He's still working in Dartford / staying at Chiselhurst away from home (you may remember the Kwik Fit saga a few months back?

Anyway he's driving home tonight and the engine is revving high (put 15pound petrol in his morning was ok before that) revving up to 1500 and back down to around 800 basically not idling correctly. its a renault clio 1.6 RXE petrol.
Any advice on what i can suggest over the phone to him - what to look for please guys and gals?

many thanks
Ian

Not sure if Renaults' suffer with the same issue, but Vauxhall engines used to have an idle control valve (ICV) under the inlet manifold that used to get dirty, and not open/close properly. Removal of the 2-wire connection, and jubilee clips holding the pipes on, and a squirt through of carb cleaner did the trick.

Could be a starting point?

Hunting idle can be caused by numerous things e.g.

Sticky idle control valve
Vacuum leaks
Faulty or poorly calibrated TPS, or throttle cable too tight.
Dead oxygen sensor
Air in cooling system
(this is far from an exhaustive list!)

As its a Clio, first thought was Throttle body/TPS
Worth Googling as there's numerous reports of problems with these....


Don't suppose its brought the efi / fault code light on ?

[Edited on 26/2/13 by perksy]

Last time my car did this it fixed itself, All I did was rev it for a bit.

Daughters Peugot does this I spray the electrical connectors with WD40 and it clears up so I think hers is a moisture problem

My Kia did it and I had to fit a new throttle position sensor to cure it.

I had one of these (exact model, it's not a blue 5doir on an R reg is it?)

Lambda sensor can cause some odd issues so my money would be on that.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll tell him to start with the easy options and see how he gets on.

There's no fault light showing, my first thought was bad petrol as he filled up this morning, or he let the tank get too low and dragged some sludge into the system.

Lambda sensor could be the issue as above too but I guess it could be a number of things based on these ideas. It's a silver T reg (duck) so a similar age to yours.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Thanks again.
Ian