Hi,

This may be premature, since it's only happened the once so far, but...

My Favorit Flairline 1.3GLXI just cut out on me, after having driven just under a mile. It was started from cold, felt absolutely normal until the engine cut out almost as though the ignition had been turned off. No spluttering or misfiring, just a clean cut-out. it restarted with no problems at all, but the immobiliser key needed to be inserted again. It ran fine then until I completed the journey, which was only another half mile or so.

Does anyone recognise this symptom? I'm just hoping it'll turn out to be something simple, and not one of those intermittent, impossible to track down faults where you end up replacing half the car trying to figure out which bit's faulty!

No idea whether it's related or not, but there's no warm air making it into the car, despite the slider being set to hot. My mechanic tried and failed to fix this a few days ago - he reckoned it might be a weak water pump, but didn't want to do anything as major as changing that on the offchance when everything else seemed to be OK. (Temp. gauge reads normally.)

The car's also been losing coolant, through leaky core plugs, which actually sprayed and damaged the distributor. That was fixed a few weeks ago and it's been fine since, but it's still weeping slightly the other side.

Finally, another bit of background - might be related or might not - a couple of weeks ago the oil warning light was flickering on occasionally, at low revs, but only once the engine was warm. I topped up the oil but that didn't make any difference for 2 or 3 days - then it went away, and I've not seen it since.

Those bits of information may or may not be relevant, but I guess the more background information the better.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Sounds like it may be a similar problem to this thread: http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/178367-skoda-felicia-stopped/, although the dirty MAP sensor issue is unlikely as I don't the the Mono-Motronic system uses one. Sadly I can't offer much advice on that myself.

As for the heater, if the engine doesn't overheat even at low revs/idle I'd suggest the water pump is OK. I can't remember offhand whether the Favorit is significantly different but based on my experience of that engine in Estelles and Rapids and given that you've had coolant loss I'd suggest an airlock (or other blockage) in the heater matrix. If leave the heater on cold, then whack it fully up once the engine's stable at normal temperature you should see the gauge either drop or rise a little - if it doesn't then there's either no water going through the heater matrix or the cable's fallen off behind the dash

Thanks for the response

Sounds like it may be a similar problem to this thread: http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/178367-skoda-felicia-stopped/, although the dirty MAP sensor issue is unlikely as I don't the the Mono-Motronic system uses one.

Yeah, that's what I thought - that's the most similar issue I found in the archives. I also found several Favorits doing similar things, but usually cutting out mere seconds after starting up, or spluttering and dying.

Thinking about it, though, it has on a few occasions in the past felt a bit sluggish, just for a few seconds, then returned to normal, so I guess fuel starvation isn't totally impossible - though again I'd have expected some spluttering at least if it was that?

As for the heater, if the engine doesn't overheat even at low revs/idle I'd suggest the water pump is OK. I can't remember offhand whether the Favorit is significantly different but based on my experience of that engine in Estelles and Rapids and given that you've had coolant loss I'd suggest an airlock (or other blockage) in the heater matrix.

Yeah, that sounds plausible.

If leave the heater on cold, then whack it fully up once the engine's stable at normal temperature you should see the gauge either drop or rise a little - if it doesn't then there's either no water going through the heater matrix or the cable's fallen off behind the dash

Well when the mechanic had a look last week, the lever was extremely stiff, and felt springy - as though something was jammed - it feels almost suspiciously free now! Anyhow, the heater's not my main concern at the moment . The car did the return journey yesterday without cutting out - so I'm about to head off to work and report back later if it cuts out on me en-route.

Thanks again for the response.

Just an update - it's always hard to tell with intermittent faults, but I think my cutting-out problem was down to loose battery terminals!

The heater problem persists but I can live with that.