bankrupt us. I'm getting to the stage where I think we should get rid of it.

Here's the latest problem. Sat in traffic this morning and engine starts to feel a little lumpy (pulsing vibrations at idle). Then the warning light below starts flashing:



I pulled in and turned the ignition off and waited a few seconds. Turned it back on and the light has gone but the engine still feels rough. The flashing light kept coming on and off at intervals until I got the car to work, where it has sat ever since. It also seemed quite sluggish to me.

I starting to think about getting a OBD2 reader but a little surfing this morning suggests that this fault is common and won't be picked up by a diagnostics machine however I haven't actually found out what the cause or cure are.

Any ideas gratefully received before I buy some petrol and matches.

[craig2003]

You are lucky, my Megane has the same light in red and wont run lol. Its probably a sensor

[Gad-Westy]

craig2003 said:

You are lucky, my Megane has the same light in red and wont run lol. Its probably a sensor

Cheers. Any ideas which sensor to look at? It sounds like its running on 3 cylinders to me.

[loose cannon]

sounds like you may have a faulty coil pack.undo the coil securing bolts run the engine and remove 1 coil at a time leaving the others in place/engine still running. if the car missfire's worse then put that coil back in then remove the next 1 untill you get to the coil that when removed makes no difference to the missfire or roughness
the result will meen that coil is faulty you may hear it arching inside of the pencil coil.
you can cross reference this by transfering them to a different cylinder to see if the missfire moves if that all makes sense my explanation skills are not great. note you can have more than one faulty item at a time. quick way of rulling them out as the fault

[Gad-Westy]

loose cannon said:

sounds like you may have a faulty coil pack.undo the coil securing bolts run the engine and remove 1 coil at a time leaving the others in place/engine still running. if the car missfire's worse then put that coil back in then remove the next 1 untill you get to the coil that when removed makes no difference to the missfire or roughness
the result will meen that coil is faulty you may hear it arching inside of the pencil coil.
you can cross reference this by transfering them to a different cylinder to see if the missfire moves if that all makes sense my explanation skills are not great. note you can have more than one faulty item at a time. quick way of rulling them out as the fault

Cheers. Made perfect sense thanks.

Been out to have a good look at it tonight. Started by disconnecting each coil but each one resulted in the engine almost stalling or actually stalling. I'm pretty sure now that it is running on all cylinders albeit roughly.

I then took a look at what I think is the crank sensor, i.e the sensor at the front of the engine with a single pink wire to it? I unplugged that and it makes no difference at all. Could this indicate the problem, and if so how is it replaced? It was a bugger just to get the connector off.

I also unplugged the battery while I was there to see if that might reset anything and all I've succeeded in doing is locking the radio! Can renault give me the code?

[Robert060379]

Have you tried taking the bulb out?

[Gad-Westy]

Robert060379 said:

Have you tried taking the bulb out?

lol. If it was running ok, I'd probably consider it, but its running like a dog at the moment!

[loose cannon]

the crank sensor sits in the bellhousing and has 2 bolts size 10mm it wont be at the front of the engine it is the gearbox side sat in a gap in the top of the bellhousing cleaning it doesnt always make any difference.it shouldnt run with the cranksensor unplugged as it doesnt no were tdc is to fire the plugs. i no the plug you have dissconected it has a white plug connector thats not it buddy the tdc sensor has a metal strip above it in the shape of an arc with the 2 bolts either end right up against the block and end of g/box bellhousing hidden by trunking with loom inside if you change the tdc sensor change the plug connector 2. it will come with heat shrink solder connectors you will have to snip the 2 wires to replace the whole plug dont get them the wrong way around though,
i would double check you have faults in the ecu to make sure you dont have an 02 sensor fault or anything else before you go to far ahead

[Gad-Westy]

loose cannon said:

the crank sensor sits in the bellhousing and has 2 bolts size 10mm it wont be at the front of the engine it is the gearbox side sat in a gap in the top of the bellhousing cleaning it doesnt always make any difference.it shouldnt run with the cranksensor unplugged as it doesnt no were tdc is to fire the plugs. i no the plug you have dissconected it has a white plug connector thats not it buddy the tdc sensor has a metal strip above it in the shape of an arc with the 2 bolts either end right up against the block and end of g/box bellhousing hidden by trunking with loom inside if you change the tdc sensor change the plug connector 2. it will come with heat shrink solder connectors you will have to snip the 2 wires to replace the whole plug dont get them the wrong way around though,
i would double check you have faults in the ecu to make sure you dont have an 02 sensor fault or anything else before you go to far ahead

Cheers for the help. Have found the problem tonight. It is a faulty coil. Just need to find a reasonable replacement now.

[Shrimper]

Was just going to say it might be the coil or the lambda sensor. I borrowed my sisters clio a few months and gave it back to her with a similar problem! I know our mechanic has worked on the coils and lambda sensor for it recently, but couldnt remember which was which. I'm glad I have it to her when I did, over 70k and it has a new problem every week!

[Gad-Westy]

Shrimper said:

Was just going to say it might be the coil or the lambda sensor. I borrowed my sisters clio a few months and gave it back to her with a similar problem! I know our mechanic has worked on the coils and lambda sensor for it recently, but couldnt remember which was which. I'm glad I have it to her when I did, over 70k and it has a new problem every week!

After my first diagnosis I had assumed that it wasn't the coils but just for other's benefit I'll tell you what I did wrong and tell you the correct way to diagnose coil failure.

The first time I tested for it I unplugged the wiring connector from each coil in turn to see if unplugging one of them would have no effect on the engine's lumpy running. Unplugging each one caused the engine to splutter and die so I therefore naively assumed that the engine had been running on four cylinders and when unplugging one it was down to three and wouldn't run.

