Hello,A ll,

I used our 1.3 Felicia this evening for the first time in a week or so. She'd not been used due to the bad weather (thankfully, work is a 3 minute walk away) but Mrs Z needed to pop to the supermarket.

The car started fine and ran OK while I left it running while Mrs Z popped into Sainsbury's.

On the short drive home the car stalled a couple of times and wouldn't start until I pushed the throttle to the floor, when she'd fire up, run a bit lumpy for a second or two before running fine.

When I stopped at juctions she'd stall as the idle seemed too low, about 600rpm. In the warmer weather she seems to idle about 800rpm, which also seems low as the car seems to be on the verge of stalling when idling in traffic.

Once started, the engine was fine, rev'd easily with no odd sounds.

I see from the Haynes manual that the idle speed cannot be adjusted.

Is this stalling a Skoda trait in bad weather, or something more serious?

Thanks for any replies.

Z.

Is the car an MPi or SPi?

Is the car an MPi or SPi?

Hello,

It's the MPI model.

Out and about running errands this morning and it seems OK. Starts easily and apart from a lowish tickover

seems good.

Perhaps it's !"character" .

Kind regards

Z.

Well, there is no adjustment of the idle speed available, it's controlled by the ECU via the throttle body.

It's worth having a look at it while it's running; under the black plastic air inlet (which has Skoda 1.3 MPi on it) you should see the throttle body; get someone to move the throttle pedal and you'll see it easily enough. Once the car is started and ticking over, you can see if the ECU is moving the throttle or not;

You should see that where the throttle cable is attached it's on a black plastic quadrant - this moves when the throttle is pressed. At the centre of that you should also see a shiny metal 'arm'. This is controlled by the ECU, so you should see that moving when it ticks over. If it does, then the ECU is trying to keep the engine going correctly. If not, then I'd think the fault could be either the ECU, or the throttle body, but you'd want to be sure before replacing either.

If that is moving OK, then you need to look at more basic issues that are common to all cars; air filter, spark plugs, valve clearances, fuel filter, possibly blocked/dirty injectors (in order of difficulty).

Shouldn't be "character", the MPis I've had have been very well behaved indeed, despite years of hideous abuse from me.

Edited 24 December, 200916 yr by djaychela

Umm, am interested to read about this problem, i have a 1.3 MPI felicia (my first & only car to date), the car normally ticks over at approximately 800 rpm which feels about right, however, for some reason when restarting after a short break, it ticks over at what feels like an over-fast 1000 - 1100 rpm, this is occasional and has an uncomfortable buzz to it which thankfully dissapears after a short while. The car often feels like it may stall just whn pulling away from lights etc, (which it often used to do), but i put this down to me and my being a new driver. It's rare that i stall the car nowadays but it still feels like it 's going to.

It's known as 'paper shop syndrome', where after a start from cold first thing, followed by a short trip and restarting the engine after a few minutes will cause the engine not to run quite right. It's down to the map in the ECU, where for some reason it doesn't quite get the fuelling right for the conditions. When the cars were new, it wasn't really noticeable, when they get older, as parts start to wear and sensors/wiring get worn/dirty then things start to go to the limits of their tolerances.

On the theory of not wanting to spend too much money, clean the throttle body first and if you have access to VCDS erase the learned values in the ECU and reset the throttle body. Next check to ensure that the thermostat hasn't broken, which can be done by removing the engine coolant temperature sensor and having a look. A new thermostat from Skoda will come with a temperature sensor and is around £45, a new sensor on its own is around £25. Checking the air filter and valve clearances would also help.

Thanks for the diagnosis. I don't have access to VCDS; what exactly do the initials stand for and where can they be found? The haynes manual reckons the learned values in the ECU are erased whenever the battery is disconnected and resets automatically when engine restarted, so mine must have reset loads of times to date.

Out of interest, is it really neccessary to drain the whole coolant system to remove the thermostat as described in the haynes manual?

I've read on the forum of cars not starting properly due to temp sensor/ thermostat problems; ordinarily mine starts fine, but if it stalls, it usually needs a bit of a pause before it will run properly otherwise it just chuffs at a very low speed and won't rev out. Sometimes, thankfully, a foot to the floor restarts it, revving out nice and clean.

No, you don't need to drain the system fully to do that, just unbolt it and the required amount of coolant will automatically be drained!

VCDS is Vag Com Diagnosis System, as far as I know. It was formerly known as Vag Com, which is a diagnostic cable and computer program which is used for reading/clearing fault codes, adapting electronic control units and reading/recording live ECU data.

There is a section on this forum for it:

Diagnostics and VAG Com