HI all

I wonder if anyone can offer me some advice. Here is my story...

2 weeks ago I drowned my trusty car when what looked like a puddle turned out to be a flooded dip in the road. After a week trying to fix it my mechanic pronounced it dead. as I needed a vehicle quickly and had no chance of raising large funds I bought a Felicia 1.3 GLXI estate in the next door car sales for £750. It is an S reg with 96,000 miles on the clock so older and with a higher mileage than I would have liked. however it is MOT'd and taxed for the next 12 months, I test drove it, liked it and bought it.

Yesterday I took it for a longish drive to see how it behaved. In the main it is fine. It starts first time, drove well in the wet, pulls away nicely and although the engine is a bit noisy, nothing seems to be squeaking or rattling too much.

However, After about 10 minutes driving the car started to judder, I was getting up to about 70mph at this point but it did it again this morning in a 30 zone. I had to slow for some lights and I distinctly heard a slight misfire from the engine. The car juddered for a bit longer and I needed to be a bit heavy on the accelerator to get the car going and it was slow to move off. however, about 3 minutes later on both occasions it smoothed out again and ran fine.

I'm hoping that this may be a symptom of having sat on a garage forecourt for a few weeks, but do those of you with any knowledge of cars (I just get in and drive them) think that there might be anything to concern me here?

As soon as I have a bit more money I'll take the car back for a check up but as I'm pretty strapped at the moment I don't want to spend more cash on it unless completely necessary.

I have to make a 60 mile round trip tonight and I'm hoping to get up to the Lake district at the weekend (about another 60 mile round trip), should I avoid the motorway do you think?

Any comments gratefully received.

Spend a few quid on some injector cleaner

stick in the fuel tank (not if its' already full)

Then take on the motorway.

Felicia's are good cars. Although I don't know much about the 1.3 engine.

My first car was a S reg Felicia and it was totally indestructable. I'm sure that it will just fix itself, I seem to remember doing something somewhat similar with mine and I just left it to ideal for an hour or so and it was then fine.

Thanks for the feedback

I'm off to Preston tonight to give it a bit of a blast down the M6. we'll see what happens.

How'd the Italian tuneup go?

Mine did this last week, judder, misfire especially after going up hill or around islands.

Come to the conclusion that it was getting low on fuel as the gauge started to go into the red section (quirk of the gauge) when cornering and up or down slopes.

Anyway put some fuel in and all was well, no more rough running. Sometimes it's the simple things that fixes it.

Mick

Took the car down the motorway last night, juddering a bit before I got to the slip road but fine after, really drove well. A good 60 mile round trip with no problems.

This morning was OK but it did judder again in stop start traffic, and stalled at one point, but again, after a couple of minutes it ran fine. There is a full tank of fuel so I'll see how it goes over the next day or so but I might take it in next week for a check up.

I think it might have been used as a Taxi, the cigarette lighter is covered over, but there are two power points hidden in the glove box. There was no arial mast (I've put a new one on) and the radio doesn't work and the LCD display is broken, though the tape player does work. Also, I've noticed that the radio, despite being turned off remains lit up all the time, even with the key out of the ignition. You only notice at night, but it stayed lit up all night. Is this usual?

Many thanks for the feedback.

Sounds like the radio's been wired wrong at some point. Most taxi drivers I know actually keep the stereo, but they get a fair bit of distance work (meaning they can expect at least 1 30min to 2 hour round trip a week if they're doing days).