Subsequently somebody on Renaultforums told me to unplug the injectors rather than the coils as the coils work in pairs (despite there being four of them) so that unplugging one, will actually diable two and the engine will be down to two cylinders and hence will not run. So, armed with this information, I unplugged each injector in turn (a bit awkard as three of the connectors are underneath the inlet manifold) and sure enough unplugging injector no 3 made no difference to the engine. To test that it indeed coil failure, I removed the number 3 coil and number 1 coil and swapped them over. I then unplugged the injector for no 3, the car was down to two cylinders. I then unplugged the injector to number 1 and nothing changed. So I think that's prooved it.

New coil will be picked up today. Fingers crossed.

[loose cannon]

Gad-Westy said:

Shrimper said:

Was just going to say it might be the coil or the lambda sensor. I borrowed my sisters clio a few months and gave it back to her with a similar problem! I know our mechanic has worked on the coils and lambda sensor for it recently, but couldnt remember which was which. I'm glad I have it to her when I did, over 70k and it has a new problem every week!

After my first diagnosis I had assumed that it wasn't the coils but just for other's benefit I'll tell you what I did wrong and tell you the correct way to diagnose coil failure.

The first time I tested for it I unplugged the wiring connector from each coil in turn to see if unplugging one of them would have no effect on the engine's lumpy running. Unplugging each one caused the engine to splutter and die so I therefore naively assumed that the engine had been running on four cylinders and when unplugging one it was down to three and wouldn't run.

Subsequently somebody on Renaultforums told me to unplug the injectors rather than the coils as the coils work in pairs (despite there being four of them) so that unplugging one, will actually diable two and the engine will be down to two cylinders and hence will not run. So, armed with this information, I unplugged each injector in turn (a bit awkard as three of the connectors are underneath the inlet manifold) and sure enough unplugging injector no 3 made no difference to the engine. To test that it indeed coil failure, I removed the number 3 coil and number 1 coil and swapped them over. I then unplugged the injector for no 3, the car was down to two cylinders. I then unplugged the injector to number 1 and nothing changed. So I think that's prooved it.

New coil will be picked up today. Fingers crossed.

reference to my above post when you remove each coil you have to leave them still connected to the wiring otherwise as you have said you disable 2 and you want to keep them live to see if there faulty,should of made that clearer, its not a textbook way of doing it ideally you need to scope them whilst still fitted and running engine but this is a quick way around it.
you can disconnect 1 injector at a time but by doing this you will put faults in the ecu and you could possibly be picking up an injector fault, hope you get it sorted

Edited by loose cannon on Thursday 12th February 17:46

[Shrimper]

Thanks for the info, next time I'll be able to save my little sister a sizeable bill!

[Gad-Westy]

loose cannon said:

Gad-Westy said:

Shrimper said:

Was just going to say it might be the coil or the lambda sensor. I borrowed my sisters clio a few months and gave it back to her with a similar problem! I know our mechanic has worked on the coils and lambda sensor for it recently, but couldnt remember which was which. I'm glad I have it to her when I did, over 70k and it has a new problem every week!

After my first diagnosis I had assumed that it wasn't the coils but just for other's benefit I'll tell you what I did wrong and tell you the correct way to diagnose coil failure.

The first time I tested for it I unplugged the wiring connector from each coil in turn to see if unplugging one of them would have no effect on the engine's lumpy running. Unplugging each one caused the engine to splutter and die so I therefore naively assumed that the engine had been running on four cylinders and when unplugging one it was down to three and wouldn't run.

Subsequently somebody on Renaultforums told me to unplug the injectors rather than the coils as the coils work in pairs (despite there being four of them) so that unplugging one, will actually diable two and the engine will be down to two cylinders and hence will not run. So, armed with this information, I unplugged each injector in turn (a bit awkard as three of the connectors are underneath the inlet manifold) and sure enough unplugging injector no 3 made no difference to the engine. To test that it indeed coil failure, I removed the number 3 coil and number 1 coil and swapped them over. I then unplugged the injector for no 3, the car was down to two cylinders. I then unplugged the injector to number 1 and nothing changed. So I think that's prooved it.

New coil will be picked up today. Fingers crossed.

reference to my above post when you remove each coil you have to leave them still connected to the wiring otherwise as you have said you disable 2 and you want to keep them live to see if there faulty,should of made that clearer, its not a textbook way of doing it ideally you need to scope them whilst still fitted and running engine but this is a quick way around it.
you can disconnect 1 injector at a time but by doing this you will put faults in the ecu and you could possibly be picking up an injector fault, hope you get it sorted

Edited by loose cannon on Thursday 12th February 17:46

All sorted. Cheers

[loose cannon]

schweet

[s.m.h.]

If you haven't already done so, check or replace your plugs.
My 172 had exactly the same problem a few weeks ago. Also had the light come on - due to emissions I understand.
1 plug had worn and was difficult to spark, the car miss fired and went on 2-3 cylinders.
The HT lead was scorched where the spark was taking the easiest route out - to the edge of the inlet manifold.

I replaced the lot, coil pack (£46) plugs (£49!) and a set of leads (NOT Renault as they want £120! I paid £60) Car much better.

[loose cannon]

the 172 f4r has a totally different coil system to a 1.6 k4m clio it has 4 independent coils were as the 172 has 1 single coil pack

[s.m.h.]

Im aware the system is different on the 1.6, I have a scenic as well....
'Twas for the reason the light came on I made the remark! Though it still runs a wasted spark system....