My car is sluggish one day, and speedy the next..?

Jlawson118

fiish wrote: »

Probably not much harm in trying!

I'll give it a go! With the rise in prices at the moment, it's running on Sainsbury's fuel, and my MPG on the computer is so much lower than what I normally get, yet this fuel just simply isn't going down..and I'm driving all the same :rotfl:

thescouselander

My wife had a car that behaved like the OPs years ago. The culprit was the air mass flow meter. I'm not sure what type the corsa has but if its the hot wire type it would be a good idea to give it a clean.

The method is very simple. Get a can of electrical contact cleaner (has to be the residue free type) and spray it on the hot wire until it's clean. Be very careful not to touch the wire with anything as it's very fragile.

worried_jim

I was thinking air mass flow as well. A good mechanic should be able to rectify this.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

worried_jim wrote: »

I was thinking air mass flow as well. A good mechanic should be able to rectify this.

It does point to a confused engine sensor. Also it could be that the air intake has a leak due to poor fitting, it could be loose and moving around with vibration, changing the seal, you then get different pressure and sometimes the sensor gets misled. However, in either case, to have an engine running so badly, you'd expect an engine management light to come on as the parameter is out of bounds. Does the engine manage!sent light come on with the initial warning light display before starting?

It's likely to be straightforward and I suspect that your fuel consumption will be dire and the cost of repair will be covered by the improvement in fuel consumption.

thescouselander

The ecu won't pick up the air mass flow sensor issue. What happens is the sensor underestimates the amount of air going into the engine causing it to run too lean causing the problems described. Even though the readings are too low they are still within plausible range so it doesn't throw any errors.

Of course a leak between the intake manifold and air flow sensor would also result in the same effect so it's worth checking that too.

BeenThroughItAll

I'd concur with the MAF idea; had similar symptoms myself in the past on a Punto.

One thing that's bothering me though, is whether it's actually possible to tell the difference between 'sluggish' and 'speedy' with a 1.2L Corsa

Jlawson118

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

I'd concur with the MAF idea; had similar symptoms myself in the past on a Punto.

One thing that's bothering me though, is whether it's actually possible to tell the difference between 'sluggish' and 'speedy' with a 1.2L Corsa

Hahaha, I meant to add on my original post that I know Corsa's aren't the most powerful cars ever..but believe me, after first ever starting to drive in a 1.0L Toyota Aygo, the Corsa can build up speed pretty well..That Aygo you physically had to get out and push it up even the slightest of a hill.. :rotfl: I could never find the biting point on the clutch. I moped about after every lesson blaming myself and thinking I was never going to be able to drive..

Anyway, the lady who was teaching me, her husband lost his job so they decided to move away closer to family with his redundancy money, and I started learning with a guy a bit more local too, he had a 1.3L Mazda 2.
But yeah, after the first car, I think Corsas are pretty nice :rotfl: