Hi all, my 1.4 16v fabia sometimes takes a good 15 to 20 seconds of turning over before it fires, then it seems to run on 2 or 3 cylinders for a few seconds then runs on 4. It puts out a bit of white smoke and stinks of petrol when it does get going on all 4.

 

It sometimes happens daily and sometimes not for a week or longer. I put new oil and spark plugs in about 4 month ago and have done less than a 1000 miles on them.

 

Does anyone have any idea where i should start fault finding? Cheers all

Coil pack or ignition leads depending on which engine you have.

I believe it is a bbz engine mate

Then you have at least one failing coil pack.

25 minutes ago, sepulchrave said:

Then you have at least one failing coil pack.

Does this sound qbout right then mate, are they intermitent when they start too fail? I have a couple of spare ones i got from my local scrap yard that look quite new, worth swapping for them do you think?

A cheap handheld scantool or VCDS Lite may well help you to identify what is wrong.

Yes, swap out 3 & 4 to start with and see if it improves, if it stays the same then swap 1 & 2 with the ones you took out.

2 minutes ago, Wino said:

A cheap handheld scantool or VCDS Lite may well help you to identify what is wrong.

I have a scantool it doesnt show any faults mate

2 minutes ago, sepulchrave said:

Yes, swap out 3 & 4 to start with and see if it improves, if it stays the same then swap 1 & 2 with the ones you took out.

Cool man ill do it this weekend, thanks for the advice 👍

Have you got a multimeter to check battery voltage before and after starting?

13 minutes ago, Wino said:

Have you got a multimeter to check battery voltage before and after starting?

At the back of my crammed in container 😂 i could borrow one from someone at work though

Just now, RobbieGSXR said:

At the back of my crammed in container 😂

Sounds very familiar. 

Thats it now the car wont start at all haha plenty of fuel getting through so not getting a spark