Stalling & Low MPG

[OliverJAMorgan]

Hi everyone - Found the forum while searching for help!

I have a W reg Fabia 1.4 MPI Classic. It's my first car, owned for about 18 months now. I've become extremely attached to it!

Anyway on to the issue - The car occasionally stalls/cuts out when I'm slowing down or coasting with the clutch down. I would say 75% of the time it happens is when I'm travelling down a short steep hill near my house using brakes and clutch - but it has happened on the straight even once when slowing on the motorway. Always with clutch down though. There is no warning light only the red battery light and it starts again straight away and is fine. When it's about to happen notice the revs drop to 5 ish and either stalls or returns back to idle at 10. What's odd is I could go 2 weeks without it happening, other times 3 times in one day. It seems completely random - but on that particular hill I would say 50/50 chance it happens. It's been going on for about 4 months now.

Also my MPG seems particularly bad - getting between 230-260 miles per full tank with mixture of town and motorway. I'm not sure if this is a related issue or a separate one.

I did notice my temperature gauge sometimes takes a couple of miles to reach reach the middle, potential thermostat issue? I also read throttle body clean, could that cause these problems?

Any advice would be very much appreciated! (I'm no mechanic so please try not to use too much jargon!)

Thank you

Oliver

[OliverJAMorgan]

Nothing? :(

[Taylor93]

if the car is not producing an Engine Management light, then id suspect a battery.charge issue.

 

When my 1.4 8V had a bad battery combined with a bad alternator, it occasionally cut out. The moment i put the clutch in the revs would drop to idle where the Alternator could not produce enough charge to keep the engine running.

 

otherwise id try and get it scanned with VCDS/VAG Com.

[Alexandru]

Check the ECT sensor - G62. You might need to replace it. The wiring can be faulty too. 

[OliverJAMorgan]

Thank you - I had a friend clean the throttle body and replace ECT sensor. MPG seems higher and it hasn't cut out in over 200 miles.

[Alexandru]

Glad that worked for you. After you clean the throttle body, you need to adjust it's position via VAG-COM. It's a pretty simple, the process has to run with the ignition on but the engine not running and it takes only 5-10seconds.

[Avalon]

I know this is a slight revival but meh.

 

Thermostat is fine if it sits dead center within a few miles (will take longer in the winter obviously), keep an eye on the mpg as that's really bad, my lifetime average on the mpi is 42mpg over 30k+ so I expect up to 380-400 miles out of a non vented fill unless i've been driving in an enthusiastic manner or doing a lot of country lanes stuff. When was the last time it was serviced (plugs/oil/filters?).

Edited 4 July, 2014 by Avalon